# Jetruby development company > Technical stories based on our experience > Admin Email: info@jetruby.com ## Pages ### Optimize your 2026 with exclusive offers Q4 Specials from JetRuby Optimize your 2026 with exclusive offers Unlock savings & future-proof your tech by December 15, 2025! Claim your offer now 200+ clients work with our specialists Our Specials offers Optimize stack & secure dev capacity for 2026 Maximize your development efficiency, modernize your stack, and secure resources early with our limited-time year-end offers. LIMITED spots – secure your slot today! Rails modernization sprint Upgrade your Rails apps fast and efficiently Who it’s for: Teams on Rails ≤6.x or needing a tech lift What you get: 2-week fixed-scope audit, Rails 8 & Ruby 3.3+ upgrade plan, Hotwire enablement, CI lint & security baseline, and performance quick wins Offer: 20% discount if booked during Q4 Book Your Sprint Evaluate in Q4 – unlock your bonus discounts AiQA kickstart Kickstart AI-driven QA automation with tangible results What you get: Feasibility study, test gap analysis, 25–40 high-value test specs Offer: 5% discount on next year’s projects if evaluated during Q4 Bonus: 7% off prolongation pricing beyond month 2 of engagement Start AiQA Kickstart Sign early – secure your 2026 rate Early booking for 2026 Plan ahead and secure your projects at the best price Who it’s for: Anyone planning Rails, QA, or custom development projects in 2026 Offer: 15–20% discount for contracts signed before Dec 15, 2025 Benefit: Lock in pricing and ensure team availability for the first half of 2026 Secure Early Booking Book now – get Q1 capacity at Black Friday rates Black Friday dev blocks Flexible engineering hours for Q1 2026 – pre-buy & save Use case: Feature development, tech debt cleanup, ad hoc projects Offer: 200h → 10% off, 400h → 15% off, 800h → 20% off Validity: Hours usable Jan–Mar 2026 Get Your Dev Block Limited time Up to 20% OFF Let’s build what’s next — together All offers are available until December 15, 2025. Don't miss out! Talk to Our Team ### JetRuby Agency - Custom Web and Mobile App Development Company ### JetRuby.Flow: AI-Powered Agile Delivery Framework JetRuby.Flow: AI-Powered Agile Delivery Framework Deliver faster, safer, and on budget. JetRuby.Flow blends Agile discipline with AI copilots, estimators, and test automation — giving you a direct path to launch with predictable costs and measurable ROI Book a Strategy Call Sprint Planning & Setup Agile & Iterative Delivery Performance & Alignment Final Launch & Ongoing Support 200+ clients work with our specialists JetRuby.Flow Definition What is JetRuby.Flow? JetRuby.Flow is a delivery framework shaped by over 15 years of product development and more than 250 successful launches, transforming agile project management. AI Agile Transformation It integrates Agile phases with AI tools that accelerate planning, coding, and testing while preserving quality and accountability, transforming agile processes. Smart Balance: AI & Experts Our approach is deliberate: AI handles routine, repetitive tasks, such as test generation, boilerplate code, and requirement summaries, while our senior engineers, analysts, and architects focus on the critical and creative aspects. This balance ensures speed without compromise. Your Challenges Typical Roadblocks in Software Development Slow time-to-market Missing market opportunities with long cycles Budget overruns Poor planning and inefficiency derail ROI Unclear requirements Misalignment leads to rework and scope creep Low product quality Bugs, crashes, performance issues frustrate users Lack of visibility Progress remains unclear until it’s too late Struggling with AI adoption Uncertainty about how to integrate modern tools Inefficient processes Teams are bogged down in repetitive work rather than pursuing innovation Weak post-launch support Downtime and slow scaling after release How we work The 4-Stage Playbook Each stage combines agile delivery with targeted AI acceleration—keeping development transparent, efficient, and aligned with stakeholder business goals. Step 1 Sprint Planning & Setup AI estimators highlight risks, optimize sprint capacity, and define metrics for agile teams, enhancing overall productivity. You start with a clear roadmap and a realistic budget. Step 2 Agile Development & Iterative Delivery Scrum teams ship increments every two weeks. AI copilots generate simple code and unit tests, while test bots surface bugs early. Step 3 Performance & Alignment ML agents monitor velocity, code health, and latency, ensuring continuous alignment between scope, cost, and product goals. Step 4 Launch & Ongoing Support Zero-downtime releases, rollout guards, and AI monitoring leverage AI to keep your product secure, scalable, and future-ready. Launch With Confidence Streamline development with AI-driven planning, sprints, and monitoring — deliver faster, reduce risks, and stay on budget Get Started 10–35% faster delivery cycles 15% shorter idea-to-prototype timelines Zero budget overruns in 18+ recent projects Your Challenges AI in Our Practice Our Philosophy: AI enhances routine tasks; critical and high-responsibility work always remains with our people, ensuring a balance in the agile framework. Figma AI Accelerates design tasks, 15% shorter prototype cycles Anthropic Claude & OpenAI GPT Streamline requirement formalization and test scenarios, reducing prep work by 10–15% Cursor IDE & GitHub Copilot Generate straightforward code and unit tests, cutting early delivery time by up to 35% JetRuby Internal AI Agent Enforces our standards and formats deliverables, reducing overhead while maintaining compliance Our cases Proven Results & Case Studies From healthcare platforms to fintech engines and agritech solutions, JetRuby.Flow has enabled businesses to launch faster, stay on budget, and scale with confidence. Healthcare A private hospital network in the U.S. used JetRuby.Flow to digitize patient scheduling and integrate with EMR systems. The result: reduced appointment bottlenecks, HIPAA-compliant workflows, and patient satisfaction scores that rose by 20% within months. Fintech A fast-scaling payments provider relied on JetRuby.Flow to stabilize its core transaction engine. AI monitoring flagged issues before downtime occurred, and the new system handled a threefold increase in users without performance loss, while remaining fully compliant with financial regulations. Agritech A vineyard management platform leveraged JetRuby.Flow to integrate IoT weather data, predictive analytics, and a mobile-first UI. The solution provided agronomists with real-time insights, resulting in an 18% reduction in crop losses and optimized field operations during peak harvest season. Find out more case studies ... Explore Case Studies FAQ How does JetRuby.Flow use AI in the development process? + JetRuby.Flow integrates AI assistants across the delivery pipeline — handling tasks like code generation, test automation, security scans, requirement summarization, and predictive monitoring. This boosts precision and speed while freeing your expert team to focus on core logic and innovation. Can JetRuby.Flow speed up development without sacrificing quality? + Absolutely. AI takes over repetitive, time-consuming tasks — allowing for 10–35% faster delivery cycles. Meanwhile, comprehensive automated testing and AI‑driven code health checks uphold high quality and reduce the chance of defects. How does JetRuby.Flow keep my project on budget? + JetRuby.Flow structures work into short, well-defined sprints with upfront estimates and AI-enhanced cost tracking. When changes arise, the backlog is flexibly rebalanced — ensuring spending stays predictable and aligned with your priorities. Is JetRuby.Flow suitable for my project or industry? + Yes — JetRuby.Flow is flexible and industry-agnostic. Whether you're in fintech, healthcare, e-commerce, agritech, logistics, or any new venture, the framework adapts its technology stack and delivery pace to suit your domain. What if our requirements change during the project? + No problem. Each sprint includes planning sessions where priorities can be reshuffled. Thanks to a modular backlog, new features or pivots can be introduced without disrupting progress or delivery rhythm. How involved will our team be during the project? + Your team participates in sprint planning, demos, and key milestone reviews — offering feedback without being burdened by execution. The delivery remains in capable hands, while you stay informed and in control. Do we need in-house data scientists to adopt AI? + Not at all. JetRuby.Flow includes fully managed ML pipelines built by their engineers. You get end-to-end data and AI services without needing in-house AI specialists. What happens after my product is launched using JetRuby.Flow? + Post-launch, JetRuby.Flow ensures continued excellence with AI-powered monitoring, rapid bug fixes, and iterative enhancements — handled by the team that delivered your product, providing consistency and reliability. What is a software framework for AI‑enabled development? + JetRuby.Flow is an agile delivery framework enhanced by AI components — like predictive task estimators, risk scoring bots, auto-documentation, and live monitoring — designed to drive transparent, fast, and cost-effective delivery from concept to production. ### Map-Based Fence Design & Estimator Home Cases Agriculture Map-Based Fence Planner Agriculture Map-Based Fence Planner A web-based platform that allows customers to design fences directly on a map, calculate material needs in real-time, and seamlessly purchase materials online, all while simplifying the process. Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, React · Mapbox GL JS, PostgreSQL, Redis, Tailwind CSSIndustry Agriculture / EcommerceEngagement Model Managed DeliveryPlatform WebTeam 9 membersTimeline 6 months Client & Project Overview Our client is a leading U.S. supplier of fencing materials, serving agricultural and property owners across the United States and parts of Canada. The company, managed by our client, has built a strong reputation for providing high-quality products tailored to various fencing needs. Before collaborating with JetRuby, the client’s process for helping customers plan and purchase fencing was manual. Customers would submit forms on the website, and sales managers would create customized fence plans and material estimates, leading to inefficiencies and delays in the process.In early 2024 the client asked JetRuby to digitize fence buying. They wanted customers to draw fences, see live material counts, and check out online, no salesperson needed. A self-service tool would streamline the journey and boost conversions. Project Objectives & Challenges What our client needed: Let your customers sketch fence lines on a live map in minutes. Show an instant bill of materials and cost estimate as they draw. Push the entire list into their web-store cart with one click. What stood in our way: Marrying map-based drawing with millimeter-accurate length and post spacing math. Threading the new tool into an existing e-commerce stack without slowing checkout. Beating a rival’s early release and hitting a fixed trade-expo deadline just months out. Our Work JetRuby focused on delivering a rock-solid, map-based planner fast:Discovery & Design (4 weeks) Mapped user flows, locked MVP scope, and produced clickable wireframes. Zero-Sprint Alignment Synced APIs with the client's new backend vendor, set up CI/CD, and added smoke tests. Fence Designer MVP (8 weeks) Built a React map canvas, live materials engine, and one-click cart push to client’s store. Expo-Ready Kiosk (3 weeks) Packaged the app for offline demo mode with a guided walkthrough for the trade-show booth. Agile, Fixed-Price Delivery A stable squad (PM, BA, RoR + React devs, QA, DevOps) shipped usable features every sprint under a tight deadline. Results & Business Impact Speed & Sales CycleCustomers in the internal beta now create a full fence plan and pre-filled cart in under two minutes, work that used to keep your sales team busy for half an hour. That speed shortens the sales cycle and keeps momentum on your side. Transparency & TrustSeeing live counts and costs on every drag removes guesswork. Shoppers walk away knowing exactly what they need and what it will cost, which lifts trust and cuts abandonment. Your reps can focus on high-value consults instead of basic estimates. Innovation & ScaleThe expo-ready kiosk positions our client as the innovator in a suddenly crowded space, while the clean Rails + React stack leaves room for cadastral auto-draw and terrain-based suggestions. You’re ready for launch day and the next wave of feature growth without a rewrite. Share Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us ### AI PODs: Software Delivery Shortcut AI PODs: Software Delivery Shortcut Your best choice for MVP development, scaling your startup or performing R&D Request Your Team 2-5 Software Engineers AiQA specialist A whole pack of custom AI agents Сo-pilots to handle routine 200+ clients work with our specialists AI POD Definition AI POD — What Is It? The future of transformation of classic software development with AI-postitive mindset.It is a cross-functional team structure, including various AI tools for leaner and faster software development. Domain-based AI POD Small team, typically of System Architect and Product Manager, both proficient in the exact business domain, backed with AI-agent or Prompt-engineer.High seniority level coupled with domain expertise allow such units to deliver superior-quality solutions in shortest terms. Custom Software Development AI POD Team of 2-5 developers, working with the strong understanding of AI capabilities.These teams are accompanied with all industry-standard AI Copilot, which are additionally trained on our best practices and experience. They are like special forces unit, able to solve any challenge. What we offer AI-Backed Development Team at Your Fingertips With our AI POD service, you gain immediate access to an elite AI-fueled team and a proven development framework. This means faster results and higher ROI for your initiatives. AI-Backed Development Team Access an elite AI-driven team with full-stack expertise for faster results and higher ROI. Custom AI Agents Our AI copilots, trained on 15 years of JetRuby’s delivery history, boost delivery speed 2–3x while maintaining senior-level quality. Pre-configured Toolchains & Flexibility Start quickly with prebuilt Docker setups and scale the team as needed, avoiding long-term commitments. Continuous Support & Improvement Ongoing support and model updates ensure optimal performance and adapt to real-world changes. Launch Your AI POD Secure a dedicated, AI-enabled team ready to tackle complex backlogs and accelerate delivery Request My AI POD How we work Our Six-Step AI POD Workflow Step 1 Scoping & POD Formation Define the problem, outline goals, and assemble a lean POD of 2-5 engineers, a QA expert, and AI copilots, with a full delivery plan before the first commit. Step 2 Tech Blueprint & Copilot Configuration Solution architects map the stack, data flows, and AI roles, pretraining tools to reduce ramp-up time and streamline code generation. Step 3 Prototype Delivery & AI Agent Rollout Ship a working prototype in 7-14 days, including UI, back-end logic, monitoring, and AI agent pipelines for real-time feedback. Step 4 Full Buildout & Smart Automation Shift into multi-sprint cycles, extend functionality, automate QA with AiQA agents, and integrate CI/CD workflows Step 5 Validation & Cost-Aware Refinement Run security checks, test edge cases with AI-driven QA, and validate business logic with engineers, delivering weekly reports. Step 6 Handoff, Scale, or Retain Retain or expand the POD, or embed it into your internal team, with an AI stack in place to reduce future dev costs. Talk to an AI POD Architect Explore scope, timelines, and success metrics for your next release with our technical leads Schedule a 30-Minute Call Our cases Proven Results & Case Studies Explore real-world wins where AI PODs shipped production-ready prototypes, refactored legacy codebases, and automated QA pipelines, unlocking faster releases, lower costs, and stronger ROI Healthcare Full platform rebuild with AI Reduced 20 years of technical debt. Improved stability & audit-readiness for SOC 2 compliance 3 month to upgrade legacy Rubyon Rails from 3.2.22.5 to 7.x. 3 people to handle the entire project Fintech AIQA implementation and Lifetime QA setup How we improved test coverage while reduced manual QA effort with AI-based testing framework 27% growth in unittest coverage 150 B2B clientsworldwide Insurance Azure migration supported by AI Copilot Reduced engineers' manual effort by about 70% and saved up to 25% on infrastructure 70% manual engineers'effort reduction 20+ legacy Javaapps updated Warehousing 1.5+ years of AI-POD-based web and mobile dev To make the best home inventory app with over 300,000 installations worldwide 15th businesses trust Sortlyto track their inventory 5000 positive reviewson the AppStore Find out more case studies ... Explore all case studies Frequently Asked Questions What is an AI POD? + An AI POD is a compact, cross-functional team (2–5 developers, a QA specialist, and AI copilots) focused on fast and high-quality delivery of a single project using AI-powered tools. How many people are in one AI POD? + Typically, the team comprises 2–5 senior engineers who actively utilize AI tools and agents to accelerate development. What do AI PODs build? + AI PODs build custom software solutions tailored to your business goals — from MVPs and interactive prototypes to full-featured applications and AI-powered functionality. Whether you're launching a new product, enhancing an existing platform, or integrating AI into your workflows, the team adapts to your scope and priorities. How fast do they deliver? + Thanks to agile sprints and AI automation, AI PODs typically deliver working features or prototypes within 2–3 weeks. The pace stays fast throughout, with consistent progress each sprint. Do AI PODs replace my team? + Not at all. AI PODs are designed to enhance, not replace, your internal team. They are a plug-and-play extension — ideal for accelerating delivery, filling skill gaps, or validating ideas without long-term commitment. What if my project is complex or legacy? + AI PODs can work effectively with complex or legacy systems by focusing on well-defined modules or features. We begin with a short technical assessment to identify risks and opportunities, then take a phased approach to deliver value without disrupting your core operations. How are results measured? + We track delivery timelines, sprint velocity, code quality (through automated code reviews and QA), and business KPIs, like reductions in time-to-market or development costs. Our clients often report improved team efficiency and faster iteration cycles when using PODs. What do I need to start? + You can bring a clear goal or problem you'd like to solve — no detailed specs are required. We'll assemble the right AI POD, define the scope, and manage the entire delivery process from planning to the first release, keeping you informed at every step. ### Your On-Demand Tech Business Partner Goodfirms | 5.0 Clutch | 4.9 Your On-Demand Tech Business Partner We dive into your codebase, fix legacy pain points and pave the way for AI-powered features — so you can ship faster tomorrow. Book an AI Readiness Call Elite product teams Now supercharged with custom AI Agents 15+ years of hands-on engineering mastery in web & mobile development 200+ clients work with our specialists Challenges Overcome the Most Common Challenges Struggling with recruiting key RoR developers? Finding and recruiting key software developers could be exhausting. Here are some common issues you might be confronting: Hiring the wrong developers: A massive stream of CVs butno positive cumulative effect High churn rates: Competitive hiring market, with 2-3 months being spent on onboarding Tough onboarding: Difficulty getting new developerscontributing as soon as possible Poor qualification: Under-qualified employees don’thandle complex tasks well JetRuby developer hiring guide Superior custom recruitment system that allows to hire developers in just 2 weeks Our streamlined recruitment process delivers the first CV in an average of just 3 days. Using our tech & soft skills matrix and a unique interview flow, we match results to your expectations Download guide JetRuby grading system template Learn how to stop overpaying for underqualified Ruby developers The grading system template navigates the competitive world of IT talent Download template Do you pay the price of a CTO but receive the quality of a junior developer? We adhere to Lean Software Development Principles to ensure high quality and minimum total cost of ownership. Our principles include: Motivation: Through a proper grading system for software engineers that motivates strong performance Mutual responsibility: Of senior RoR engineers for each other and the development team Automation: Through the proprietary People Management ERP system that streamlines software development process Mentorship: Knowledge transfer from seasoned Ruby developers who provide guidance to new engineers during onboarding and training Permanent quality control: With extensive manual and automated testing at every stage of development Can poor communication ruin an otherwise excellent software development process? Yes, it can. The process falls apart when you can’t reach out to someone in charge on time. We know how to fix it! Communication gaps: Eliminate development/delivery issues by maintaining constant communication with your remote team Insufficient progress transparency: Hold regular status meetings and stay updated on project developments Shifted team availability: Optimize timezone overlap so your remote team is accessible during critical working hours Misunderstandings: Hire remote team members who speak English fluently to avoid language barriers. Foster a seamless and easy-going interaction JetRuby soft skills development program Eliminate communication gaps  Learn more about developing soft skills with our unique guide Download program Services Consulting for fast-moving teams Code Audit Detects performance, security, tech-debt, and scaling issues, then delivers a risk-scored report with metrics and actionable next steps. Free code audit Process Automated and manual scan, followed by each finding tagged by severity and compliance, then compiled into a clear risk-and-action report. Deliverables Key-issue summary, detailed fix list, architecture diagrams, updated code/security guidelines, sprint-based remediation plan, live hand-off session. Business Value Early insight cuts maintenance costs and downtime, speeds releases, strengthens security, and gives all stakeholders a shared, data-backed view of system health for faster decisions. Automated and manual scan, followed by each finding tagged by severity and compliance, then compiled into a clear risk-and-action report.Key-issue summary, detailed fix list, architecture diagrams, updated code/security guidelines, sprint-based remediation plan, live hand-off session.Early insight cuts maintenance costs and downtime, speeds releases, strengthens security, and gives all stakeholders a shared, data-backed view of system health for faster decisions. Legacy Software Modernization We upgrade outdated systems without disrupting daily operations, ensuring safe migration, modular upgrades, and sprint-based delivery. Ask for an Upgrade Process Full system assessment, followed by modern stack design (cloud services, updated languages, databases), then proof of concept, and finally incremental refactor or replacement in small, validated steps. Deliverables Roadmap with costs & timelines, upgraded modules or microservices, infrastructure-as-code, diagrams, scripts, test reports, risk logs, and a ready-to-use cloud/container setup. Business Value Cuts costs, scales effortlessly, and accelerates development. Microservices and containers absorb growth without extra staff, while improved performance and security prepare your product for AI and future features. Full system assessment, followed by modern stack design (cloud services, updated languages, databases), then proof of concept, and finally incremental refactor or replacement in small, validated steps.Roadmap with costs & timelines, upgraded modules or microservices, infrastructure-as-code, diagrams, scripts, test reports, risk logs, and a ready-to-use cloud/container setup.Cuts costs, scales effortlessly, and accelerates development. Microservices and containers absorb growth without extra staff, while improved performance and security prepare your product for AI and future features. AI-Friendly Adaptation We prime your platform for real-world AI — seamless automation, data insights, and smarter user experiences. About AI Services Process Audit, then clean and centralize data, followed by deploying sidecar models, then set up MLOps, and finally roll out a pilot feature tied to business KPIs with user training. Deliverables AI Readiness Report, prototype models/features, Dockerfiles & API specs, model docs, compliance notes, and a future AI growth roadmap. Business Value Real-time insights, automated routines, and improved UX cut costs, reduce downtime and waste, and open new revenue — keeping your product competitive and adaptable. Audit, then clean and centralize data, followed by deploying sidecar models, then set up MLOps, and finally roll out a pilot feature tied to business KPIs with user training.AI Readiness Report, prototype models/features, Dockerfiles & API specs, model docs, compliance notes, and a future AI growth roadmap.Real-time insights, automated routines, and improved UX cut costs, reduce downtime and waste, and open new revenue — keeping your product competitive and adaptable. PDS Turn your idea into a strategic roadmap with complimentary Product Development Strategy Session Learn more Process It’s a 1-hour long meeting with a Business Analyst of JetRuby that’s focused on getting a helicopter view of your product idea. Deliverables Business Model Canvas, including business goals, potential priorities, functions. The key deliverable here is the list of actionable steps and further recommendations, jointly developed with you. Business Value A clear understanding of what you really need for development of your project. Structured and streamlined framework, including technical risks and weak points It’s a 1-hour long meeting with a Business Analyst of JetRuby that’s focused on getting a helicopter view of your product idea.Business Model Canvas, including business goals, potential priorities, functions. The key deliverable here is the list of actionable steps and further recommendations, jointly developed with you.A clear understanding of what you really need for development of your project. Structured and streamlined framework, including technical risks and weak points Who We Are Ruby on Rails agency built for speed, quality & innovation Now — AI-backed! Start Your Journey With Us With over 15 years of experience, we’ve helped 250+ businesses launch products across industries — from healthcare to logistics. Today, we’re evolving into an AI-native powerhouse. Our lean product teams (AI PODs) are powered by industry-leading co-pilot tools and proprietary AI agents, designed to boost delivery speed, reduce errors, and optimize team performance. 30% annual growth 15+ years on the market 250+ clients from 30 countries 350+ in-house engineers 3 Unicorns in Portfolio 16 industry domains 8 Gems 45+ mln downloads About JetRuby US strategy team + global engineers Product, design & development under one roof Senior architects fluent in tech and business Weekly demo sprints, 24-h turnaround on new requests Clear, line-item budgets — no surprises JetRuby.Flow — AI-accelerated delivery Scores feature impact & sprint effort Predicts risk, auto-generates tests, triggers code reviews as complexity rises Flags security issues pre-release; live dashboards for every stakeholder Security & Compliance SOC2 - Service & Organization Controls HIPAA-aware architecture ISO 30414 Human Capital Management ISO 10018 People Engagement JetRuby’s Insurance Coverage Ruby on Rails Expertise Modular, change-ready architecture Lightning-fast JSON / GraphQL APIs Full test automation; CI/CD in minutes Zero-downtime upgrades Caching & background jobs for extra speed Services Your industry, our tailored solutions AgriTech Education Events Fintech Fitness E-commerce Food delivery Healthcare HRTech Logistics Productivity Real Estate Retail Social Media Taxi booking Travel Testimonials What our clients say Carol HenckelPresident, MTG Healthcare AcademyTheir responsiveness, flexibility, and commitment to our needs made them a pleasure to work with! JetRuby Agency's work led to a 35% increase in user engagement, a 25% increase in course completion rates, a 15% increase in revenue, and a 20% decrease in user acquisition costs. The app also received a 4.5 rating on the app store. Moreover, the team was timely, organized, and responsive. FounderSoftware Development CompanyJetRuby Agency is one of the best agencies I've worked with. They're extremely professional. JetRuby Agency has delivered a high-quality MVP. Equipped with a methodical approach, they deliver on time and within the budget. They communicate and collaborate effectively with the client, allowing for a seamless workflow. Their tendency to exceed expectations ensures a long-term partnership. Rodrigo Pereyra business field manager at OsramThey go out of their way to work and engage with the customer. The work completed by JetRuby was excellent, with the team handling the expanded scope professionally and producing high-quality deliverables. They were an engaged, committed team that worked hard to accomplish all tasks on time and by high standards. Jan Nowikov CEO, Help My TaskI give them a 10/10 for what we’ve done together. JetRuby Agency coded quickly and delivered with ease a very functional and thoughtful solution that internal stakeholders are eager to bring to market. The team is personable, responsive, and attentive, fostering a seamless and mutually beneficial collaboration. Their services are reasonably priced. Steffi M. AVP - Tech, Handelnine GlobalWe are very happy with the project management, project execution, software quality, and accountability. The engagement was successful; the site is currently live and completely functional. JetRuby Agency managed the project well using the Agile methodology; they were responsive and delivered items on time. Jack Green CTO, NameCoachTheir team provides notes and questions our ideas to make our products better. JetRuby Agency dedicated capable resources that produced satisfying deliverables to facilitated growth into new business verticals. The team communicates clearly, which enables effective collaboration. Informed by a wealth of experience, they offer valuable insights that encourage improvements. Shai Rozen CTO, ShiurimMost of the positive feedback has been regarding the new features and improvements. The product is performing well in the market, receiving over 2,000 downloads in its first few days. All feedback regarding JetRuby Agency’s work and skilled expertise has been positive. Their responsive approach complemented their quick workflow. Chase Tasca Founder, Web App Dev for Startup HVAC Technicians PlatformThey put a lot of effort into making sure that everything works to my satisfaction. Brimming with technical expertise and the desire to help their client succeed, JetRuby Agency has delivered quality design deliverables that have strikingly mirrored their client's ideas. Transparent and customer-oriented, they provide reliable estimates to bring their requirements to fruition. Brandyn Morelli Co-Founder, hellocecilWe’ve worked with a lot of other firms, and JetRuby agency is one of the best. Not only is JetRuby Agency great at what they do, they also charge a fair price. The team is responsive and communicative, holding weekly meetings to keep everyone updated. They use various means of communication and have some of the best project management in their field. Julian Safford Co-Founder, Moments Inc.I am happy with how they adjust their approach to appeal to as a customer. JetRuby's exceptional value sets them above competitors. Showing a genuine interest in the product, their team listens closely to feedback and maintains a thorough understanding of the business. Their ability to create optimal solutions to sustain a lower budget is impressive. David Bankston CEO, Sparksfly Technologies, Inc.They are very good at listening and working with your timeframes. We have some amazing people on our team. The client receives over four million transactions per year and they have had no problems. They attribute part of this to the development work that JetRuby Agency provided. Tom Klein Founder, Suggest ItI’m impressed by their ability to meet those changes on very short notice while keeping with deadlines. The client is particularly happy with the quality of the projects that JetRuby has worked on - specifically the quality of the code. They manage communication between teams very well and meet all deadlines set for them. Dhanush Balachandran CEO, SortlyThey are experts in Ruby. The client has received great reviews from users of the new site. Along with the high reviews, the client is experiencing their highest level of revenue. They have appreciated the agency's knowledge and skill surrounding Ruby on Rails and their willingness to make improvements where necessary. ### Unit Rental Platform Home Cases Real Estate Unit Rental Platform Real Estate Unit Rental Platform A web platform that lets the client’s rent self-storage units online and run day-to-day operations for 20+ U.S. facilities designed, built, and rolled out by JetRuby. Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, React, Hotwire (Stimulus + Turbo), Tailwind CSS, PostgreSQL, Redis Industry Real Estate Engagement Model Managed Delivery Platform iOS, Android, Web Team 9 members Timeline 6 months Client & Project Overview Our client is a US real estate developer that decided to repurpose part of its portfolio into self‑storage facilities. With no in‑house engineering department, their RoR-skilled CTO was looking for a contractor he could trust, audit, and collaborate with directly. JetRuby’s deep Ruby expertise, backed by our Lead Ruby Developer, became the deciding factor. The initial request was for a public web interface that allows everyday consumers to locate a facility, select a unit that meets their size and price constraints, and complete the rental process online. Project Objectives & Challenges We kicked off with a two‑week Discovery & Design (DnD) sprint, clarified the MVP scope, and approved a delivery roadmap with fortnightly demonstrations. But it faced several challenges: Legacy insurance APIs Outdated, XML-based endpoints with sparse and inconsistent documentation. Bug surge post-MVP launch Early users uncovered edge cases that slipped through pre-release testing. Evolving CRM requirements Key operator workflows were undocumented, causing continual scope expansion. Parallel legacy systems Staff had to bounce between spreadsheets and the new CRM during rollout. Our Work JetRuby focused on shipping a stable, all-Ruby platform fast: Technical audit (2 weeks) Mapped end-to-end flows, defined third-party integrations, and set up CI/CD + smoke tests. Consumer portal (12 weeks) Delivered facility map, unit picker, checkout, and renter dashboard live before the 2024 peak season. Operator CRM (ongoing) Introduced lead intake, one-click rentals, StorEDGE sync, and follow-up workflows (automatic and manual sending of SMS, emails, and calls, plus reminders about them) without disrupting consumer releases. Adaptive delivery When funding paused, we transitioned from time-and-materials (T&M) to fixed-price milestones, retaining the same squad (PM, BA, RoR/Hotwire developers, QA, DevOps), and demoed usable features every sprint. Daily collaboration with the client’s CTO ensured each release matched real-world operations. Results & Business Impact Seamless 24/7 OperationsThe new consumer portal processed 24/7 reservations and payments without a single outage, while the operator CRM kept more than twenty facilities on the same page in real time. Future-Proof Ruby CodebaseBeyond immediate stability, the cleaner Ruby codebase slashed future maintenance efforts and freed the client’s CTO to focus on new features instead of firefighting. Scalable, Team-Driven PlatformMost importantly, the client’s team now runs and extends the platform with full documentation and predictable fixed-price milestones, laying the groundwork for an SLA support agreement and the next wave of expansion. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us ### Launch & Scale Your Startup With AI-Driven Product Development Goodfirms | 5.0 Clutch | 4.9 Launch & Scale Your Startup With AI-Driven Product Development Early-stage tech, rapid AI MVPs, investor-ready code — all delivered through JetRuby.Flow and our proven AI toolkit Book a Call Elite product teams Now supercharged with custom AI Agents 15+ years of hands-on engineering mastery in web & mobile development The choice for 200+ companies Why Us Why Startups Choose JetRuby Founders partner with us because we combine battle-tested startup playbooks with ISO-certified delivery, SOC 2–ready DevOps, and proprietary AI accelerators that streamline every phase, from idea validation to full-scale launch. Speed to MVP Short, iterative sprints, reusable component libraries, and a fully automated CI/CD pipeline move your concept into the market fast while maintaining audit-ready code quality. Fundraising Support Investor-facing demos, clean architecture docs, and AI-generated tech due diligence reports give you credible proof of traction when meeting VCs or grant committees. Scale & Reliability AI and GPT-driven MVP development, Kubernetes micro-services, cloud cost-governance playbooks, and compliance-first monitoring keep your product stable as user traffic grows and enterprise clients run security checks. AI & ML Expertise Our teams weave machine-learning features (personalized recommendations, anomaly detection, NLP chatbots) into your roadmap, delivered through HIPAA-grade data pipelines and JetRuby.Flow’s AI-enhanced sprint orchestration. Startup Challenges & AI Opportunities Startup Roadblocks & How We Remove Them Funding Pressure Raising capital demands clear traction. Predictive analytics dashboards track usage, MRR, and cohort health so founders walk into pitches backed by live metrics. Time-to-Market Missed windows kill ideas. Our AI code-generation pipelines cut build cycles and ship AI MVPs in 4–8 weeks on stable stacks. Market Fit Uncertainty User needs shift fast. Continuous LLM-powered feedback mining sifts reviews, chats, and tickets to surface what features win retention. Tech Debt Risk Quick hacks stall scale. Our automated refactor bot scans repos, flags hotspots, and proposes upgrades before debt balloons. GTM Alignment Disjointed analytics blur focus. Centralized data lakes + AI forecasts show the KPI path from acquisition to LTV. JetRuby’s AI Toolkit AI Inside Everything We Build Programming & AI Frameworks Data Science Python R Rapid Prototyping Rails Flask React FastAPI System Integration C++ JavaScript Major ML libraries TensorFlow OpenCV PyTorch Keras Scikit-learn LLM scaffolding for chat, summarization, and smart FAQs (OpenAI, Anthropic) CV pipelines for image/video analysis (PyTorch + TorchServe) Automated QA unit-test generators, Visual AI regression, load-bots Dev-Ops copilot anomaly detection on logs and infra metrics Governance layer model registry, bias checks, explainability reports Tested methodology Our Approach to Creating Successful Startup Apps We offer our unique tested methodology, which guarantees that your project will stay within the specified timeline, scope, and budget. You will receive justified and transparent analysis-based estimates, outlining accurate delivery times and costs before the work begins. Timeline: 20-25 days Design & Discovery Do not trust those who quickly quote prices without investing time and effort into understanding your requirements. You will lose time and money! The D&D phase produces requirements every developer needs to build your app on time and within budget & spec. Results Product vision canvas User Story Map Wireframes & mockups Functional Product Requirements Design system concept Tech Requirements for MVP Get a quote Timeline: From 60 days Minimal Viable Product The completed D&D phase gives your team everything needed to rapidly build a Minimal Viable Product. Results Configured and deployed software ready for market testing Product technical documentation Custom User Interfaces for future implementation Software development plan for further development iterations Get a quote Timeline: From 90 days Full-Scale Application The MVP confirms your product idea works. Now it’s time to build the full application. Results We finalize the project’s requirements Assign a dedicated team of top-notch developers Build the App Thoroughly test App’s performance and design Deploy the App Fully support your App for 12 months Get a quote Validate My Idea — Free 30-Minute Workshop Unsure if your concept flies? Our product strategists will assess market fit, technical risks, and AI opportunities, without any strings attached. Validate Now We offer AI-Driven Startup Launch Toolkit A founder-focused workflow that blends lean product practice with in-house AI tools, so you validate fast, build once, and scale without rework. Book a Call Step 1 MVP Accelerator 4-8 week sprints: idea validation, UX mocks, serverless back-end, deploy to AWS/GCP. Integrated Gen-AI code assistants keep velocity high and bugs low. Step 2 AI Proof-of-Concept We build a narrow-scope model (vision, NLP, recommendations) inside your app: labeled dataset → model → API → demo. Perfect for seed decks. Step 3 Growth-Ready Architecture Kubernetes + Terraform boilerplates, CI/CD with AI test-generation, SOC 2 controls baked in, saving months when scale hits. Step 4 Investor Tech Due-Diligence Pack Code audit, architecture diagram, unit-test coverage, plus an AI-generated risk report — all formatted for VCs. Step 5 Product Analytics Stack Snowflake or BigQuery, ELT pipes, and an LLM insight layer that converts data into plain-English growth tasks. Step 6 Team Extension Senior devs, designers, and ML engineers working inside your slack. JetRuby.Flow’s AI sprint board predicts blockers and reallocates capacity. Step 7 Product Analytics Stack A/B engine, feature-flags, causal-impact ML models — iterate UX and pricing with statistical confidence. Step 8 Compliance & Security Hub ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA modules + automated vulnerability scans and AI policy generation for faster enterprise sales. ### Custom AI for Healthcare Development Services Enterprise AI-Enabled Healthcare Development Services, Delivered at Startup Speed Harness Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare to speed diagnoses, streamline operations, and improve patient outcomes, all on HIPAA-ready architecture. Book Strategy Call Top software development companies BlogMeet Your New AI Personal Assistant: Why AI Assistant Matters and How to Build OneBlogAI Adoption Skyrockets: The New Business NormCase studyGeneWise Health: Modernizing healthcare technology for a secure futureCase studyHealth App: Connecting patients, doctors, and healthcare professionals in one secure spaceCase studyHealthcare Practice Management Platform: Streamlining patient management with advanced automation The choice for 200+ companies Healthcare Challenges Modern Medical Challenges & AI in Healthcare Opportunities With deep experience in artificial intelligence for healthcare, we help hospitals, clinics, and HealthTech companies harness AI to solve real-world medical challenges. Post-Discharge Monitoring Gaps Once patients leave the ward, vitals and adherence often vanish from view, driving readmissions and penalties. We stream wearable and IoT data into real-time dashboards and alert models, giving clinicians continuous insight and early warning triggers. Pharmacy-Benefit Maze & Medication Spend Thousands of drug options, formularies, and coupons overwhelm staff and members alike. Our AI pharmacy-benefit modules cross-check Medi-Span, GoodRx, and Medicare APIs to recommend lower-cost, plan-compatible alternatives in seconds. Proving Value-Based-Care Outcomes Payers demand hard evidence before reimbursing new services. We embed analytics pipelines that map encounters, claims, and remote-patient data to CMS/HEDIS metrics, turning raw results into dashboard KPIs investors and regulators recognize. Clinician Staffing Costs & Limited Access Physician hours are the largest line-item in most budgets, yet access gaps persist. Virtual-care triage bots, automated scribing, and smart scheduling extend each clinician’s reach, reducing overtime while maintaining quality scores. Slow Internal POC & Innovation Cycles Enterprise health systems struggle to spin up prototypes amid red tape and legacy stacks. JetRuby.Flow and our full-stack AI pods plus pre-hardened HIPAA pipelines let product owners validate new ideas and test & launch compliant MVPs in weeks, not quarters. Administrative Overload & Fragmented Data Silos Clinicians lose hours to manual entry while critical data sits split across EHRs, labs, and wearables. We unify those sources through FHIR/HL7 connectors, then auto-populate charts and claims, cutting paperwork and surfacing insights at the point of care. We offer Your On-Demand AI Healthcare Development Company Our team combines technical expertise with industry knowledge and AI & ML stacks to deliver AI software for healthcare that is innovative, practical, and production-ready. Lifestyle & Functional Medicine Customizable Wellness Platforms White-label web and mobile suites for employers, insurers, and providers, spanning workouts, nutrition, mindfulness, and mental-health programs under a single code base. This accelerates time-to-market, raises employee engagement, and documents wellness-related cost savings. Benefit Ecosystem Integration API bridges link your product to HR and insurance systems, using CMS-aligned coding for automated claims deflection and real-time reporting. The integration reduces manual benefit checks, shortens reimbursement cycles, and supplies finance teams with audit-ready data. Nutrition Companionship Solutions Apps or SDKs for GLP-1, metabolic, or telehealth clinics that track adherence, enable AI-guided meal coaching, and support registered-dietitian overlays. These tools improve program adherence, lower churn, and generate lifestyle outcome data that resonates with payers. Conventional Medicine Data & Regulatory Infrastructure Back-end frameworks built for HIPAA, SOC 1/2, and genomic-data governance, featuring compliant “Gen KYC” access controls for sensitive records. The architecture passes security audits on the first attempt and scales new features without re-engineering core systems. Lifecycle Member Data Management Platforms that manage the whole member journey, from prospecting and enrollment to care and renewal, by aggregating EHR, claims, and financial data. They support Medicare, Medicaid, and dual-eligible scenarios. Unified profiles unlock value-based-care analytics, enable targeted outreach, and strengthen member retention across diverse payer lines. Genomic Intelligence Platform Secure pipelines integrate genomic-lab APIs with pharmacogenomic result processing, plus back-end upgrades and refactors on live petri-dish environments with zero-fault rollout. Providers gain earlier risk insights for precision medicine, while payers access richer underwriting variables without disrupting lab operations. Insurance Technology Pharmacy Benefits Management Modules for drug and pharmacy search that serve underserved, complex, and high-risk populations and deliver value-based decision support on medication spend. Plans achieve better adherence, lower prescription costs, and hit savings targets without rebuilding PBM logic from scratch. B2B2C Broker + Provider Enablement CRM tools offering quoting, plan matching, and subsidy validation—optimized for high-risk groups—with decision support tied to measurable savings. Brokers shorten onboarding cycles, improve conversion rates, and clearly demonstrate cost reductions to employers and payers. AI-Powered Insurance Infrastructure SaaS tooling for brokers and TPAs featuring guided onboarding, needs-matching, smart plan selection from claims and usage data, plus AI/NLP document automation and virtual assistants. The platform automates low-value tasks, speeds policy issuan Our expertise Technology Stack & Expertise We combine deep expertise in medical AI software with healthcare-grade compliance, giving you the tools to build, deploy, and scale safe, high-impact solutions. Programming & AI Frameworks Data Science Python R Rapid Prototyping Rails Flask React FastAPI System Integration C++ JavaScript Major ML libraries TensorFlow OpenCV PyTorch Keras Scikit-learn Data Engineering & Interoperability Building robust data pipelines and interfaces for healthcare. We excel in HL7/FHIR integration, DICOM imaging, and working with all major Medicare/Medicaid and pharmacy APIs for seamless data exchange. From warehousing to de-identification, we ensure your systems securely share information at scale. JetRuby.Flow Delivery Framework Our proprietary, AI-enhanced delivery framework accelerates time-to-market. JetRuby.Flow automates testing and DevOps, embeds compliance checks, and orchestrates our teams for maximum efficiency. This approach, refined across dozens of projects, lets us deliver production-ready MVPs up to 8× faster than large integrators, giving you a competitive edge. Edge Devices & Medical IoT Integration Our engineers connect wearable sensors, smart beds, and bedside monitors via MQTT, BLE, Wi-Fi 6, and LTE-M. We wrap them with Docker/Kubernetes edge runtimes, and push real-time streams to cloud analytics. On-device AI (ARM NN, TensorFlow Lite) enables instant anomaly detection while enterprise VPNs and Zero Trust gateways enforce HIPAA-grade security from ward to cloud. Healthcare Innovation Across Every Domain From hospital operations to insurance technology, holistic wellness, and traditional clinical care, JetRuby.Flow turns ideas into production-ready solutions — fast, secure, and cost-efficient. Request My AI Roadmap Our cases Proven Results & Case Studies Explore how our AI Healthcare development services have powered real-world medical solutions. GeneWise Health Modernizing healthcare technology for a secure future JetRuby partnered with GeneWise Health, a genetics laboratory offering personalized health plans, to modernize its infrastructure and prepare for SOC 2 compliance after its acquisition by GenovaCare. We upgraded the legacy Ruby on Rails framework from 3.2.22.5 to 7.1.3.2, improved test coverage, streamlined the codebase by removing unused elements, and implemented SOC 1-level security measures to protect sensitive genetic data. Read more ### AI for FinTech Custom AI for FinTech Development Services Harness the full power of AI in FinTech to deliver security, automate financial operations, personalize customer service, and make smarter decisions from vast data Request a Consultation Top software development companies BlogMeet Your New AI Personal Assistant: Why AI Assistant Matters and How to Build OneBlogAI Adoption Skyrockets: The New Business NormCase studyMoments NFC: A Kotlin-based pub payment appCase studyVaultVertex: Digital debt collection made easy The choice for 200+ companies FinTech’s Challenges Modern Challenges & AI in Fintech Opportunities Financial technology companies face intense regulations, fast-evolving threats, and sky-high customer expectations. Each challenge is an opportunity for innovation with Artificial Intelligence in FinTech. Regulatory Compliance Overhead FinTech teams run KYC/AML checks across regions with time-consuming manual reviews. AI applies computer vision and NLP to verify IDs and monitor real-time transactions while ML flags anomalies, reducing compliance workload and audit risk. Fraud and Security Threats Payment fraud and account takeovers morph faster than static rule engines can adapt. ML models score each transaction and user session on the fly, blocking emerging threats and strengthening security with biometric authentication. Customer Churn and Low Engagement Users abandon apps that feel generic and frustrating, draining revenue and growth. Predictive models predict customer churn, and personalization engines recommend targeted products or advice, lifting retention and lifetime value. Data Overload, Missed Insights Massive streams of transactions and user and market data bury critical risk signals. AI pipelines cluster, classify, and forecast trends, turning raw data into actionable credit, trading, and marketing decisions. Inefficient Manual Processes Many financial workflows (loan underwriting, insurance claims, customer onboarding) rely on paperwork and human review, causing delays and errors. Computer vision extracts form data, and ML models evaluate loan eligibility or insurance claims automatically. Need for Real-Time Decisions Volatile markets demand instant credit-limit tweaks and portfolio rebalances. Streaming data platforms with ML models can approve transactions, adjust credit limits, or rebalance portfolios on the fly. AI systems monitor live data feeds (stock prices, network activity) and trigger instant alerts or actions. Scaling Customer Support As user bases grow, support teams can be overwhelmed by repetitive inquiries about accounts, payments, or technical issues. Conversational AI chatbots and NLP-driven virtual assistants handle password resets, balance queries, and payment disputes 24/7. Regulatory Compliance Overhead FinTech teams run KYC/AML checks across regions with time-consuming manual reviews. AI applies computer vision and NLP to verify IDs and monitor real-time transactions while ML flags anomalies, reducing compliance workload and audit risk. Fraud and Security Threats Payment fraud and account takeovers morph faster than static rule engines can adapt. ML models score each transaction and user session on the fly, blocking emerging threats and strengthening security with biometric authentication. Customer Churn and Low Engagement Users abandon apps that feel generic and frustrating, draining revenue and growth. Predictive models predict customer churn, and personalization engines recommend targeted products or advice, lifting retention and lifetime value. Data Overload, Missed Insights Massive streams of transactions and user and market data bury critical risk signals. AI pipelines cluster, classify, and forecast trends, turning raw data into actionable credit, trading, and marketing decisions. Inefficient Manual Processes Many financial workflows (loan underwriting, insurance claims, customer onboarding) rely on paperwork and human review, causing delays and errors. Computer vision extracts form data, and ML models evaluate loan eligibility or insurance claims automatically. Need for Real-Time Decisions Volatile markets demand instant credit-limit tweaks and portfolio rebalances. Streaming data platforms with ML models can approve transactions, adjust credit limits, or rebalance portfolios on the fly. AI systems monitor live data feeds (stock prices, network activity) and trigger instant alerts or actions. Scaling Customer Support As user bases grow, support teams can be overwhelmed by repetitive inquiries about accounts, payments, or technical issues. Conversational AI chatbots and NLP-driven virtual assistants handle password resets, balance queries, and payment disputes 24/7. JetRuby.Flow Product Development acceleration with our self-created lean AI-boosted delivery framework AI PODs Mature Product teams enhanced by our unique AI agents and DevOps Tech-business partner IT Consulting. Strategic audits and advice from mature Architects and Industry Experts We offer JetRuby’s AI FinTech Development Services Your organization's challenges are unique. Our FinTech AI solutions are tailored to your problems, leveraging FinTech and AI best practices like machine learning, computer vision, and NLP techniques. AI-Driven Fraud Detection Systems Our AI in Finance solutions stream transactions through anomaly-detection networks and graph models that score risk in milliseconds. We deploy Kafka pipelines, integrate with payment APIs, and surface real-time alerts in custom dashboards to cut chargebacks and fraud losses while protecting customer trust. Automated Credit Scoring Engines We train ensemble ML models on credit files, cash-flow data, and alternative sources (open banking, social signals). The platform exposes an API that approves loans in under a second, slashes manual underwriting, and reduces default rates through accurate, bias-free risk scores. AI-Powered Customer Onboarding We build KYC/KYB workflows that pair computer-vision OCR with face-match verification and sanctions screening. REST microservices push cleared identities straight into your core system, trimming onboarding time from days to minutes and driving faster revenue capture. Predictive Analytics & Forecasting Time-series models and gradient-boosted trees forecast sales, churn, and portfolio risk. Our engineers deliver cloud dashboards (AWS QuickSight, Power BI) that highlight trends and anomalies in real time to help finance teams reprice products, retain customers, predict defaults, and allocate capital with data-driven confidence. Conversational AI Chatbots & Virtual Assistants NLU/NLP bots built on Rasa or Azure Cognitive Services integrate with core banking and CRM to answer balances, reset credentials, and route complex tickets. They run 24/7, scale to thousands of concurrent sessions, and cut support costs while improving CSAT scores. Robo-Advisors & Wealth Platforms Reinforcement-learning agents and mean-variance optimizers build personalized portfolios, trigger automated rebalancing, and execute trades via broker APIs. Investors gain algorithmic strategies once reserved for quant desks, and platforms grow AUM through superior, low-touch advisory. Secure Payment Integration & Billing We engineer PCI-DSS–ready payment modules with tokenization, dynamic permissions, and encrypted Stripe/Bambora flows. Clients launch new billing models (subscription, usage-based, split payments) without security gaps. Data Engineering & Compliance Architecture Our teams deploy scalable data lakes on AWS or Azure with lineage tracking, encryption, and audit logging. MLOps pipelines (Kubeflow, Airflow) let data scientists retrain models on demand, while automated policy checks keep every dataset in line with GDPR, SOC 2, and local finance regulations. Our expertise Technology Stack & Expertise We deliver AI-driven financial tools that help business and institutions make smarter lending decisions, reduce fraud, and enhance user engagement in real time. Programming & AI Frameworks Data Science Python R Rapid Prototyping Rails Flask React FastAPI System Integration C++ JavaScript Major ML libraries TensorFlow OpenCV PyTorch Keras Scikit-learn AI Models & Decision Automation Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for image analysis, Recurrent Neural Networks (LSTM) for time-series forecasting, Random Forests, Gradient Boosting Machines, Support Vector Machines (SVM), K-means clustering, and evolutionary algorithms for task optimization. Real-Time Processing Data We engineer robust data pipelines with PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and scalable cloud architectures to support high-frequency transaction environments. Real-time stream processing with Apache Spark, plus secure, scalable REST API integrations ensure seamless system interoperability and compliance. Smart UI & Embedded AI From biometric KYC verification using OCR to adaptive robo-advisors with sentiment-aware nudges, our fintech systems are powered by advanced ML pipelines. We deliver multi-platform solutions — from trader terminals to mobile banking apps — with embedded intelligence and explainable AI. Activate Your Fintech AI Edge Talk to our financial AI experts, define your objectives, and get a tailored action plan within 48 hours. Transform raw transaction data into smarter risk models, sharper compliance, and deeper customer engagement. Request My AI Roadmap Our cases Proven Results & Case Studies Explore how our AI FinTech development services have powered real-world financial solutions LinkSquares AI-powered contract analytics LinkSquares is a cloud-based platform that uses AI to analyze contracts with speed and precision. It enables full-text searches for phrases, keywords, and terms across thousands of documents in seconds. Trusted by over 10 companies, it has processed over 1 million contracts and secured $7 million in funding Read more Moments NFC A Kotlin-based pub payment app Our team created a Kotlin app for pub-goers in the USA to let them pay with a simple wave of their hand using NFC technology. The app was built in just 12 days by adapting the existing iOS design, saving the client time and budget. We also delivered a unique mobile application for the Android platform. View case study Read article VaultVertex Digital debt collection made easy VaultVertex is a Fintech platform that helps businesses manage digital debt collection and payments efficiently. It uses digital reminders to keep customers on track, improving communication and boosting payment recovery. Our team improved the system’s setup, added payment options for a big client, and made the platform more flexible with easier payment agreements and access controls. Read more How we work Our AI-driven FinTech Development Process We follow a transparent, agile process known as JetRuby.Flow, our custom lean delivery system with built-in AI components that accelerates product development. Here’s how our AI FinTech software development company takes your idea from concept to reality. Step 1 Discovery & Consulting We start with a deep-dive into your business goals and requirements. Our experts then identify opportunities for AI and define the scope, timeline, and tech stack for your FinTech solution. Step 2 Architecture & Design Next, we design a robust architecture and an intuitive UX/UI for your product. We plan data flows, select appropriate AI/ML models (e.g., NLP, computer vision), and ensure compliance and security are built into the design from day one. Step 3 AI Model Development & Integration Our data scientists and developers build and train your system's AI components while concurrently developing core application features. We use agile iterations and regularly test that AI (fraud detectors, recommendation engines, etc.) works seamlessly within your software and infrastructure. Step 4 Testing & Launch Before launch, we rigorously test every aspect like functionality, security, AI model performance, and regulatory compliance to refine the machine learning models and software through QA cycles. Then we deploy your FinTech product to production, handling cloud setup, app store releases, or on-premises installation as needed. Step 5 Optimization & Support After launch, we continuously monitor and optimize the system, gathering real user data to retrain AI models for even better accuracy and adding new feedback-based features. Our team provides ongoing support, maintenance, and AI model tuning to ensure your solution remains cutting-edge and effective. We work with Financial Businesses We Work With JetRuby is a FinTech software development agency that understands both the tech and the market. Our expertise spans major FinTech sectors, where we apply AI and ML in financial software development to address each domain’s unique needs. Digital Banking & Neobanks We build AI-ready core banking stacks with instant ID verification, budgeting insights, and real-time fraud scoring. Banks launch faster, personalize offers, and match big-bank security without heavyweight legacy costs. InsurTech Our CV and ML tools automate claims, flag fraud, and price policies from applicant data. Insurers clear claims in minutes, cut loss ratios, and deliver fair, data-driven coverage for every customer. WealthTech & Investment Platforms We embed ML market forecasts, portfolio optimizers, and advisor chatbots into trading apps. Platforms give investors smarter trades and automated rebalances, boosting assets under management and user loyalty. Payments & Digital Wallets JetRuby implements PCI-grade gateways, biometric wallets, and AI fraud filters that learn from every swipe. Clients process payments securely at scale, gain real-time spend analytics, and reduce chargebacks. Lending & Credit Services Our alt-data credit models and automated origination workflows approve loans in seconds and track borrower risk. Lenders shorten decision cycles, expand safe credit access, and lower default rates through precise AI scoring. FinTech Startups We deliver rapid MVPs and scalable, AI-ready products, from digital wallets to crypto exchanges, through flexible fintech solution development packages that accelerate time-to-market and growth. FAQ How can AI in Finance improve real-time fraud prevention and operating efficiency across our payment rails? Machine-learning models score every transaction in milliseconds and automate dispute routing, cutting false positives and reducing manual review costs. What should we expect from a FinTech software development company when integrating AI modules into our core banking stack? You receive a powerful microservice architecture, secure data pipelines, and pre-built model governance so your team can launch AI features without disrupting legacy systems. Which customer-facing features deliver the quickest ROI when we deploy AI in FinTech? Instant KYC checks, personalized product offers, and predictive overdraft alerts typically pay back in under six months by lifting conversions and lowering support volume. During AI FinTech solution development, how do we secure data pipelines for model training and production inference? We apply encryption at rest/in transit, role-based access, tokenized test data, and automated lineage tracking so auditors can trace every prediction back to its source. What governance steps keep AI and ML in financial software development compliant? Use simple controls: keep clear records for each model version, test regularly for bias, log every prediction, and monitor accuracy in real time. Auditors then see exactly how the model works and evolves. Which deployment models work best for cloud-native AI FinTech systems when latency is critical? Containerized inference on AWS Fargate or Azure AKS with GPU autoscaling delivers sub-50-ms response times while meeting high-availability SLAs. How will implementing AI for FinTech affect our existing DevOps and MLOps workflows? CI/CD expands to include feature-store updates, automated retraining jobs, and canary testing for new model versions, all integrated into your current pipelines. What KPIs demonstrate success after rolling out AI chatbots and advisors? Track first-response time, containment rate, average handle time, and upsell conversion. Successful projects cut support costs by 30 % and raise revenue per user by double digits. ### Trusty Care Home Cases Healthcare Trusty Care healthcare Trusty Care Trusty Care is a platform that helps health insurance professionals find the best insurance plans for their clients. To prevent system crashes during busy renewal periods, the company worked with JetRuby to upgrade its system and enhance its performance. Share Link copied! Technologies Node.js, Vue.jsIndustry HealthcareEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WebTeam 3 membersTimeline 6 months Client & Project Overview Trusty Care, a healthcare insurance brokerage platform, was concerned about a potential system failure when 90% of customers review and change their insurance plans. Trusty Care decided to use a third-party software to enhance this process and make user interactions easier. However, the software they bought had hidden problems. It was built on Node.js and Vue.js, which did not align with Trusty Care’s expertise in Python. Additionally, the old code contained many security issues. Our team stepped in to update the system. We helped the client’s team integrate new software into Trusty Care’s digital solutions ecosystem. We ensured it could handle more traffic during busy times without affecting the user experience. Project Objectives & Challenges Trusty Care’s vision was clear — ensure the system is robust and capable of handling high load. But it faced several challenges: Legacy Code Complexity The previous system had many problems, including technical debt, unstable workarounds, security vulnerabilities, and poor maintainability. Foreign Tech Stack Trusty Care’s team lacked expertise in Node.js/Vue.js, which made it hard to manage or improve the product on their own. Scalability Under Pressure The platform needed strong improvements to prevent crashes during the annual renewal period, which accounts for 90% of yearly user traffic. Six-Month Deadline The client had to be fully prepared before the annual renewal period, with no delays. Our Work JetRuby approached the project to stabilize the current system. We began with a deep technical audit led by a Senior Solution Architect, who analyzed the legacy code, identified critical pain points, and: Removed unstable patches and redundant logic that impacted code readability and security. Restructured the backend to better manage concurrent user loads during peak traffic. Provided documentation to bridge knowledge gaps for Trusty Care’s Python-centric team. As the due date got closer, a project coordinator and additional developer joined the team to keep tasks on schedule. They also tested the system by simulating heavy traffic.Teamwork was essential. We partnered closely with Trusty Care’s team to ensure that every adjustment was in harmony with their operational objectives. Results & Business Impact The true test came during Trusty Care’s annual renewal rush — a time that had traditionally put their systems to the test. This time, the platform remained stable. The upgraded solution effectively handled thousands of simultaneous requests without any issues, achieving zero downtime during peak periods. In addition to immediate performance improvements, the updated codebase reduced future maintenance expenses by 40%, and Trusty Care’s team was able to concentrate on innovation instead of crisis management. Perhaps most importantly, the project fostered trust. Trusty Care’s developers now confidently manage the system with comprehensive documentation and a deeper understanding of the once-unfamiliar tech stack. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us ### AI for Agritech Custom AI Agriculture Solutions for Modern & Smart Farming Harness the full power of AI Agritech platforms to revolutionize your agriculture initiatives Request a Consultation Top software development companies BlogMeet Your New AI Personal Assistant: Why AI Assistant Matters and How to Build OneBlogAI Adoption Skyrockets: The New Business NormCase studyOsram Urban Farming - digital tools for smart urban crop care The choice for 200+ companies Agriculture’s Challenges Modern Farming Challenges & AI in Agritech Opportunities Leverage AgriTech AI-powered systems to convert real-time field and sensor data into precise forecasts, targeted treatments, and automated actions that protect yields, trim costs, and prove sustainability Unpredictable Climate Risk Erratic weather patterns, rapid temperature swings, and storm shifts derail crop schedules and inflate insurance costs. Agri AI climate models deliver hour-by-hour forecasts and auto-adjust planting, irrigation, and harvest plans to safeguard yields. Crop Diseases & Pests Invisible pathogens or pest colonies can wipe out a field before scouts notice. Computer-vision analytics (CV) and neural-network pest models flag early symptoms, map hotspots, and trigger targeted treatments that cut chemical spend. Data Overload Sensor feeds, drone images, and ERP records pile up faster than agronomists can analyze them. An integrated AI AgriTech data platform fuses every stream overnight, generates clean dashboards, and pushes actionable alerts to managers each morning. Labor & Operational Efficiency Seasonal labor gaps and manual routines slow planting, spraying, and harvest logistics. Autonomous drones, smart task schedulers, and predictive maintenance tools redistribute crews, keep machines running, free teams for strategic work, and maintain 24/7 monitoring​. Connectivity & Remote Monitoring Dead cellular zones leave pumps, weather stations, and tractors offline for hours. IoT solutions connect sensors across fields and enable instant alerts and remote management from anywhere. Water Scarcity & Irrigation Costs Regulatory caps and rising energy prices make every gallon count. AI water management agriculture models pair soil-moisture sensors with weather forecasts to trigger precision irrigation and cut water use up to 30%. JetRuby.Flow Product Development acceleration with our self-created lean AI-boosted delivery framework AI PODs Mature Product teams enhanced by our unique AI agents and DevOps Tech-business partner IT Consulting. Strategic audits and advice from mature Architects and Industry Experts We offer JetRuby’s AgriTech AI Solutions JetRuby’s AI for Agritech empowers farming businesses with real-time insights, automation, and predictive analytics to drive higher yields, optimize resources, and ensure sustainable growth in the agricultural sector Data Gathering & Predictive Analytics with AI in Agri We build data pipelines and dashboards that collect field, sensor, and weather data and turn it into forecasts. This solution uses machine learning (ML) and statistical models to plan production and back crop-yield predictions​. Inventory & Quality Management Our custom management apps track inputs (seed, fertilizers, fuel) and monitor stock levels. Clients use these tools to optimize supply chains, ensure timely replenishment, and prevent costly shortages. Agri AI-Powered Livestock Monitoring JetRuby adjusts computer vision (CV) and IoT sensors to track animal health, behavior, and growth in real time, enabling early disease detection and reducing losses. Smart Irrigation & AI Water Management Our RNN-based models and real-time sensor data help automate irrigation schedules to ensure optimal water use and reduce waste. This solution integrates with IoT devices and weather forecasts for precision irrigation control. Real-time Crop Monitoring & Disease Detection We integrate Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), IoT sensors, satellite imagery, and drone imagery (via OpenCV) to identify crop stress, pests, or nutrient deficiencies early, minimizing crop damage and optimizing yields. Predictive Maintenance of Equipment We create Agro AI algorithms that analyze vehicle sensor data and usage patterns to predict machine failures before they happen, cutting downtime and maintenance costs. Smart IoT & Connectivity JetRuby designs robust IoT networks (LTE-M, NB-IoT, LoRa, GSM) and MQTT-based alerts​. We deploy connected sensors and gateways so farms can monitor soil moisture, equipment status, and animal locations in real time. GIS Integration for Precision Farming We develop advanced geospatial analysis (using ArcGIS/QGIS) combined with AI to monitor map fields, soil variability, and crop performance. It enables site-specific actions like variable rate fertilization and targeted crop treatments. Vertical & Indoor Farming For indoor or vertical farms, we develop integrated control systems using data visualization and networked architecture. Our solutions connect climate controls, lighting, and hydroponics to data analytics, enabling consistent, high-yield indoor production. Our expertise Technology Stack & Expertise Our team excels in key areas of AI Agriculture technology, offering deep expertise to build the solutions your business needs Programming & AI Frameworks Data Science Python R Rapid Prototyping Rails Flask React FastAPI System Integration C++ JavaScript Major ML libraries TensorFlow OpenCV PyTorch Keras Scikit-learn Neural Networks & Algorithms Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) for image analysis, Recurrent Neural Networks (LSTM) for time-series forecasting, Random Forests, Gradient Boosting Machines, Support Vector Machines (SVM), K-means clustering, and evolutionary algorithms for task optimization. Data Handling & GIS We design data pipelines using PostgreSQL (PostGIS), MongoDB, Hadoop, and cloud databases. GIS tools include QGIS and ArcGIS for spatial analysis. Data processing employs Pandas, NumPy, and Apache Spark. We build custom REST APIs and use Docker/Kubernetes for deployment. Integration & IoT Our solutions connect through industry-standard protocols: MQTT for sensor messaging, LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, LTE-M, and GSM for wireless connectivity. We interface with drones, satellites, and existing farm equipment. Our team configures microcontrollers (Arduino, Raspberry Pi) and edge devices to stream data to the cloud securely. Launch Your Agritech AI Advantage Connect with our AI architects, outline your goals, and receive a custom roadmap in 48 hours. Turn field data into higher yields and leaner costs Request My AI Roadmap Our cases Proven Results & Case Studies Smart Farming for Date Palm Plantations AI radar and drone system for eco-friendly crop care. JetRuby built a smart farming platform for date palm plantations in Africa and the Middle East. The system combines micro-radar sensors, autonomous drones, and AI analytics to scan more than 500 hectares, process over 800 GB of field data, and guide irrigation, fertilization, and pest control. Custom camera filters cut hardware costs by 90 percent, while precise insights lowered fertilizer use by 30 percent, trimmed pesticide spend, and delivered real-time alerts that protect crops. Osram Urban Farming Digital tools for smart urban crop care JetRuby joined forces with Osram, the optical-tech innovator trusted by NASA, to create an urban farm management platform that delivers real-time soil and crop data to city growers. The IoT system pulls sensor readings from indoor farms, feeds a clear dashboard, and gives full control over every production step, boosting yield and sustainable output in urban areas. Read more ANOVA Smart home heating solution ANOVA is an IoT-based system that connects homeowners with fuel distributors. Its advanced sensors and algorithms notify users when fuel levels drop. This ensures reliable deliveries and makes home heating oil easier for everyone involved to manage. ### AI for Logistics AI for Logistics: Smart Supply Chain Solutions Transform your supply chain with AI-driven Logistics software that combines advanced analytics, machine learning, and IoT to ensure cost savings, real-time insights, and faster deliveries. Get Started Top software development companies Blog Meet Your New AI Personal Assistant: Why AI Assistant Matters and How to Build One Blog AI Adoption Skyrockets: The New Business Norm Case study ANOVA is an IoT-based system that connects homeowners with fuel distributors. Blog Startup Success Story: Sortly, #1 Inventory App! Blog Meet Your New AI Personal Assistant: Why AI Assistant Matters and How to Build One Blog AI Adoption Skyrockets: The New Business Norm Case study ANOVA is an IoT-based system that connects homeowners with fuel distributors. Blog Startup Success Story: Sortly, #1 Inventory App! The choice for 200+ companies Logistics Challenges AI in Logistics: Solving Key Challenges Logistics businesses face complex, high-stakes challenges in routing, tracking, and resource management. Below are the biggest pain points in logistics operations and how Logistics AI helps tackle each one. Unpredictable Demand and Inventory Stockouts It’s difficult to forecast demand accurately, leading to stockouts or excessive inventory that ties up capital. AI analyzes historical sales, market trends, and real-time signals to predict demand with high precision, so you maintain optimal stock levels and reduce waste. Inefficient Route Planning and Fuel Waste Manual route planning often results in longer routes, delays, and higher fuel costs. AI logistics systems instantly calculate the most efficient delivery routes and adapt to traffic or weather changes, cutting transit times and fuel consumption. Lack of Real-Time Supply Chain Visibility When you can’t track shipments end-to-end, delays and issues go unnoticed until it’s too late. AI-powered IoT sensors and platforms provide live tracking of cargo and vehicles, alerting you to disruptions in real time and improving transparency for you and your customers. Warehouse Inefficiency and Manual Errors Paper-based inventory tracking and manual picking lead to mistakes and slow fulfillment. AI drives smart warehouses with computer vision and automation that count inventory, find items, and guide workers (or robots) to the right location. Last-Mile Delivery Delays The final leg of delivery is often slow and unpredictable due to traffic, bad routing, or scheduling gaps. AI optimizes last-mile logistics by dynamically rerouting drivers around congestion and clustering deliveries efficiently. The result is faster deliveries, lower last-mile costs, and happier end customers. High Operating Costs and Thin Margins Many logistics providers operate on thin margins due to rising fuel, labor, and storage costs. AI automation and optimization reduce these costs by improving asset usage and labor productivity. From automated load planning to smarter driver assignments, AI helps eliminate waste and boost your bottom line. Unexpected Equipment Downtime Sudden truck breakdowns or equipment failures can paralyze logistics operations. AI-based predictive maintenance monitors vehicle and machine data to forecast issues before they happen. This allows you to fix problems proactively, avoiding costly downtime and keeping fleets running longer. JetRuby.Flow Product Development acceleration with our self-created lean AI-boosted delivery framework AI PODs Mature Product teams enhanced by our unique AI agents and DevOps Tech-business partner IT Consulting. Strategic audits and advice from mature Architects and Industry Experts We offer AI Logistics Automation Solutions We Deliver Automate and optimize every step of your logistics process with AI-powered Logistics software solutions that combine AI/ML, IoT sensors, computer vision, and robust integration features. End-to-End Fleet & Fuel Intelligence We build modular platforms that join vehicle telematics, tank-level sensors, and ERP data into a single control center. LoRaWAN / NB-IoT / GSM gateways stream encrypted fuel, pressure, and temperature metrics to cloud dashboards, while rule-based alerts and ML forecasts guide dispatchers to the next optimal refuel or service window. Dynamic Route Optimization & Smart Dispatch Our AI engine ingests live traffic, weather, load constraints, and driver HOS limits. Graph algorithms and reinforcement learning then recalculate routes in seconds, push updated tasks to driver mobile apps, and auto-sequence stops for minimal miles and on-time arrival. IoT Asset Monitoring & Predictive Analytics JetRuby deploys edge firmware for real-time equipment diagnostics, battery health, and leak detection. Time-series models predict refill dates or maintenance triggers, while color-coded dashboards surface risk zones instantly, so operations teams act before downtime hits. Smart Warehouse Automation & Visual Inventory Computer vision and QR/photo IDs replace manual counts. Our team builds integrated warehouse management systems (WMS) using computer vision, RFID, and barcode scanning. WMS and inventory management systems automatically log items and update stock levels in your ERP, guide pick-pack paths, validate item placement with centimeter-level accuracy, and sync changes offline or online. Computer Vision for Safety & Loading Control Edge AI packs (Jetson Orin + TensorFlow Lite) run ViT and R-CNN models to verify PPE compliance, monitor crane zones, count SKUs on pallets, and align containers with ±1 cm precision. Kubernetes + Kubeflow manage ML services, monitor transport & warehouse condition, while synthetic datasets in NVIDIA Omniverse speed sorting and navigation training. AI Knowledge Assistant & Digital Documentation A custom RAG-enabled (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) LLM (LLaMA-3 8 B) integrates with SOP repositories and ERP via MuleSoft. Staff voice-query shipping rules, generate CMR/BOL forms on demand, and receive instant step-by-step guidance, even offline aboard vessels or at remote yards. AI-Optimized Workforce & ERP Integration Our ISO-aligned ERP suite unites time tracking, skill matrices, mood maps, and capacity planning. Machine learning models (ML) forecast staff load, flag burnout risk, and automate crew swaps. KeyCloak SSO secures access, while BI dashboards expose productivity KPIs in real time. Cloud & Edge Infrastructure for Logistics IoT We architect scalable LPWAN clusters, 100 to 100 000 devices per site using Docker, Kubernetes, and secure OTA pipelines. “Umbrella” monitoring consoles consolidate multi-station data, support role-based access, and integrate smoothly with global TMS, WMS, and BI platforms. Our expertise Technology Stack & Expertise Our team excels in key areas of AI Agriculture technology, offering deep expertise to build the solutions your business needs Programming & AI Frameworks Data Science Python R Rapid Prototyping Rails Flask React FastAPI System Integration C++ JavaScript Major ML libraries TensorFlow OpenCV PyTorch Keras Scikit-learn AI Models & Route Optimization We apply predictive models for fuel consumption and route forecasting, automate task prioritization, and use clustering for dynamic asset grouping. Our stack includes real-time anomaly detection, automated scheduling, and emergency protocol optimization. Infrastructure & Spatial Systems We architect logistics-ready data platforms with PostgreSQL/PostGIS, MongoDB, and Spark for high-throughput operations. GIS tools like QGIS and interactive asset maps power location-based planning. REST APIs, containerized environments (Docker/Kubernetes), and custom dashboards ensure seamless scalability. IoT Integration & Mobile Access Our systems ingest sensor data from tanks, vehicles, and terminals using GSM, LoRaWAN, and NB-IoT. We deliver mobile apps tailored for drivers, dispatchers, and maintenance crews — even offline. Predictive diagnostics, live telemetry, and edge-based alerts reduce downtime and improve fleet efficiency. Ready to Embrace Logistics AI? Our team is here to help you unlock the full potential of AI in your supply chain. Contact JetRuby to learn how our AI for Logistics can give you a competitive edge. Request My AI Roadmap Our cases Proven Results & Case Studies See how JetRuby has applied AI in logistics for real businesses. ANOVA Smart home heating solution ANOVA is an IoT-based system that connects homeowners with fuel distributors. Its advanced sensors and algorithms notify users when fuel levels drop. This ensures reliable deliveries and makes home heating oil easier for everyone involved to manage. ### StratusNex Home Cases Insurance StratusNex Insurance StratusNex How we leveraged AI to update client's old Java apps, and therefore reduced engineers' manual effort by about 70%. Share Link copied! Technologies Apache Struts, GitHub CopilotIndustry InsuranceEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WebTeam NDATimeline NDA Client & Project Overview The client managed several legacy Java applications built on Apache Struts 1.x. Several apps have been in production for over a decade.  These Java apps used outdated Struts tags in JSP pages for their web interfaces. That dependence opened security risks and caused compatibility problems. The client wanted to upgrade the Apache Struts library version to Struts 7.0.0 and also migrate the applications to the latest Java runtime. The move demanded many hours of hands-on refactoring and testing and was a big challenge. They reached out with two requests: Leverage AI tools to automate the migration process and avoid the slow, manual upgrades that take too long. Include deep AI expertise in their workflow and keep their development processes up-to-date and ready for future changes. Objectives & Strategic Approach The project faced no major technical problems, but the client's goals required creative solutions. The goals were ambitious, so we built a plan that balanced quality and speed with knowledge transfer. We had to: Show how AI can speed up the migration  – tags in Java Server Pages (JSP) code, Action classes. Provide hands-on training in AI tools to help the client’s internal teams become more skilled and independent. JetRuby proposed a Proof of Concept (PoC) that measured GitHub Copilot’s ability to automate and update code effectively.  This plan fit the client’s Azure + GitHub stack perfectly. Our Work: AI-Driven Proof of Concept Backed by in-depth AI and PoC expertise, our team Set up a development environment for a legacy application to match the client’s system. Created a proof of concept in two weeks. Automated the replacement of Struts tags in JSP pages using GitHub Copilot. Trained GitHub Copilot to recognize old Struts 1.x tags and action classes, and update them to Struts 7.0.0 versions. Improved the JSP page update process by creating smart prompts for Copilot, reducing the need for manual code rewriting. We highlighted how Copilot helps simplify development tasks and speed up project growth Demonstrated the Proof of Concept (PoC) workflow. Showed how Copilot can handle repetitive tag migrations. Provided steps for scaling the solution to other client's applications. Shared ideas for using Copilot in code reviews and boilerplate code generation. While working with the client, we demonstrated the PoC features and showed how Copilot handled repetitive tag updates. We explained how it helped with tasks like code reviews and standard code creation. Our team wired Copilot to Azure, and suggested tools like Replit and Cursor for rapid prototyping in future projects. We modernized and leveraged AI tools to update the client’s old systems while letting their team keep innovating. Results & Long-Term Impact The Proof of Concept provided fast and flexible results. We upgraded an old application to Struts 7.0.0, showing that our AI update approach works.  The client’s team started using GitHub Copilot to automate upgrades for other applications, reducing manual effort by about 70%. They also began using Copilot to accelerate other projects, from code reviews to feature development. JetRuby’s expertise helped the client introduce AI to their software development process, allowing them to keep up with industry trends. Why Choose JetRuby? Our Expertise in Proof of Concept and AI Development JetRuby quickly tests new ideas and ensures they work with your existing systems, like Azure and GitHub. We customize tools like GitHub Copilot to help solve specific problems, including updating old code. We also help clients harness AI's potential in real-world use. This support makes it easier for teams new to AI to understand and leverage AI-driven tools. We focus on providing tailored AI solutions for businesses that want to improve workflows, lower costs, and grow effectively. Whether you need a PoC for old systems or a full AI rollout, JetRuby delivers precise and measurable results. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us ### Social Media App Development Company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Social Media App Development Company We deliver social media app development services that focus on high-impact user engagement and competitive market positioning Get Started We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies We offeR Social networking app development services Our services streamline your journey from concept to market-ready application with detailed planning and robust execution Developing a Global Strategy Our analysts research market data, define target segments, and determine clear milestones to pinpoint key audiences and uncover new growth points. Designing the Application's Workflow The design phase follows sequential steps starting with sketching to map out ideas, followed by wireframing that defines structure. Prototyping and designing app skins, then convert blueprints into an engaging user interface. Web & Mobile Development & Quality Assurance Our team builds robust backends, configures databases and servers, and develops secure APIs. They run manual and automated tests to guarantee a seamless, error-free experience at each stage. Support & Maintenance Post-launch, our team conducts regular upgrades, introduces new features, and fine-tunes performance. This ongoing care keeps your app competitive in the dynamic social media market. Our expertise Social Media Applications We Create Our portfolio spans various types of applications for Android, iOS, Windows, and cross-platform systems designed to address unique market needs and drive engagement across digital channels Messaging Apps Cross-platform messaging solutions that match enterprise-grade security needs and deliver real-time communication for a global audience Book a Call Social Publishing Platforms Dynamic blogging and media-sharing applications designed to host text, images, and videos for influencers and content creators Book a Call Video-based Networks Feature-rich platforms for quick video creation, editing, streaming, and publishing aimed at high user interaction Book a Call Online Reviews & Polling Apps that gather user opinions and feedback based on geolocation or niche interests, supporting informed decisions and brand insights Book a Call Social Network Analytic Tools Social analytics solutions to gather data from social media websites and analyze data to make smart business decisions Book a Call Must-have features Essential Social Media App Features for a Seamless Experience Our feature set delivers an exceptional experience while meeting business demands and user expectations Profile creation Maps integration Voice search Live streaming AR filters Tailored content feed Media upload & sharing Image & video editing Real-time chat Push notifications Social media API integration 24/7 support Our cases Our Featured Social Media App Solutions Discover our latest social media app platforms Cronycle Streamlining article curation for teams JetRuby developed Cronycle, a platform that lets users create search channels for articles and share curated boards with their team. The solution allows you to compile, comment on, and highlight key insights within a single platform, eliminating extra steps. We supported its smooth operation with a dedicated database server, Elasticsearch search, and microservice integrations. Read more Leepsee Smart social network for personalized, anonymous communication JetRuby collaborated with the client to create Leepsee, a social network built around personal interests and a dynamic news feed that adapts to user preferences. The platform enables anonymous communication, offers adjustable privacy settings for posts and comments, and includes dedicated notification and tagging systems across multiple mobile platforms for an engaging user experience. See the project SparksFly Streamlining social media for a unified experience JetRuby developed SparksFly, a user-friendly app that brings together content from all social media platforms. It lets users view and post content across channels while using an AI-driven system tailored to personal preferences. SparksFly has reached over 1,500 downloads and generated 200 million+ posts viewed, marking a fresh milestone in the social media landscape. How we work Our Proven Process for Social Media App Development Our approach breaks down complex development into clear steps to deliver measurable business results Step 1 Ideation The team brainstorms innovative concepts that match market needs and business goals Step 2 Scoping Our experts define requirements and allocate resources to keep the project focused and on target Step 3 Prototype A working model is built to test functionality and gather stakeholder feedback Step 4 UX/UI Design Designers craft an interface that aligns with brand standards and user habits Step 5 Development & testing Developers build robust systems while rigorous tests validate each component Step 6 Deployment The solution is launched with detailed rollout plans and performance tracking Step 7 Maintenance Ongoing updates and support maintain the app’s performance and competitive edge We work with Hire Top Social Media App Development Company in USA Our commitment to quality and innovation has helped startups, SMBs, and enterprises across various sectors streamline their operations, grow more quickly, deliver a faster time-to-market, and stay competitive in a changing business landscape FAQ How can a social media app development company handle all integration tasks within my project’s scope? Our team typically handles every integration layer, including third-party APIs and internal data systems. What security measures do social media app developers apply for user data and personal information? We employ encryption, regular code audits, and other industry-standard protocols to safeguard sensitive data at every stage. Which project phases are covered by social media app development, and how long do they usually take? All key stages are included, from initial concept to deployment, and timelines depend on project complexity and required features. Do social media application developers assist with user growth and engagement analysis after launch? We frequently provide support packages that include performance tracking, analytics, and optimization for sustained platform engagement. Is social networking website development suitable for large-scale enterprises with unique compliance needs? Our process accommodates complex regulatory requirements and can adjust to specialized security or data governance standards. How does your social media app development process address unique business requirements? Our team customizes each solution to match market demands and target audiences, ensuring the end product aligns with business objectives. Can your social media website developers customize features for startups and established organizations simultaneously? We adapt to diverse objectives by building modular features that scale smoothly, aligning with each client’s unique roadmap. ### Backbase Home Cases Fintech Backbase Fintech Backbase Backbase is a leading company that provides white-label banking solutions Share Link copied! Technologies Swift, Kotlin Industry Fintech Engagement Model Dedicated Team Platform iOS, Android, Web Team NDA Timeline Ongoing Client Overview Backbase is a global leader in Engagement Banking Platforms. It helps banks and financial institutions improve customer experience and accelerate digital transformation. With over 150 clients worldwide, Backbase often requires reliable partners to augment its software development. Project Objectives & Challenges What Backbase Needed Expand their development team quickly with experienced engineers. Speed up onboarding to meet tight project deadlines. Balance costs by combining Senior and Middle-grade engineers. The Challenges Fill open roles within two weeks without delaying project timelines Need for high-quality SDET resources to support automated testing and ensure faster, more reliable releases Balancing cost control with engineering quality, especially for QA and test automation roles Our Work JetRuby provided Backbase with fast staffing solutions. What We Did Assembled a full-time team across different development streams, teams, and geographical locations. Delivered Senior and Middle-grade developers for mobile (iOS, Android), backend (Java), and QA roles, including SDET (Software Development Engineers in Test). Our SDET specialists provided automated testing frameworks, improving testing coverage and reducing manual QA effort. Reduced vetoed staffing turnaround from 5 to 2 weeks, ensuring minimal development downtime for clients. Proposed an SSA agreement to simplify onboarding and scale-up processes. Provided Managed Delivery and SLaaS (Software Lab as a Service) models for small features and R&D. The Results Together with the Backbase team, we: Enabled faster onboarding — new engineers were ready to work within two weeks. Ended up with 15% cost savings using a mix of Senior and Middle-grade engineers. Improved QA processes and more efficient testing helped speed up releases. Laid the foundation for deeper collaboration through SSA and managed delivery options. During the project, we made important improvements to the platform: Accessibility Compliance We redesigned the user interface to make it accessible for people with disabilities. This includes features like screen reader compatibility and adjustable contrast for easier use. Deep Customization We customized every screen to work smoothly with the client's third-party libraries and services, keeping everything consistent with their existing system. Multilingual Support We have enabled right-to-left (RTL) support, particularly for Arabic and other languages. This change adjusts layouts and workflows to meet local needs. Multi-Channel OTP Delivery We set up a system for sending one-time passwords (OTPs) via SMS, email, and authenticator apps. This improves security and makes it easier for users. Backend Version Flexibility Supported different versions of our backend systems to ensure they work well with various banking setups. Seamless Integration with Model Bank We fully integrated the solution into the client’s banking platform, Model Bank, to ensure compatibility with existing modules. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us ### Travel App Development Company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Travel App Development Company JetRuby accelerates tourism ventures with expert travel app development services that empower businesses to launch intuitive digital solutions for the travel industry Start Your Journey We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies We offeR Travel application development services Our team delivers travel web apps and mobile solutions that address specific needs of travel businesses and their customers Travel App Consulting Every travel project begins with a solid strategy and a thorough grasp of industry demands. Our experts define the product vision, guide tech decisions, and refine your existing solutions for maximum scalability. Travel App Design We create visually appealing and intuitive interfaces that improve navigation and increase conversion rates. We focus on user-friendly layouts that support faster decision-making in the travel industry. Web & Mobile Development Our engineering team builds travel apps that enable seamless integration with travel data APIs, secure payment gateways, and real-time mapping systems, addressing the precise needs of the travel industry. Travel App Support Our experts deliver regular technology updates, integrate new features, and optimize performance in line with your requirements and evolving market demands. Our expertise Travel Application Solutions We Create Our travel application development solutions empower travelers with more flexible, reliable options that integrate advanced filtering, real-time mapping, and secure booking systems Property renting & buying application This solution helps travelers find rental or purchase properties using various filters and real-time maps. It meets the demands of those seeking accommodations in popular travel destinations Book a Call Adventure tours booking This platform lets travelers book adventure tours and purchase must-have gear in one place. It features user-friendly booking modules and secure payment systems designed to enhance the overall travel experience Book a Call How we work Our Travel App Development Process Our process outlines each phase from concept to launch, delivering travel apps that meet precise business and technical requirements Step 1 Ideation Our team explores market demands & business goals, and brainstorm ideas and define objectives that align with current travel market trends Step 2 Scoping Stakeholders and project leads outline technical requirements, project scope, target features, schedules, and resource distribution to maintain clarity Step 3 Prototype Early ideas become interactive demos that validate functionality & design concepts and guide future development decisions Step 4 UX/UI Design Designers create intuitive layouts and logical user flows that reduce complexity and enhance satisfaction Step 5 Development & testing Engineers build the application using best practices, and testers conduct thorough checks for stability and performance Step 6 Deployment We launch your travel solution on secure, scalable platforms for immediate market entry Step 7 Maintenance Our experts provide regular updates, introduce new functionality, and resolve emerging challenges to keep your app competitive We work with Hire Top Travel App Developers in USA Our commitment to quality and innovation has helped startups, SMBs, and enterprises across various sectors streamline their operations, grow more quickly, deliver a faster time-to-market, and stay competitive in a changing business landscape. FAQ How does your travel app development company handle budget constraints? We discuss your budget early and tailor solutions that maximize value while managing costs. What makes your travel mobile app development process unique? Our structured approach breaks the project into clear steps that focus on functionality, usability, quality, and speed, all at the same time. How do you approach travel application development for complex projects? We define clear objectives and select advanced technologies to build scalable solutions that grow with our clients. What travel website development advantages do your solutions offer? Our platforms deliver fast load times, secure transactions, and smooth navigation for users. How does your travel mobile app development company guarantee quality? Our team performs comprehensive diagnostics, including functional, non-functional, usability, performance, and security testing and delivers continuous improvements throughout the project. Is it possible to integrate AI-driven recommendations when you create travel app platforms for modern travelers? Yes. AI-based insights personalize the user experience and suggest tailored deals or itineraries that enhance customer satisfaction. What advantages come from partnering with your travel app development company in USA? We offer local market expertise, quick response times, and strong technical skills. Besides, U.S.-based teams often follow stringent data protection laws and maintain tight security protocols. This approach preserves trust and meets global regulatory standards. Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Taxi Booking App Development Company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Taxi Booking App Development Company Our taxi booking app development services deliver smart solutions that help streamline rides, boost revenue, and engage passengers. Get started We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies we offer Taxi Application Development Solutions We Create We deliver a range of taxi apps, focusing on efficient dispatch, transparent payment, and smooth passenger experiences Taxi Business App You may have an existing taxi venture or plan to launch one and move your concept into a fully functional digital product. Our services include automated invoice processing, a user-friendly booking system, and expert development strategies aligned with your growth targets. Book a Call Taxi Business for Corporations Established operators often require robust scheduling, automated dispatch, and unified management. Our solutions cater to complex corporate demands and support stable expansion, improving satisfaction for executives and clients. Book a Call Car Rental Fleet owners benefit from a platform that centralizes invoices, tracks vehicles, and manages customer bookings. Our user-friendly dashboards increase productivity and maintain clear oversight of every resource. Book a Call Air Taxi Visionaries exploring air-based passenger services gain a specialized approach that enables charter flights, handles payment workflows, and manages scheduling in one secure platform. Book a Call Must-have features Core Features for Your Taxi Booking App Our approach equips each user type with tailored features that simplify ride experiences, enhance driver operations, and streamline administrative tasks Rider features A simple registration form Select the car type Select the destination point Multiple stops Driver verification Estimated arrival time Driver features Accept/reject the ride Status update Real-time navigation Rating and review Driver dashboard Add multiple vehicles Admin features Admin dashboard System’s management Customers feedback Trips management Fare management CMS content management How we work Our Taxi Mobile App Development Process A comprehensive process transforms your taxi booking app ideas into robust, market-ready solutions Step 1 Ideation Our analysts gather requirements, set objectives, and outline a strategic plan for your project Step 2 Scoping This phase defines the technical specifications, timeline, and resources needed for a successful launch Step 3 Prototype Early wireframes and interactive models validate core concepts before deeper development Step 4 UX/UI Design Designers create intuitive user journeys and appealing interfaces to boost engagement Step 5 Development & testing Skilled engineers implement functionalities while QA specialists verify performance and stability Step 6 Deployment Production-ready code is released in your chosen environment with minimal downtime Step 7 Maintenance Timely updates, monitoring, and troubleshooting preserve reliability and keep your app current We work with Hire Top Taxi App Developers in USA Our commitment to quality and innovation has helped startups, SMBs, and enterprises across various sectors streamline their operations, grow more quickly, deliver a faster time-to-market, and stay competitive in a changing business landscape FAQ How can your taxi booking app development company in USA support a smooth user experience for high passenger volumes ? By introducing scalable architecture, frequent load testing, and strategic server distribution, our team keeps apps responsive and error-free even during demand spikes. Which core functionalities should we focus on first when planning taxi app development for a new service ? A clear user flow, real-time navigation, secure payment methods, and a reliable scheduling module often form the foundation of a strong taxi solution. Is it possible to create taxi app features that sync with existing CRM or ERP systems ? Yes, modern APIs and well-structured microservices make integration straightforward, reducing manual data entry and improving overall efficiency. How does taxi mobile app development incorporate advanced payment technologies for fast transactions ? Our developers work with trusted providers to embed secure gateways, ensuring multiple payment options and better user experiences. What best practices does your taxi booking mobile app development company follow to meet industry regulations ? Strict adherence to local and international guidelines, well-documented coding standards, and transparent compliance checks keep projects on the right track. Which metrics matter most during cab booking app development to measure operational success? Ride acceptance rate, average wait time, revenue per driver, and user ratings typically reveal the app’s performance and pinpoint areas for improvement. Can taxi application development harness real-time analytics for optimized fleet management ? Yes, implementation of live tracking and data aggregation tools helps administrators monitor vehicles, reduce idle time, and predict peak periods more accurately. What ongoing support can your taxi booking app development company offer after the product launch ? Post-launch services include feature updates, system upgrades, bug fixes, and continuous performance monitoring to help your app stay ahead of market changes. Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### eCommerce App Development Company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating eCommerce App Development Company JetRuby empowers online businesses with eCommerce app development services that optimize user experiences, boost customer engagement, and generate sustainable growth Get started We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies we offer eCommerce Website Development Services Our solutions merge technical expertise with market insights to deliver high-performance online platforms that convert visitors into loyal customers eCommerce App Consulting Our experts analyze critical business metrics, target demographics, and competitive landscapes. This consultation phase identifies must-have features, market positioning angles, and potential avenues to increase sales, retention, and brand loyalty. Book a Call eCommerce App UI/UX Design JetRuby designers focus on smooth flows and consistent brand experiences, shaping interfaces that prioritize intuitive navigation. User-centric design principles enhance browsing speed, reduce cart abandonment, and reflect each client’s unique identity. Book a Call eCommerce App Development We build robust platforms with secure payment integrations and dynamic product catalogs. Customized solutions incorporate scalable architecture, efficient inventory management, and integrations with logistics and marketing tools. Book a Call eCommerce App Maintenance Our team monitors app performance, reviews analytics, and implements improvements based on real-time user data. Routine maintenance, version upgrades, and strategic enhancements protect revenue streams and customer satisfaction. Book a Call Our cases Featured eCommerce Projects Explore how our custom solutions empowered brands to expand their reach, boost revenue, and create lasting customer relationships Trestique Simplifying makeup routines Trestique redefines everyday makeup with a collection of simple, easy-to-use beauty essentials. Created by two beauty industry experts, the brand focuses on making routines faster and more convenient. JetRuby introduced referral and loyalty programs and added features for discount coupons, friend-invite bonuses, and newsletters. Transitioning from paid services to custom solutions also reduced the brand's operational costs. Read article Kuwait E-commerce Empowering online shopping with seamless service JetRuby developed a comprehensive eCommerce solution tailored for the Kuwaiti market. The platform supports the Arabic language, enables seamless online ordering, and integrates a dedicated customer service call center. This solution enhances the shopping experience by ensuring quick and reliable delivery while catering to the region’s specific needs. Read more Glowforge Enhancing tax calculation and cost management JetRuby partnered with GlowForge™, a leading manufacturer of 3D laser printers, known for running one of the most successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaigns. We integrated the Avatax API from scratch to automate tax calculations, implemented Landed Cost functionality to provide accurate total cost estimates for international orders, and developed a VAT calculation system to ensure compliance with global tax regulations. Read more E-commerce Platform Empowering global growth JetRuby partnered with a thriving e-commerce marketplace to migrate their entire ecosystem from Shopify to a custom-built platform. This solution supported multi-language and multi-currency features, handled millions of loyal customers, and ensured uninterrupted operations across hundreds of warehouses worldwide. The new platform manages high-traffic volumes and a vast product catalog while reducing operational costs and overcoming Shopify's limitations. This scalable and efficient system positioned the business for continued growth in global markets. Read more How we work eCommerce App Development Process Each stage refines your vision, technical requirements, and market rollout strategy for a highly targeted development process Step 1 Ideation The project team gathers core objectives, functional needs, and potential growth paths to form a clear project roadmap Step 2 Scoping Technical specialists identify user flows, architecture demands, and integration points, clarifying timelines and deliverables Step 3 Prototype Clickable prototypes validate app layouts, interaction patterns, and key elements before any major coding begins Step 4 UX/UI Design Visual designers and usability experts craft a brand-aligned interface that keeps users engaged and supports smooth navigation Step 5 Development & testing Skilled engineers implement features, APIs, and security measures while QA professionals conduct performance and functionality checks Step 6 Deployment The finalized build is prepared for launch. DevOps specialists handle server configurations, platform setups, and version releases Step 7 Maintenance Routine upkeep, analytics reviews, and iterative improvements safeguard stability and support ongoing business objectives We work with Hire a Top eCommerce Website Development Agency You Can Trust Our commitment to quality and innovation has helped startups, SMBs, and enterprises across various sectors streamline their operations, grow more quickly, deliver a faster time-to-market, and stay competitive in a changing business landscape FAQ How do your ecommerce development services align with our strategic goals? We work directly with you to tailor solutions that match your business objectives. What distinguishes your ecommerce web development company from others? We combine technical expertise with actionable insights to deliver solutions that fit your needs. How does your custom ecommerce development approach cater to unique business models? We design bespoke solutions that address your specific requirements and market demands. What benefits come with partnering with a Magento Ecommerce Development company like JetRuby? Our deep expertise in Magento helps build scalable and secure platforms for growing businesses. How do you manage timelines as an ecommerce app development company? We follow a structured process that keeps projects on schedule and meets your business targets. What post-launch support do you offer as an ecommerce website development agency? We provide ongoing maintenance and updates to keep your platform optimized and responsive. How does your approach as an e-commerce website development company guarantee quality? Our process includes rigorous testing and continuous improvements to maintain high standards. Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### BuildSourced Home Cases Engineering & Construction BuildSourced Engineering & Construction BuildSourced JetRuby built a user-friendly construction materials accounting system with full-text search and interactive maps to help contractors track equipment, manage suppliers, and control inventory from one platform Share Link copied! Technologies Leaflet, Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQLIndustry Engineering & ConstructionEngagement Model Managed DeliveryPlatform WebTeam 4 membersTimeline 4 months Overview BuildSourced (former name for Tenna) tracked mixed fleets on a unified platform, giving contractors more control over their operations. It provides visibility at every level, from individual machines to complete projects and the entire company. BuildSourced was a construction-focused total equipment management solution for contractors who own, operate, and maintain a construction equipment fleet. It tracked heavy machinery and its parts, mid-sized equipment, heavy trucks, fleet vehicles, and smaller items like tools, materials, and consumable inventory. Equipment Utilization Screen Our Work Project objectives The client needed to improve its systems for managing construction materials and suppliers. The goal was to develop a user-friendly interface for the construction materials accounting system. Another request was a new supplier search system that would help users easily find supplier information. During development, we discussed with the client the need for a full-text search and added the feature to the inventory system. This update lets users locate data faster. We integrated a Leaflet library so the system would show various elements on a map and allow users to filter them. As a result, managing construction materials and suppliers became easier and more effective. BuildSourced Platform Work Results & Business Outcomes Each feature was designed for the user so that contractors could concentrate on building. The system provides the right set of tools for monitoring equipment, ordering materials, or optimizing workloads. It helps make smarter decisions and achieve better results. Construction work can be planned and tracked from one easy-to-use interface. The system automates asset management for both individual and bulk assets and provides detailed information about their use and status. Users can monitor both company-owned and leased assets. The app allows ordering any missing materials immediately during any construction project phase. The system checks how much work each asset handles and groups similar assets. Users can easily manage the construction material inventory. GPS data shows asset locations on a map with updates in real time. All scheduled actions related to assets appear in one calendar view. The platform streamlines handling requests, maintenance orders, dispatching, labor resources, and more. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Productivity app development company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Custom Productivity App Development Company We provide productivity app development services that streamline workflows, help teams communicate better, and get more done daily Let's talk business We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Benefits Key Elements for a High-Performing Productivity App These features help users stay focused, feel supported, and keep a steady workflow Personalized experience Adapt content and offers to individual preferences to maintain a steady demand for popular items and keep popular items ready for quick restocking Hassle-free purchase options Present a simple checkout experience that removes confusion, prevents interruptions, and preserves willingness to buy User-friendly interface Provide a clean layout that welcomes exploration and encourages users to continue their journey to your brand without information overload Security Embed strong data protection measures that reinforce trust and safeguard personal details we offer Custom Productivity App Solutions for Every Team As a retail app development company, we create practical productivity apps that address real challenges and help people work better together and reach their goals faster Smart task trackers Organized checklists and to-do items keep goals & schedules visible and progress measurable. Everyone sees what’s next and feels confident about progress without missing key milestones. Book a Call Cloud-connected workspaces Centralized data storage supports easy access and consistent updates across multiple devices. Everyone can access the latest versions whenever they need them and edit files in real time from any device. Book a Call Multi-format collaboration apps Seamless multimedia uploads and quick file transfers encourage user engagement and flexible communication. Users share text, images, documents, and videos in a single space, and projects move faster. Book a Call Our cases Real Success Stories Explore examples of how our productivity solutions help companies boost team efficiency and grow stronger ScannerJam The scanning appThe scanning app provides accurate scanning, efficient document management to meet and exceed the client’s needs Read more How we work Our Productivity App Development Process We follow a clear roadmap to transform initial concepts into a fully deployed, optimized, market-ready product Step 1 Ideation We learn about your goals and user needs to shape a clear vision Step 2 Scoping Our experts define technical details, set milestones, and map out resources Step 3 Prototype Our experts build an interactive prototype that shows core features and confirms early assumptions Step 4 UX/UI Design We create intuitive layouts and appealing visuals that delight users Step 5 Development & testing Our engineers craft your app and check its performance on different devices Step 6 Deployment We launch the final product in your chosen environment so your team can start using it right away Step 7 Maintenance We provide ongoing support, improvements, and updates to keep your app running smoothly We work with Hire top Productivity software development agency you can trust Our commitment to quality and innovation has helped startups, SMBs, and enterprises across various sectors streamline their operations, grow more quickly, deliver a faster time-to-market, and stay competitive in a changing business landscape FAQ How long does a typical project take with a productivity app development company? We estimate a timeline based on complexity, desired features, and your business goals. Our project managers coordinate each phase transparently. What can a productivity app development agency do to ensure smooth integration with existing workflows? Our team evaluates current systems and proposes a plan that complements your processes without causing disruptions. Do your productivity app developers support customization for specific industry needs? Yes. We adapt functionality for unique use cases, so you receive a tailored solution rather than a product that is one-size-fits-all. How do productivity app development services handle scalability if user numbers grow rapidly? We plan for growth from day one. Our architecture choices sustain rising traffic and evolving data demands. Can productivity software development address compliance requirements in regulated sectors? We handle security measures and legal considerations thoroughly, and we ensure you meet mandatory guidelines. What should we prepare before contacting productivity app developers for a new project? Clear objectives, user requirements, and a rough feature list help our specialists offer accurate estimates and strategy suggestions. Does a productivity app development agency provide post-launch maintenance and updates? We remain available for improvements and technical support, and we respond to feedback to keep your app aligned with user expectations. ### NeptunusDetect Home Cases Engineering & Construction NeptunusDetect Engineering & Construction NeptunusDetect A water loss and leak detection app that helps users find and locate leaks, even small or hard-to-detect ones, anywhere in the water system Share Link copied! Technologies Rails 7, React, Leaflet, gcoord, Docker, AnsibleIndustry Engineering & ConstructionEngagement Model Custom Software DevelopmentPlatform WebTeam 7 membersTimeline 2.5 months Overview The client company, NeptunusDetect, is a global technology leader and innovator in intelligent water loss and leak detection technologies.  It’s a third-generation privately owned enterprise with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, and regional offices in Europe, North and Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Australia. They needed to adapt their leak detection app for the Chinese market to fit its special coordinate system standards.  The company decided to enter the Chinese market but faced significant challenges right away.  When their Chinese distributors placed some sensors, they found them located in a river. This was a major issue. Another problem was legal — to use map navigation software in China, the software and the company must be registered in China. Project challenges NeptunusDetect's previous pipeline monitoring app faced several notable challenges: Dependence on Google Maps: The app's reliance on Google Maps raised concerns, as heavy usage could potentially lead to restrictions by Chinese authorities. User Experience Issues: The app's limited data visualization and accessibility made it challenging for users to monitor water pipe incidents and review historical data. Localization Gaps: The app's lack of adequate support for the Chinese language reduced its usability for local users. Another obvious challenge was the Golden Shield Project, often called the "great firewall of China", an initiative managed by the Ministry of Public Security division of the Chinese government. It monitors and censors what can and cannot be seen through an online network in China. Access to popular services is limited, and traffic latency is very high, so the client needed a server in the country. The client approached us to help solve these problems. Our Work Our work with them included two stages: the Proof of Concept (PoC) and the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). In the PoC stage, we integrated the client’s API to test its compatibility with Chinese map providers.  Later on, we built a system that allowed the client to switch between different map providers easily. This let us pull data from the client's app and it was important for the client because each map provider displayed cities and towns differently. For example, one provider might show a small town in a location, while another might show a waste lot or land property. The prices of these providers also varied. At first, the client chose the free option with Open Street Map, but later, we switched to Baidu Map to better fit their needs. Overview of Chinese Providers So, our first objective was to review Chinese map providers. We were looking for a solution that would comply with legal requirements and ensure that the data was highly accurate and up to date.  We needed to choose the right map provider to adapt our app to the Chinese market. Each provider has its own features and challenges, so this choice was important for a further smooth transition into the Chinese geolocation environment.We focused on several main Chinese map providers: Gaode (Amap): Offers detailed and extensive coverage of China. Tencent Maps: Provides unique mapping solutions popular in local apps. GeoQ: Great for visualization and analytical tasks. Baidu Map: One of the most popular maps in China, known for accuracy and updates. The Chinese version of Google Maps: Adapted to meet local legal rules. OpenStreetMap: An open-source map data used in the Chinese market. And others. We chose a combination of Leaflet and React libraries to combine map providers in a single application and compare them without dealing with each provider's APIs.  Leaflet is a lightweight but powerful library for creating interactive maps, while React is ideal for building dynamic user interfaces. We used the Leaflet.ChineseTmsProviders repository to simplify the integration of various Chinese map providers.  This tool provided us with ready-made configurations for various Chinese map providers, significantly speeding up the map development and integration process. It also allowed us to test about eight map providers quickly. Solving the Data Mismatch Mystery After carefully setting up the app using Chinese map providers, we were convinced that everything would work perfectly.  But the reality was different. The data coming from the clients was still displayed incorrectly. So, we needed to find out what had gone wrong. The answer was in the coordinates system. As it turned out, China has its unique coordinate system standards and map datum. An international standard is WGS-84 (Earth coordinates) or World Geodetic System, where 84 is the latest revision of this standard applied in 1984.  Chinese regulators require approved map services to use standard GCJ-02.  GCJ-02 is based on WGS-84 and uses an obfuscation algorithm, adding random offsets to the latitude and longitude to improve national security. If the WGS-84 point is placed on the GCJ-02 map, the average location offset will be about 300-500m.  Baidu, one of the licensed base maps in China, implemented yet another abstraction, adding further obfuscation to GCJ-02.  It's called BD-09 (Baidu, formulated in 2009). The primary purpose was to protect Baidu's data so competitors couldn't easily duplicate it. Baidu has internal tools to shift between the three coordinate systems, but it only made GCJ-02 to BD-09 public to encourage using their standard for tiles, search coordinates, etc. Gcoord Library To solve this problem, we used the gcoord library, which provides a simple and efficient way to convert coordinates between different systems. This solution allowed us to adapt the data from the clients to the unique Chinese coordinate systems, thus ensuring an accurate and correct display of geospatial information in the app. Key improvements The JetRuby team has developed a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that leverages advanced technology and a user-friendly design to tackle key challenges: China Cloud Service with Map Switching: A local OpenStreetMap (OSM) server reduces censorship risks and allows easy switching between OSM and Baidu Maps. User Interface & Data Tables: The login page has been redesigned for better reliability, and new interactive data tables enhance search and sorting with the client’s APIs. Real-Time Pipeline Visualization: Pipeline overlays on maps update in real time based on project IDs, making navigation easier. Water Incidents Tracking & Historical Data: Users can track water pipe events and filter past data with a date picker for better monitoring and decision-making. Language and Usability: English and Chinese interfaces with an easy language switch, plus hover-over map icons for quick info on events and locations. Business outcomes Our team developed NeptunusDetect's MVP, which offered a simple and flexible solution that met China's specific rules and needs. Here are the main benefits:A strong map-switching feature kept services running, even when regulations could change.Users could see real-time data and past information, which made managing pipelines more efficient.Upgrades in language and design provided a smooth experience for both English and Chinese speakers.JetRuby helped NeptunusDetect develop an MVP, paving the way for better pipeline management around the world. We’ve once again proved that success on a global scale requires adaptability and continuous learning. This project reinforced the value of flexible thinking, openness to new ideas, and strong teamwork. We hope that our experience will serve as a useful lesson and inspiration for other developers seeking to overcome borders and adapt their products for a global audience. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Retail App Development Services Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating On-demand Retail App Development Services As a retail store owner, you have many things to worry about, starting with sales and ending with marketing. JetRuby, a leading retail app development company, will simplify your life and allow you to reach your customers wherever they are Let’s talk business We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Benefits from a business perspective Benefits of Custom Retail and eCommerce App Development Unlock unmatched opportunities to optimize your retail operations and achieve measurable results with our web and mobile app development for retail business Conversion Rate Growth Create AI-driven shopping journeys with personalized offers, tailored promotions, and seamless checkouts that turn casual visitors into loyal clients and motivate them to complete purchases Supply Chain Management Minimize costs & delays and enhance supply chain efficiency with integrated real-time inventory tracking, automated order processing, and optimized logistics Customer Behavior Analysis Leverage advanced data analytics to predict future demands, uncover purchasing patterns & customer preferences, and tailor your offerings to meet customer needs Increasing the Number of Consumers Expand your reach with intuitive, feature-rich, and user-focused apps that attract new customers and retain existing ones, and help you build lasting brand engagement with increased revenue streams we offer Client-first Retail Mobile App Development Services We design web and mobile retail software with must-have features that enhance user satisfaction and loyalty Personalized experience Customers enjoy tailored product recommendations, dynamic pricing options, purchase history, and exclusive offers aligned with their preferences Book a Call Built with security in mind Secure payment gateways, encryption protocols, multi-factor authentication, and real-time fraud prevention systems ensure customers feel safe while shopping Book a Call User-friendly interface Easy-to-navigate menus, simple layouts, quick-loading pages, predictive search, and effortless checkout workflows reduce frustration and keep customers engaged Book a Call Omnichannel enterprise support Reliable customer support ensures users receive assistance whenever needed. Features like live chat, FAQs, and issue resolution tracking boost user confidence in your app Book a Call Our cases Retail and eCommerce Mobile App Development Agency Delivering Proven Success Explore our proven track record of delivering innovative retail app solutions Trestique Simplifying makeup routines Trestique redefines everyday makeup with a collection of simple, easy-to-use beauty essentials. Created by two beauty industry experts, the brand focuses on making routines faster and more convenient. JetRuby introduced referral and loyalty programs and added features for discount coupons, friend-invite bonuses, and newsletters. Transitioning from paid services to custom solutions also reduced the brand's operational costs. Read article Kuwait E-commerce Grocery shopping made easier Kuwait E-commerce connects shoppers with local retailers, offering a wide range of groceries and household items through a user-friendly app. Designed for both e-commerce and retail, it opens new business opportunities for local suppliers. JetRuby helped develop a complete digital solution, including an admin panel, user-friendly interfaces, and vendor options, setting the foundation for a reliable logistics process and supporting the app’s goal to lead Kuwait’s online grocery market. These updates made the platform more efficient, cost-effective, and user-friendly. Read more Glowforge Streamlining 3D printing sales Glowforge, known for its sleek 3D printers, partnered with JetRuby to create an e-commerce platform that boosted brand visibility and simplified sales. . We redesigned the logo and user interface, optimized app interactions, and improved e-commerce, logistics, and accounting integrations. Connecting the app to the Avalara tax service made international transactions smoother while automating routines reduced manual tasks for employees Read more E-commerce Platform Empowering global growth JetRuby partnered with a thriving e-commerce marketplace to migrate their entire ecosystem from Shopify to a custom-built platform. This solution supported multi-language and multi-currency features, handled millions of loyal customers, and ensured uninterrupted operations across hundreds of warehouses worldwide. The new platform manages high-traffic volumes and a vast product catalog while reducing operational costs and overcoming Shopify's limitations. This scalable and efficient system positioned the business for continued growth in global markets. Read more How we work Outsource Retail App Development Process Tailored to Your Needs Each stage of our retail application development process prioritizes transparency, collaboration, and efficiency Step 1 Ideation We begin by understanding your business goals, identifying challenges, and exploring opportunities Step 2 Scoping We map out detailed project requirements and timelines to align expectations and set a clear direction Step 3 Prototype Our experts develop a functional prototype to test key concepts and gather early feedback Step 4 UX/UI design We focus on usability and aesthetics to create an engaging and intuitive user experience Step 5 Development & testing Our specialists develop retail apps using robust technologies, followed by extensive testing to guarantee high performance and reliability Step 6 Deployment We launch your web or mobile app for retail business seamlessly on the platforms of your choice, ready to engage users Step 7 Maintenance Continuous monitoring and updates ensure your retail store app evolves with your business and market trends We work with Hire a Top Retail Mobile App Development Company in the USA You Can Trust Our commitment to quality and innovation has helped startups, SMBs, and enterprises across various sectors streamline their operations, grow more quickly, deliver a faster time-to-market, and stay competitive in a changing business landscape FAQ What makes custom retail app development the right choice for my business? Custom retail app development allows us to design solutions tailored to your unique business goals, customer needs, and market trends. This ensures your retail app stands out and delivers maximum value to your users. How is the retail app development cost determined? The cost depends on several factors, including the app’s complexity, required features, integration needs, and design requirements. We’ll work with you to define a budget and scope that aligns with your business priorities. How can shopping mobile app development help increase my sales? Shopping mobile apps simplify purchasing, offer personalized recommendations, and keep users engaged with loyalty programs and push notifications, driving repeat purchases and higher revenue. Do you provide retail app development for startups? Yes, we specialize in helping startups bring their app ideas to life. We offer scalable solutions that fit your budget while preparing your app for future growth and market demands. What does a retail & eCommerce app development specialist offer that general developers don’t? A retail & eCommerce app development specialist understands the specific challenges and trends in the industry, like customer behavior, supply chain intricacies, and secure payment processes. This expertise ensures a seamless, high-performing app. Do you handle both retail and eCommerce app development? Yes. Whether your focus is on retail or broader eCommerce platforms, we create apps tailored to your needs, from inventory management to enhancing the customer journey. Can you assist with web app development for retail alongside mobile apps? Yes, we can develop web apps to strengthen your mobile retail solution or vice versa. This allows for a consistent user experience across all platforms and helps you reach a broader audience. Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Healthcare Practice Management Home Cases Healthcare Healthcare Practice Management healthcare Healthcare Practice Management Simplifying the work of doctors Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby, Node.js, ReactIndustry HealthcareEngagement Model Managed DeliveryPlatform WebTeam 8 membersTimeline January 2019 - now The client The constant need to simplify and automate the processes that every employee got sick of became a huge deal. And a healthcare industry is not an exception, as it began to turn the innovation wheels actively. This time our client came from the USA with the request to implement something very peculiar.He wanted to create a healthcare management platform that would allow a series of private hospitals to schedule their patients' appointments for free, with some additional advanced features at a premium. What made the development challenge for this application so unique? It was about the automation of basic routines and cutting the number of employees required to schedule an appointment with patients. The final product of the client — the tool for dealing with everyday tasks — must be super easy and beneficial for its end-user. The Challenges The major challenge was formulated by the business founder. Since the central value and purpose of the application would be to set up various appointments with doctors and hospitals, the client asked for an Athena EMR integration. To break it down, this software is a cloud solution, created as a healthcare booking portal with lots of expert services, designed for private hospitals.The application itself has to be appropriately managed, as there is lots of sensitive and confidential information. So one of the core requirements highlighted from our and the client's side was integrating and building an administrative panel. In addition, it had to be integrated with the Athena EMR.As with any other application developed for the medical industry, a core and essential requirement would be to follow HIPAA regulations. However, this time, the principal regulations were determined by the PHI (Patient Health Information) guidelines.Last but not least, setting up chat support for multiple team care members was another thing to do. A support chat for a hospital app is essential for tackling any issues, arising on both technical and medical ends. This function should be implemented on a secure messaging platform with a clinical care coordinator and care team.Having the entire “to-do” list in place, our team has turned to the active development phase. The Implementation First, we listened to the client's wishes and requirements and decided to conduct the Design and Discovery Phase. The reasoning is pretty simple, as the client had core business goals and a concrete development plan, the marketing part was missing. Branding, app UI/UX design concept, the very first prototype — obviously, all of this had to be done before the main MVP phase is launched. Reason? To avoid any unexpected issues and move in the right development direction conceptualized by the client. As our team passed this phase and all of the uncertainties were cleared out, it was time to launch the MVP. The first thing that was put on the line is the integration of Athena EMR with its core backend. It provided the app with a dynamic and automated scheduling system. Main functions enjoyed by the user in this app were: book various appointments by their type before opening hours, collect all confidential information on patients in a safe manner, and cancel reservations by paying special fees.After we implemented the core list of functionalities, we started to focus on the administrative panel. Although this part of any platform or app may seem relatively easy to implement, we have approached it with carefulness in our case. Our team has specifically worked to introduce the management of an appointment, user and waiting lists, CMS with the breakdown by appointment types, also featuring descriptions, and information required to make a scheduling.During the integration of the Athena EMR and active development of the administrative platform, our team paid close attention to compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in regards to PHI. We have set limited access and controls for the hospital facility members to restrict any potential leaks of sensitive information. To take care of regulation of access to the patient’s data in the future, we also added additional restrictions for transferring, removing, or re-using any electronic PHI. Finally, we implemented some policies for utilizing the workstations where the application is going to be used.Like any other application targeting a special segment of a large market, this app experienced an essential demand in chat functionality. However, this app was different from a typical app equipped with chat support. Next to it, we’ve enabled the upload and submission of HIPAA-compliant documents within the storage system. And, for sure, another important step was to implement task management along with team tagging. This was done to simplify the document exchange between groups of people assisting with inquiries. Business Results Ankira is currently running in more than six clinics across America. Over 200 medical experts have registered on this platform and actively interact with patients. Its current business model is based on the paid membership of medical institutions, where this app is used.The application goes through frequent and intensive tests run by our QA team in regard to new functionalities, such as video meetings with medical specialists, automated appointment reminders, and automated eligibility checks.The program is successfully launched on hundreds of medical workstations and is distributed in new private clinics. JetRuby Agency coded quickly and delivered with ease a very functional and thoughtful solution that internal stakeholders are eager to bring to market. The team is personable, responsive, and attentive, fostering a seamless and mutually beneficial collaboration. Their services are reasonably priced. Michael C., Chief Executive Officer Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Free Product Development Strategy Session Your Product's Success Starts Here – For Free Turn your idea into a strategic roadmap with our complimentary Product Development Strategy Session Book a call The choice for 200+ companies About PDS What is a Product Development Strategy Session? It’s a 1-hour long meeting with a Business Analyst of JetRuby that’s focused on getting a helicopter view of your product idea.Based on the information obtained from the PDS, we will take a small pause to analyze everything and devise a plan for the initial stages of your product implementation. Benefits Why do you need a Product Development Strategy Session? Aligned Product Vision Clearly define goals and objectives for a unified direction Prioritized MVP Features Focus on the features that matter most to users and your business Precise Project Plan Receive a detailed, actionable plan for seamless execution Scalable Architecture Planning Prepare your product to grow beyond its MVP Budget Clarity Understand the financial investment required for your MVP 1 Hour Can Define Your Product’s Future Request a Free PDS Session Why choose us Why Choose JetRuby Over the past 15 years, we’ve built hundreds of successful software solutions for companies from various domains. With over 250 satisfied customers and several “Unicorns” among them, we’ve developed a unique approach, allowing us to streamline gathering business requirements and transform them into actionable product development steps. Whether you are a newborn startup or a sustainable company that has decided to launch a new product, our Business Analysts will carefully collect your ideas, revise them, and meticulously plan your future product development strategy. All you have to do after – is follow this plan and execute the proposed steps so the result will come up in time. Learn more 30% Annual growth 15 Years on the market 250+ Satisfied customers 3 “Unicorns” 30% Senior+ level 8 Development centers How It Works Start Your Project Revision «I need this PDS session» you say, but what's next? Here are your next steps before the session Request a PDS session Step 1 Submit the Form Share your product idea and key information Step 2 Introductory Call Align your vision with our experts in a brief discussion. Step 3 NDA Execution Protect your ideas with a confidentiality agreement Step 4 PDS Session Scheduling Book your one-hour strategy session at your convenience Don’t Miss This Opportunity – Claim Your Free PDS Session Today! Book a call Services Designed for Every Industry Whether you’re scaling an established digital product or building an internal innovation, our PDS session helps you overcome challenges, meet deadlines, and achieve your goals AgriTech Retail & E-commerce HealthTech Fintech Logistics EdTech & E-learning Open more Software Development Human Resources Outstaffing SaaS Productivity Fitness Travel Real Estate Food delivery Social Media Event Services Taxi booking reviews Trusted by Industry Leaders Worldwide Carol HenckelPresident, MTG Healthcare AcademyTheir responsiveness, flexibility, and commitment to our needs made them a pleasure to work with! JetRuby Agency's work led to a 35% increase in user engagement, a 25% increase in course completion rates, a 15% increase in revenue, and a 20% decrease in user acquisition costs. The app also received a 4.5 rating on the app store. Moreover, the team was timely, organized, and responsive. FounderSoftware Development CompanyJetRuby Agency is one of the best agencies I've worked with. They're extremely professional. JetRuby Agency has delivered a high-quality MVP. Equipped with a methodical approach, they deliver on time and within the budget. They communicate and collaborate effectively with the client, allowing for a seamless workflow. Their tendency to exceed expectations ensures a long-term partnership. Rodrigo Pereyra business field manager at OsramThey go out of their way to work and engage with the customer. The work completed by JetRuby was excellent, with the team handling the expanded scope professionally and producing high-quality deliverables. They were an engaged, committed team that worked hard to accomplish all tasks on time and by high standards. Jan Nowikov CEO, Help My TaskI give them a 10/10 for what we’ve done together. JetRuby Agency coded quickly and delivered with ease a very functional and thoughtful solution that internal stakeholders are eager to bring to market. The team is personable, responsive, and attentive, fostering a seamless and mutually beneficial collaboration. Their services are reasonably priced. Steffi M. AVP - Tech, Handelnine GlobalWe are very happy with the project management, project execution, software quality, and accountability. The engagement was successful; the site is currently live and completely functional. JetRuby Agency managed the project well using the Agile methodology; they were responsive and delivered items on time. Jack Green CTO, NameCoachTheir team provides notes and questions our ideas to make our products better. JetRuby Agency dedicated capable resources that produced satisfying deliverables to facilitated growth into new business verticals. The team communicates clearly, which enables effective collaboration. Informed by a wealth of experience, they offer valuable insights that encourage improvements. Shai Rozen CTO, ShiurimMost of the positive feedback has been regarding the new features and improvements. The product is performing well in the market, receiving over 2,000 downloads in its first few days. All feedback regarding JetRuby Agency’s work and skilled expertise has been positive. Their responsive approach complemented their quick workflow. Chase Tasca Founder, Web App Dev for Startup HVAC Technicians PlatformThey put a lot of effort into making sure that everything works to my satisfaction. Brimming with technical expertise and the desire to help their client succeed, JetRuby Agency has delivered quality design deliverables that have strikingly mirrored their client's ideas. Transparent and customer-oriented, they provide reliable estimates to bring their requirements to fruition. Brandyn Morelli Co-Founder, hellocecilWe’ve worked with a lot of other firms, and JetRuby agency is one of the best. Not only is JetRuby Agency great at what they do, they also charge a fair price. The team is responsive and communicative, holding weekly meetings to keep everyone updated. They use various means of communication and have some of the best project management in their field. Julian Safford Co-Founder, Moments Inc.I am happy with how they adjust their approach to appeal to as a customer. JetRuby's exceptional value sets them above competitors. Showing a genuine interest in the product, their team listens closely to feedback and maintains a thorough understanding of the business. Their ability to create optimal solutions to sustain a lower budget is impressive. David Bankston CEO, Sparksfly Technologies, Inc.They are very good at listening and working with your timeframes. We have some amazing people on our team. The client receives over four million transactions per year and they have had no problems. They attribute part of this to the development work that JetRuby Agency provided. Tom Klein Founder, Suggest ItI’m impressed by their ability to meet those changes on very short notice while keeping with deadlines. The client is particularly happy with the quality of the projects that JetRuby has worked on - specifically the quality of the code. They manage communication between teams very well and meet all deadlines set for them. Dhanush Balachandran CEO, SortlyThey are experts in Ruby. The client has received great reviews from users of the new site. Along with the high reviews, the client is experiencing their highest level of revenue. They have appreciated the agency's knowledge and skill surrounding Ruby on Rails and their willingness to make improvements where necessary. ### Thank you page Thank you for your interest Back to Home ### Free Code Audit Secure & Optimize Your Software with Our Free Code Audit Ensure your software is secure, efficient, and scalable. Our Free Code Audit will help you elevate your codebase and drive business success Request Audit The choice for 200+ companies WHAT YOU GET 3-in-1 Code Audit Service A detailed evaluation of code structure, performance, & security Insights into potential risks & technical debt Customized recommendations for optimization Even The Greatest Project Needs a Review The Second Opinion is a good option not only in healthcare – sometimes even overall good software projects need external evaluation, and we are here to help Get Code Review JETRUBY APPROACH What We Evaluate in Your Codebase Our Code Audit provides a deep understanding of your software's current state, helping us identify and address critical issues Library & Framework Updates Verification of whether your libraries and frameworks are current or need upgrading. 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Comprehensive Analysis Our experienced developers meticulously review your codebase using industry-leading tools and methodologies to identify vulnerabilities, inefficiencies, and scalability issues Actionable Recommendations Receive a detailed Code Audit Report with practical solutions tailored to your business needs Seamless Transition After the audit, our team can take over and implement the recommended enhancements, ensuring continuous progress Fast Turnaround The audit is completed within 3 to 5 business days after signing an NDA, providing you with timely insights to act on immediately Order a Code Audit Today Don't postpone Code Audit until it's too late. Request a deep evaluation of your project's codebase by our seasoned specialists today to start enhancing your product's future Order Audit How It Works Book You Free Code Audit Take the First Step Toward Better Software and Long-Term Growth Start Now Step 1 Sign an NDA We prioritize your confidentiality and intellectual property.In-Depth Code Review: Our experts conduct a thorough analysis of your codebase Step 2 In-Depth Code Review Our experts conduct a thorough analysis of your codebase Step 3 Report Presentation As soon as the report is finished – we’ll arrange a meeting to present it, and after the presentation – share it with you via email Step 4 Next Steps Meet with our team to discuss implementation and support options ### JetRuby 2025 Winter Sale Supercharge Your Team This Winter – Limited - Time Offer! Accelerate your projects with Senior-level developers at exclusive discounts. Act now – the offer ends March 31, 2025! Claim Your Offer Today The choice for 200+ companies Benefits The Perfect Fit for Your Development Needs Rapid Staffing Get started in as little as 1 week Exclusive Discounts Save up to 35% on dedicated teams or 25% on individual hires Proven Expertise Mastery in Ruby on Rails, Java, Swift, Kotlin, and React Seamless Integration Developers who adapt quickly to your workflows our offer Tailored Offers to Fit Your Goals Dedicated Team Includes: 3 Senior-level developers + 1 QA engineer Save: 35% off standard rates Staffing Time: 2 weeks Commitment: 6 months or longer Tech Stack: Ruby on Rails, Java, Swift, Kotlin, React Get Your Team Started Now Individual Developer Includes: 1 Senior-level developer Save: 25% off standard rates Staffing Time: 1 week Commitment: 2 months or longer Tech Stack: Ruby on Rails, Java, Swift, Kotlin, React Hire A Single Developer reviews What Our Clients Say Rodrigo Pereyra / business field manager at OsramThey go out of their way to work and engage with the customer. The work completed by JetRuby was excellent, with the team handling the expanded scope professionally and producing high-quality deliverables. They were an engaged, committed team that worked hard to accomplish all tasks on time and by high standards. Jan Nowikov / CEO, Help My TaskI give them a 10/10 for what we’ve done together. JetRuby Agency coded quickly and delivered with ease a very functional and thoughtful solution that internal stakeholders are eager to bring to market. The team is personable, responsive, and attentive, fostering a seamless and mutually beneficial collaboration. Their services are reasonably priced. Steffi M. / AVP - Tech, Handelnine GlobalWe are very happy with the project management, project execution, software quality, and accountability. The engagement was successful; the site is currently live and completely functional. JetRuby Agency managed the project well using the Agile methodology; they were responsive and delivered items on time. The client also highlighted the team's skilled developers, turnaround time, and accountability.  Jack Green / CTO, NameCoachTheir team provides notes and questions our ideas to make our products better. JetRuby Agency dedicated capable resources that produced satisfying deliverables to facilitated growth into new business verticals. The team communicates clearly, which enables effective collaboration. Informed by a wealth of experience, they offer valuable insights that encourage improvements. Shai Rozen / CTO, ShiurimMost of the positive feedback has been regarding the new features and improvements. The product is performing well in the market, receiving over 2,000 downloads in its first few days. All feedback regarding JetRuby Agency’s work and skilled expertise has been positive. Their responsive approach complemented their quick workflow. Chase Tasca / Founder, Web App Dev for Startup HVAC Technicians PlatformThey put a lot of effort into making sure that everything works to my satisfaction. Brimming with technical expertise and the desire to help their client succeed, JetRuby Agency has delivered quality design deliverables that have strikingly mirrored their client's ideas. Transparent and customer-oriented, they provide reliable estimates to bring their requirements to fruition. Brandyn Morelli / Co-Founder, hellocecilWe’ve worked with a lot of other firms, and JetRuby agency is one of the best. Not only is JetRuby Agency great at what they do, they also charge a fair price. The team is responsive and communicative, holding weekly meetings to keep everyone updated. They use various means of communication and have some of the best project management in their field. Walo Fenton / Founder, Slick StudioThe project was so good that we decided to scale the platform and share it with the world. The platform’s success has created new growth opportunities. The team is communicative, efficient, and effective. Julian Safford / Co-Founder, Moments Inc.I am happy with how they adjust their approach to appeal to as a customer. JetRuby's exceptional value sets them above competitors. Showing a genuine interest in the product, their team listens closely to feedback and maintains a thorough understanding of the business. Their ability to create optimal solutions to sustain a lower budget is impressive. David Bankston / CEO, Sparksfly Technologies, Inc.They are very good at listening and working with your timeframes. We have some amazing people on our team. The client receives over four million transactions per year and they have had no problems. They attribute part of this to the development work that JetRuby Agency provided. They particularly appreciated their ability to listen and work within the timelines the client provided. Tom Klein / Founder, Suggest ItI’m impressed by their ability to meet those changes on very short notice while keeping with deadlines. The client is particularly happy with the quality of the projects that JetRuby has worked on - specifically the quality of the code. They manage communication between teams very well and meet all deadlines set for them. Dhanush Balachandran / CEO, SortlyThey are experts in Ruby. The client has received great reviews from users of the new site. Along with the high reviews, the client is experiencing their highest level of revenue. They have appreciated the agency's knowledge and skill surrounding Ruby on Rails and their willingness to make improvements where necessary. Hire Best Software Engineers Don't look further – hire a single seasoned software developer, or a dedicated team with a chilling discount Start Your Success Story Services Helping Leading Industries Scale Faster AgriTech Retail & E-commerce HealthTech Fintech Logistics EdTech & E-learning Open more Software Development Human Resources Outstaffing SaaS Productivity Fitness Travel Real Estate Food delivery Social Media Event Services Taxi booking March, 2025 Limited-Time Offer – Secure Your Discount Today! This Winter Special expires on March 31, 2025. Don’t miss the chance to build your dream team at unmatched rates Contact Us for Details Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Logistics Software Development Company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Logistics Software Development Company Transform your supply chain and streamline operations with our custom logistics software development services that deliver efficiency, cost savings, and real-time visibility for your business Let’s talk We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Benefits from a business perspective Actionable Benefits of JetRuby’s Logistics Software Development Services Equip your business with real-time data and intelligent automation for faster, more informed decisions and smoother transportation and logistics processes Supply chain transparency Gain full visibility into your logistics process through ERP systems, track-and-trace tools, and real-time monitoring solutions Data-driven insights Leverage analytics and business intelligence platforms to uncover insights, adjust strategies, and forecast demand accurately Cost savings Save costs with automated workflows, optimized workforce allocation, and smart delivery route planning for reduced fuel expenses Efficient operations Automate routine tasks and optimize on-the-ground operations using advanced tools like RPA and robotics Enhanced customer service Provide real-time shipment updates, personalized service options, and instant chatbot assistance Seamless integrations Connect your logistics app seamlessly with existing ERP, CRM, TMS, and WMS platforms for smooth and uninterrupted workflows. Welcome to 2025 Logistics Tech Trends and Predictions by JetRuby Dive into our free eBook for the latest Logistics industry insights and expert analysis. Learn how real-time tracking, AI-driven route optimization, warehouse automation, and advanced transportation management software help cut costs, improve fleet efficiency, and enhance supply chain visibility. Get Industry Forecast Must-have features Unlock the Full Potential of Your Business With Our Logistics App Development Services Transport and logistics software solutions crafted to enhance productivity and ease logistics management demands Driver location tracking Real-time driver location tracking provides full visibility into delivery progress and helps locate nearby service centers in case of a breakdown Book a Call Nearest gas station finder Finding the nearest gas stations with the best fuel prices minimizes fuel expenses and improves logistics efficiency Book a Call Route optimization Intelligent routing that avoids traffic jams, roadblocks, and delays to maximize delivery speed Book a Call Driver and vehicle management Driver behavior monitoring like harsh acceleration or braking, prevents excess wear, reduces maintenance costs, and enhances vehicle safety. Book a Call Merchants real-rime notifications Automatic mobile notifications on delivery statuses to keep logistics operations updated without the need for phone calls. Book a Call Our cases Featured transportation & logistics software solutions Proof that the right software can turn logistics chaos into success ANOVA Smart home heating solutionANOVA is an IoT-based system that connects homeowners with fuel distributors. Its advanced sensors and algorithms notify users when fuel levels drop. This ensures reliable deliveries and makes home heating oil easier to manage for everyone involved. Read more How we work Our Custom Logistics Software Development Process Every step in our process is designed to bring your vision to life and create the best logistics software solution you require Step 1 Ideation We discuss your logistics needs, identify goals, and shape a clear vision for your custom logistics app Step 2 Scoping We define the project scope and plan the key features to address your core business requirements Step 3 Prototype Our experts craft a prototype to bring your vision to life and get early feedback, so you can see the direction before development begins Step 4 UX/UI Design Our designers create a user-friendly interface to ensure your web solution or logistics mobile app feels intuitive and supports seamless navigation Step 5 Development & testing Our team builds and tests the logistics application to ensure everything works smoothly and is tailored to your business requirements Step 6 Deployment Once the app is ready, our logistics software developers help you deploy and integrate it smoothly with your existing systems Step 7 Maintenance We offer ongoing support to ensure your transportation & logistics software solution stays updated, secure, and functional We work with Custom Logistics Software Development Company You Can Trust These brands have chosen us for our commitment to quality and innovation FAQ How can logistics software development solutions help my company reduce operational costs? Custom logistics software can automate tasks like order processing, fleet tracking, and warehouse management, minimizing errors and improving efficiency. What types of software solutions can you customize for logistics and supply chain management? We build tracking software, transportation management systems, order management tools, and warehouse management software. Can you integrate existing systems into your transportation and logistics software development projects? Yes, our software developers ensure seamless integration with your current systems, such as ERP or CRM platforms, throughout the development process to streamline your logistics operations. How does fleet management software development improve logistics performance? Fleet management software tracks vehicles in real time, optimizes routes, and schedules maintenance services to keep operations running smoothly and efficiently. Do you provide logistics mobile app development services? Yes! Mobile app development is one of our key services. Our mobile apps help logistics and transportation companies with real-time tracking, order management, and driver communication. What challenges of the logistics landscape can your custom solutions address? We design software to tackle challenges like unreliable tracking systems, manual data entry errors, and lack of real-time visibility. Can logistics and transportation software solutions scale with my growing business? Yes, our software development process ensures scalability. Whether you’re expanding your fleet, adding warehouses, or growing your supply chain, our custom logistics software solutions adapt to your needs. How do you ensure reliability throughout the logistics software development process? We follow a structured software development process, including testing, deployment, and ongoing maintenance services, to deliver reliable logistics and transport software solutions. What makes your transportation software development services different from others? Our deep domain expertise in logistics and a modern tech stack ensure we create unique logistics software tailored to your needs. How do maintenance services keep my logistics software performing optimally? Our maintenance services include updates, performance monitoring, and troubleshooting. ### GeneWise Health Home Cases Healthcare GeneWise Health Healthcare GeneWise Health GeneWise Health, an in-house genetics laboratory helping people manage disease risks with genetic testing and personalized health plans, in need of a major upgrade to meet a rigorous data security standard. Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on RailsIndustry HealthcareEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WebTeam 9 membersTimeline 6 months Overview JetRuby Agency has undertaken several demanding projects across various industries. In the healthcare sector, we worked with GeneWise Health, an in-house genetics laboratory offering proprietary clinical assays and analytical software. GeneWise Health has been helping people manage disease risks for over two decades with genetic testing and personalized health plans. Recently acquired by GenovaCare, a precision health management company serving the insurance and life science industries, GeneWise Health required SOC 2 compliance, a rigorous standard for data security essential in healthcare technology. Project Objectives GeneWise Health’s core application, developed on Ruby on Rails nearly twenty years ago, needed substantial modernization to reduce complexity, streamline functionality, and strengthen security. Limited test coverage increased the risk of hidden issues during updates, making compliance harder. Since the software was for genetic lab testing, there was no room for errors. Upgrades had to be 100% ready and secure from the moment they went live. The primary objectives of the project were: Upgrade the legacy Ruby on Rails framework from version 3.2.22.5 to 7.1.3.2 to enhance overall performance and enable compatibility with modern technologies. Implement robust security measures to meet SOC 1 standards first and to set up SOC 2 compliance in the future to protect sensitive genetic data and comply with healthcare regulations. Increase the existing test coverage to ensure stability and reliability during and after the upgrade, minimizing the risk of undetected issues. We have partially set up the cloud environment and hope to continue in Q2 2025. During the process, we found unused code that needed removal and streamlined the existing codebase to improve maintainability, reduce technical debt, and enhance system efficiency. We also realized that beyond the initial objectives, we ultimately had to leave our client with a modern, lean system that would allow them to integrate future updates and stay compliant seamlessly. Tech Stack JetRuby’s team stepped in to create a foundation supporting GeneWise Health’s long-term growth under GenovaCare. GeneWise Health’s platform is built on a custom Ruby on Rails (RoR) framework. Our team used the following tech stack: Primary Framework: Ruby on Rails (upgraded from 3.2.22.5 to 7.1.3.2) Programming Language: Ruby (upgraded through versions 2.3.7 to 3.3.1) Deployment Tools: Kamal 2 and Thruster Proxy Security Tools: 1Password, Bitwarden, LastPass Additional Technologies: SQLite for Solid Adapters (Solid Cable, Solid Cache, Solid Queue), Propshaft for asset management Our Work Initially, the team had one Lead Developer and two Middle developers.  When the most technically demanding portion of the update was complete, we rotated our Lead for a Senior developer to help structure refactoring efforts at an optimized cost.  A developer from GeneWise Health also worked closely with us, improving communication and speeding up our progress. The project started with a three-month plan to upgrade Ruby on Rails from version 3.2.22.5 to 7.x.  Early on, the team found a lot of unused code that made initial test coverage estimates unreliable. However, JetRuby finished the upgrade on time by following these steps: Step 1 Standardized the code format, secured file permissions, and cleaned up the repository by removing unused directories. They also improved test coverage with more unit tests Step 2 Upgraded Ruby and Rails incrementally through several versions, replaced outdated functions with modern ones and switched to strong parameters for better security Step 3 Refactored the code to remove instance variables from views, made sure coding standards were consistent with RuboCop, and secured secrets by moving them to environment variablesThe solution required further improvements, so we extended the project by three more months to focus on refactoring, cleanup, and live testing. This extra time allowed us to focus on cleaning up the code and testing it in real-life conditions. The team prioritized data security and added new network and application firewalls to protect against unauthorized access and threats. We also added two-factor authentication (2FA) to protect user accounts and implemented intrusion detection systems (IDS) to spot suspicious activities immediately. During this extended period, the JetRuby team worked hard to refactor the code. We kept all existing features functional while improving efficiency and reducing 20 years of technical debt. Our team also set up monitoring systems using New Relic and Logstash to track system uptime, check data accuracy, and strengthen access controls for sensitive genetic information. These efforts created a secure, efficient, reliable platform for GeneWise Health’s growth and compliance. Future Perspectives As we upgraded the GeneWise Health Ruby on Rails (RoR) environment to the latest versions, we can build on what we learned during this project. Using our knowledge of GeneWise Health systems, we can improve the platform effectively and cost-efficiently with a streamlined team. Upcoming tasks include detailed code analysis, configuration assessment, and advanced code reviews to maintain system strength and manage complexity. There will be a focus on maintaining and improving test coverage to achieve SOC 1 and SOC 2 certifications, with one engineer leading this effort alongside ongoing code updates. After refactoring, the infrastructure will be updated to enhance performance and scalability. Automated testing will not be implemented immediately. Manual testing and bug detection will take priority to ensure reliability and security during stabilization. We’ll stick to a phased approach to introduce automated testing after achieving SOC 2 compliance. In summary, following this roadmap, we aim to keep GeneWise Health systems secure, efficient, and scalable. Our efforts on code quality, infrastructure updates, and thorough testing will support GeneWise Health in achieving ongoing success and compliance in the changing healthcare technology sector. Share Link copied! Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy Follow us Follow us ### The State of Ruby on Rails in 2024 Live webinar Online May, 22, 11:00 AM ET The State of Ruby on Rails: Key Trends and Challenges Webinar With over 15 years of hands-on expertise and a team of 300+ seasoned developers, JetRuby is at the forefront of Ruby on Rails innovation, navigating the challenges and breakthroughs of this framework. We decided to host this webinar to share our findings on what holds for Rails development and help you stay ahead Download Webinar 200+ clients work with our specialists About Webinar Discover the State of Ruby on Rails We conducted market research through a survey that examined the primary challenges and opportunities businesses encounter today. The results of this questionnaire were further transformed into actionable insights for the Ruby on Rails community and beyond. Hiring issues How do businesses navigate the shortage of skilled Ruby developers? We’ll cover hiring policies, timelines for filling roles, and obstacles like high salary expectations, lengthy processes, and technical proficiency assessment. Talent management Once hired, how do companies onboard and retain top talent? Our team will discuss onboarding timelines, employee tenure, and strategies to maintain team efficiency, such as standups, meetups, and collaboration standards like ISO. Outsourcing strategies With over 60% of businesses leveraging external IT partners, we’ll examine outsourcing practices, preferred partner locations, and common communication issues that companies face when relying on external expertise. Ruby on Rails challenges We will highlight the most significant problems teams face when managing Ruby projects: scalability, performance optimization, and high maintenance costs. We’ll also cover how companies tend to integrate AI tools and modern technologies to streamline workflows. AI-backed Development How do software development companies survive and prosper in this new AI-driven era? Diving deep into why you shouldn't be afraid of Prompt-Driven Development and why you would want to start using AI tools in coding. Get the Record why choose us Why We Are Capable Our expertise in Ruby on Rails comes from years of working alongside businesses to solve real challenges. With a team of seasoned engineers and a track record of delivering hundreds of successful projects, we’ve built a reputation for reliability and results. We approach each partnership with care and tailor our solutions to align with our partners’ goals. Whether addressing hiring difficulties, improving team efficiency, or scaling Ruby projects, we offer practical strategies backed by deep industry knowledge. Clients trust us because we prioritize collaboration, transparency, and outcomes that make a tangible impact on their businesses. Learn more 30% Annual growth 15 Years on market 250+ Satisfied customers 300+ In-house engineers 30% Senior+ level 8 Development centers Here’s what you missed — the webinar record is available! For those who couldn’t join our recent webinar, «The State of Ruby on Rails,» no worries. We've made the whole recording available so you can catch up at your convenience. Whether you’re building, hiring, or leading, this session offers insights you can apply immediately. Download Now speaker Meet the Presenter Artem shared the survey results and key insights with webinar attendees Artem Gavrilov Ramin Head of CSM / Account management team lead JetRuby Agency Spent the last 10 years helping businesses growBuild strong, trusting relationships with clientsBackground in Finance and years of experience in ITUnderstand the challenges businesses face and works hard to deliver real results RECORD Download the Full Webinar Record Leave us your email, so you won't miss our upcoming events! By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy FAQ What is the webinar about? We’ll discuss the state of Ruby on Rails in 2024, including industry challenges, hiring trends, and what lies ahead. Who should take this Survey? Anyone working with Ruby on Rails: developers, tech leaders, and product owners are welcome. Do I need to prepare anything before the webinar? No preparation needed! Just bring your curiosity and be ready to participate in the webinar. How long does the Survey take? No longer than 5 minutes. What will I get from participating? Access to aggregated insights, trends, and challenges shaping Ruby on Rails for 2025. How do I join the webinar? Complete the Survey, and we’ll send you a link to join. How long is the webinar? The webinar will last around 60 minutes, including time for Q&A. Will I be able to ask questions during the webinar? Yes, there will be a Q&A session at the end to ask anything related to Ruby on Rails. Is the webinar free? Yes, it’s completely free for all. Will the webinar be recorded? Yes, a recording will be available after the session for all registrants and survey participants. When will the webinar take place? After the Survey closes, stay tuned for details in your inbox. ### Ruby Code Upgrade Services Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Transform Your Legacy Ruby Code with JetRuby Is your Ruby on Rails application slowing you down? Ensure you use the latest version of Ruby 3.3 and Rails 8.0.1 to avoid security vulnerabilities, poor performance, and higher maintenance costs. We specialize in seamless Ruby and Rails upgrades! Ask for an Upgrade We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Benefits Reasons to Upgrade Your Ruby on Rails Version Boost Security Stay protected by using the latest version of Ruby and Rails in your development environment Improve Performance Upgrading to the actual versions ensures faster load times, better stability, and a smoother experience for users and developers alike Cut Maintenance Costs Modernizing your codebase reduces technical debt, making future updates faster, easier, and more cost-effective Stay Competitive Leverage new features and tools to enhance your application’s functionality and stay ahead in your industry Meet Compliance Standards Keep your software aligned with the latest supported versions of Ruby on Rails to meet industry regulations and stay compliant with required guidelines EOL What Ruby End of Life (EOL) Means for Your Application When Ruby versions reach EOL, they no longer receive security updates, bug fixes, or compatibility patches. This creates risks for businesses still relying on outdated versions. JetRuby ensures your platform remains protected, even after community support expires, and helps you upgrade Ruby version. Support Phases Ruby versions move through normal maintenance, security maintenance, and EOL lifecycle stages Limited Community Help  The Ruby community no longer provides updates for EOL versions EOL Risks Unsupported versions become vulnerable to security threats, compatibility issues, and rising maintenance costs JetRuby Support Our team tracks vulnerabilities and delivers custom security patches to keep your system secure Ruby Version Upgrade We help transition your outdated platform to supported Ruby versions Ruby Code Optimization Our experts conduct Ruby performance tuning and implement up-to-date Ruby-supported tools into your system Why us Why Choose JetRuby for Your Ruby Code Upgrade? Expertise You Can Trust Our experienced Ruby on Rails developers performed seamless upgrades of dozens of platforms to the new Rails version Tailored Solutions Every project is unique. We craft a custom upgrade and version control plan that fits your business needs, minimizing disruptions and downtime Future-Proof Your Application We prepare your platform for future enhancements with clean, maintainable code and robust testing frameworks, ensuring it uses the latest Ruby version Smooth Collaboration Our transparent process and open communication ensure you’re always in the loop during your Ruby upgrade. Your success is our priority Ready for a Successful Upgrade? Let’s Talk! Don’t let legacy code hold your business back. Contact JetRuby today for a free consultation to explore how we can modernize your Ruby application Upgrade My Ruby Code Click the button to schedule your free consultation! How we work Our Proven Upgrade Process Start your Ruby on Rails codebase upgrade today with a quick conversation with one of our managers Step 1 Discovery Phase We start by conducting an in-depth analysis of your Ruby and Rails versions, gem dependencies, and application architecture. Our team evaluates potential compatibility issues and security vulnerabilities and then creates a customized upgrade roadmap that minimizes disruptions to your business operations. Step 2 Code Optimization We replace deprecated Rails modules, remove unused gems, and refactor complex or outdated sections of your application code. This step ensures your codebase is clean, lightweight, and fully prepared for the upgrade while optimizing database queries and reducing technical debt. Step 3 Step by Step Upgrades We execute incremental version upgrades. This process includes addressing syntax changes, API deprecations, and gem compatibility issues while maintaining seamless application performance during each phase. Step 4 Testing and Validation We implement comprehensive test suites, including unit, functional, non-functional, performance, usability, security, integration, and end-to-end tests, to ensure every component functions as expected. Our team also sets up CI/CD pipelines to automate testing, allowing faster feedback loops and reducing the chance of undetected errors. Step 5 Deployment and Support After deploying the upgraded application to a staging environment for final validations, we transition it to production with a rollback strategy in place. In the post-deployment phase, we provide ongoing support, monitor performance, and address any emerging issues. Contact Our Legacy Modernization Expert Book an introductory call with our subject matter expert on updating the legacy Ruby on Rails codebase, and share your pain points, so we can handle them jointly. Call SME Why us Developer Availability Top 100 on Clutch We apply the best Ruby on Rails practices and rank among the world's Top 100 companies on Clutch Dedicated Collaboration Our team stays in constant communication during the project to address your questions and keep you informed Flexible Time Zones We adapt to your preferred working hours, ensuring seamless coordination regardless of location Hands-on expertise Our development team brings over 15 years of experience and has completed over 200 successful projects, and we can join your project in just 2–3 weeks Our cases Client Success Stories Kailos Genetics When Kailos Genetics needed to upgrade its legacy Ruby on Rails platform to meet SOC-2 compliance, they turned to JetRubyHere’s what we delivered: Upgraded Ruby and Rails versions to the latest version number Increased test coverage from 3% to 50%, ensuring a stable platform Refactored and cleaned up years of legacy code for better maintainability Prepared their platform for a smooth SOC-2 audit FAQ How long does an upgrade take? The timeline depends on the complexity of your application, but most upgrades are completed in 3-6 months. Can you upgrade custom-built legacy features? Over the past ten years, we’ve spent hundreds of hours maintaining ours and upgrading inherited projects, tackling every backward compatibility challenge imaginable. We know what to do. Will the upgrade disrupt my application? We ensure minimal downtime by upgrading incrementally and testing thoroughly at every stage. What are the best practices for Ruby upgrades to minimize downtime? We follow a step-by-step approach that includes analyzing your codebase, cleaning up unused dependencies, testing extensively, and deploying in stages. Do you provide a Ruby on Rails upgrade tutorial for internal teams? Yes, we can create documentation or tutorials tailored to your team’s needs, helping them understand the changes made and how to maintain the upgraded code effectively. What tools for Ruby code migration do you use during upgrades? We rely on trusted tools like Bundler, Rails Upgrader, and ruby-upgrader to assess dependencies, resolve compatibility issues, and migrate code seamlessly to newer versions. Should I upgrade Ruby on Rails version for my legacy application? Yes. Upgrading extends the lifespan of your application and improves security, performance, and scalability. It also reduces technical debt, saving you time and money in the long run. How do you handle custom features during a Ruby on Rails upgrade? We carefully review your custom features, rewrite or refactor code if necessary, and ensure all functionality works perfectly in the upgraded version ### Mobile app development company Mobile app development company We combine our technical expertise with best-proven practices to build custom, efficient, and scalable mobile app solutions that boost time to market and fuel user engagement Let’s start Benefits How our mobile app development company helps your business Harness the potential of mobile app benefits to create lasting customer relationships and unlock new opportunities for your growth Stronger customer connections Establish a direct and personalized channel for engaging and interacting with your audience Scalability and adaptability Easily add new features, integrate with other platforms, and adjust performance to match your business growth Market reach expansion Tap into new market segments and access a broader audience to increase your customer base and boost revenue potential Higher sales through convenience Encourage conversions with seamless payment options, simple browsing, and quick access to product information Brand enhancement Present your offerings in a client-friendly way that reinforces your brand identity and builds user trust Customer in-depth insights Gather real-time user preferences and behavior data to create personalized experiences and make informed business decisions 24/7 presence  Capture new business opportunities and give your brand a reliable, always-available status by staying accessible to customers anytime, anywhere Improved customer feedback Let users share their thoughts directly through the mobile solution, giving you detailed info to refine your products and services services Mobile app development services by JetRuby From idea to launch, backend or frontend, JetRuby supports you every step of the way with cutting-edge mobile technology and strategic expertise Mobile app audit and technical consulting We perform in-depth audits of your mobile solution to identify performance bottlenecks, security vulnerabilities, and scalability challenges and provide tech-based consulting to optimize project architecture Mobile app development Our mobile app developers create robust, scalable, and multi-faceted solutions from scratch that foster customer retention and are tailored to your industry requirements Mobile app customization Guided by your ideas, we revamp your existing mobile software to unlock its full potential and integrate push notifications, payment gateways, analytics tools, and other advanced features Mobile app optimization Our mobile development experts perform comprehensive code analysis and implement advanced caching and load-balancing techniques to enhance speed, stability, and user engagement Mobile app integration We seamlessly integrate mobile applications with CMS solutions, APIs, social networks, ERP systems, CRM software like Salesforce or HubSpot, payment gateways such as Stripe, cloud services like AWS, and more Mobile app migration Have our team handle a complex transition from legacy systems or web-based solutions to mobile platforms so you can deliver seamless user experiences and remain competitive in today’s mobile-centric market Mobile app update We keep your mobile app up-to-date with the latest technological advancements, new features, and security patches while preserving all existing customizations and third-party integrations DevOps Our DevOps engineers help you automate deployment pipelines, reduce disruptions, improve team collaboration, and ensure continuous integration and delivery of new features Testing and QA We employ advanced testing protocols, including automated and manual, functional and non-functional, unit, stress, security, regression, and user acceptance testing to meet the highest standards for functionality and security Mobile app maintenance Our ongoing after-launch support provides regular updates, quick issue resolution, and performance monitoring to keep your app running smoothly, maintain user satisfaction, and protect your investment Let’s discuss your mobile app solution! Get in touch we offer Mobile app development frameworks we offer Get a powerful, feature-rich native or cross-platform app that delivers exceptional performance and quick time-to-market Native Android mobile app development Our Android app development agency uses Kotlin and Java, fostering features like Material Design, multi-threading, and advanced API integrations. In our native app development services, we focus on client success and prioritize high performance, responsive UI, and full compatibility with Android devices to drive user engagement and business growth. Book a Call Native iOS mobile app development As an iOS app development company, we build secure, high-performance apps for the Apple App Store using Swift and Objective-C. Our iOS app developers leverage cutting-edge frameworks such as SwiftUI and Core Data to deliver solutions with seamless functionality and a smooth user experience. Book a Call Cross-platform mobile app development We provide cross-platform mobile app development services to build efficient, single-codebase mobile solutions using technologies like Flutter and React Native. This approach ensures faster time-to-market and cost-effective multiplatform app development while delivering a consistent user experience across both iOS and Android. Book a Call Hybrid mobile app development Our hybrid mobile app development services combine the best of web and native technologies, using frameworks like Ionic and Apache Cordova. We create scalable, feature-rich apps that integrate smoothly with native mobile device functionalities and are optimized for multiple platforms. Book a Call Progressive web application (PWA) development We develop Progressive Web Apps that offer app-like functionality and fast loading times, using modern web technologies such as Angular and React. Our PWAs provide offline access, push notifications, easy updates, and intuitive design, ensuring a seamless experience on any device without the need for app store distribution. Book a Call Our cases Featured projects See how we’ve transformed ideas into successful digital products for our clients MOVE Shanghai A personal fitness ecosystem Our team developed a Kotlin app to help fitness enthusiasts in China access fitness activities like yoga, swimming, or tennis with a flat monthly fee. The app offers personalized booking assistance and connects users to top fitness providers. We also integrated AliPay and WeChat for smooth, secure payments. View case study Read article LOOP Messenger A Kotlin-based social app Our team designed and built a robust Kotlin app for connecting people through location-related and interest-related "suggestions" or available activities, deals, offers, and events. The app features a flexible architecture that allows for quick and drastic functionality changes. We also implemented a personalized in-app feed tailored to user preferences, not people followed. Read article Moments NFC A Kotlin-based pub payment app Our team created a Kotlin app for pub-goers in the USA to let them pay with a simple wave of their hand using NFC technology. The app was built in just 12 days by adapting the existing iOS design, saving the client time and budget. We also delivered a unique mobile application for the Android platform. View case study Read article Learnifier iOS platform to simplify the access to the learning materials for the people around the globe. We've built the app, offering a simple yet very effective B2B solution to the digital onboarding process. With its help, you can set rules and documentation for all positions in your company. This application provides an easy way to create online and mixed training & courses. Read more Leepsee A social network built for personal connections We created a unique social network focused on user interests. Leepsee features a personalized news feed and allows users to communicate anonymously while adjusting privacy settings for posts and comments. In just one month, we successfully launched the app, earning nearly 500 positive reviews on the Apple Store and strong engagement among early users. Read more How we work Our mobile software development process We focus on quality at every stage and follow a structured, client-centric approach that ensures your mobile app is tailored to your vision and market needs Step 1 Ideation We collaborate to understand your mobile app vision, explore key features, and study your target audience for alignment with business goals Step 2 Scoping We outline detailed project requirements and map out technical specifications for a clear development path Step 3 Prototype design We develop interactive prototypes to provide a tangible view of the mobile user journey and app structure Step 4 UX/UI app design We design an intuitive and visually engaging interface to ensure an exceptional user experience Step 5 Development & testing We initiate the app development phase and integrate rigorous testing to ensure a fully functional, high-quality MVP Step 6 Maintenance We offer ongoing maintenance and support to keep your app updated, secure, and performing optimally domains Types of mobile apps we develop We build apps across multiple domains, tailored to meet unique business needs and user expectations Agritech Apps that streamline farm management, crop monitoring, and supply chain logistics See more Retail & e-Commerce Seamless shopping experiences with integrated payment options, personalized recommendations, and order tracking See more Healthtech Innovative apps for telemedicine, patient monitoring, and health management See more Fintech Secure financial solutions, including mobile banking, investment platforms, and payment apps See more Logistics Travel planning and booking apps with real-time updates and itinerary management See more EdTech & e-Learning Interactive apps for online courses, virtual classrooms, and personalized learning experiences See more Fitness Apps with customizable workout plans, progress tracking, and health metrics See more Human resources HR management apps for employee onboarding, time tracking, and performance monitoring See more Travel Travel planning and booking apps with real-time updates and itinerary management See more Real estate Property search, virtual tours, and client-agent communication solutions See more Food delivery User-friendly apps for seamless ordering, real-time tracking, and delivery management See more Event services Event scheduling, ticket booking, and attendee management tools See more Taxi booking On-demand apps for ride-hailing services with location tracking and payment integration See more Productivity Task management, time tracking, and collaboration tools to enhance efficiency See more Social media Custom platforms for user interaction, content sharing, and community building See more Let's turn your ideas into a robust mobile app together! Let's talk Testimonials What our clients say Carol HenckelPresident, MTG Healthcare AcademyTheir responsiveness, flexibility, and commitment to our needs made them a pleasure to work with! JetRuby Agency's work led to a 35% increase in user engagement, a 25% increase in course completion rates, a 15% increase in revenue, and a 20% decrease in user acquisition costs. The app also received a 4.5 rating on the app store. Moreover, the team was timely, organized, and responsive. FounderSoftware Development CompanyJetRuby Agency is one of the best agencies I've worked with. They're extremely professional. JetRuby Agency has delivered a high-quality MVP. Equipped with a methodical approach, they deliver on time and within the budget. They communicate and collaborate effectively with the client, allowing for a seamless workflow. Their tendency to exceed expectations ensures a long-term partnership. Rodrigo Pereyra business field manager at OsramThey go out of their way to work and engage with the customer. The work completed by JetRuby was excellent, with the team handling the expanded scope professionally and producing high-quality deliverables. They were an engaged, committed team that worked hard to accomplish all tasks on time and by high standards. Jan Nowikov CEO, Help My TaskI give them a 10/10 for what we’ve done together. JetRuby Agency coded quickly and delivered with ease a very functional and thoughtful solution that internal stakeholders are eager to bring to market. The team is personable, responsive, and attentive, fostering a seamless and mutually beneficial collaboration. Their services are reasonably priced. Steffi M. AVP - Tech, Handelnine GlobalWe are very happy with the project management, project execution, software quality, and accountability. The engagement was successful; the site is currently live and completely functional. JetRuby Agency managed the project well using the Agile methodology; they were responsive and delivered items on time. Jack Green CTO, NameCoachTheir team provides notes and questions our ideas to make our products better. JetRuby Agency dedicated capable resources that produced satisfying deliverables to facilitated growth into new business verticals. The team communicates clearly, which enables effective collaboration. Informed by a wealth of experience, they offer valuable insights that encourage improvements. Shai Rozen CTO, ShiurimMost of the positive feedback has been regarding the new features and improvements. The product is performing well in the market, receiving over 2,000 downloads in its first few days. All feedback regarding JetRuby Agency’s work and skilled expertise has been positive. Their responsive approach complemented their quick workflow. Chase Tasca Founder, Web App Dev for Startup HVAC Technicians PlatformThey put a lot of effort into making sure that everything works to my satisfaction. Brimming with technical expertise and the desire to help their client succeed, JetRuby Agency has delivered quality design deliverables that have strikingly mirrored their client's ideas. Transparent and customer-oriented, they provide reliable estimates to bring their requirements to fruition. Brandyn Morelli Co-Founder, hellocecilWe’ve worked with a lot of other firms, and JetRuby agency is one of the best. Not only is JetRuby Agency great at what they do, they also charge a fair price. The team is responsive and communicative, holding weekly meetings to keep everyone updated. They use various means of communication and have some of the best project management in their field. Julian Safford Co-Founder, Moments Inc.I am happy with how they adjust their approach to appeal to as a customer. JetRuby's exceptional value sets them above competitors. Showing a genuine interest in the product, their team listens closely to feedback and maintains a thorough understanding of the business. Their ability to create optimal solutions to sustain a lower budget is impressive. David Bankston CEO, Sparksfly Technologies, Inc.They are very good at listening and working with your timeframes. We have some amazing people on our team. The client receives over four million transactions per year and they have had no problems. They attribute part of this to the development work that JetRuby Agency provided. Tom Klein Founder, Suggest ItI’m impressed by their ability to meet those changes on very short notice while keeping with deadlines. The client is particularly happy with the quality of the projects that JetRuby has worked on - specifically the quality of the code. They manage communication between teams very well and meet all deadlines set for them. Dhanush Balachandran CEO, SortlyThey are experts in Ruby. The client has received great reviews from users of the new site. Along with the high reviews, the client is experiencing their highest level of revenue. They have appreciated the agency's knowledge and skill surrounding Ruby on Rails and their willingness to make improvements where necessary. About us Why opt for JetRuby Goal-oriented mindset Backed by more than 15 years of development expertise, we take an agile and proactive approach. We focus on achieving results for your business Transparent process At JetRuby, we believe in full transparency and involve clients at every stage. You maintain complete control over the development process Partner approach Our goal extends beyond just building your app. We commit to your ongoing success and nurturing long-term partnerships Quick turnaround Time is money and it’s critical in business. Our team expedites app development to meet tight deadlines without sacrificing quality FAQ What makes JetRuby different from other mobile app development companies? JetRuby stands out due to our 15+ years of expertise, transparent processes, and partner-focused approach. We provide tailored mobile app solutions that prioritize your business needs and ensure long-term success. Which platforms do you develop mobile apps for? As an experienced mobile app development company, we specialize in iOS and Android app development. Our team includes skilled iOS app developers and Android app developers who use the latest technologies to build high-performance apps. Can JetRuby help with app updates and maintenance? Yes, we offer comprehensive mobile app development services, including updates and ongoing maintenance. This ensures your app stays current, secure, and fully functional across all platforms. Do you provide native development or cross-platform development? We are a native app development company that also provides cross-platform and hybrid development services. Whether you need an iOS mobile app development company or an Android-focused solution, we cover it all for seamless performance on any device. What industries does JetRuby serve? JetRuby works with various industries, including retail, healthtech, fintech, logistics, and more. Our mobile app development services are designed to create impactful mobile solutions for businesses of all sizes. How involved will I be in the development process? Our mobile application development company believes in a transparent, collaborative approach. You will stay informed and involved in each development stage. What technologies do your iOS app developers use? They leverage the best iOS app development software and programming languages like Swift, Objective-C, and the latest iOS development platforms. This ensures top-quality, high-performance iOS app development services. Do you provide iPhone and Android app development? Yes, we specialize in Android and iPhone app development. Our team ensures consistent functionality and design across both platforms to maximize user reach and satisfaction. How fast can you develop a mobile app? We provide a quick turnaround without compromising on quality. Timelines depend on the project’s complexity, but we prioritize meeting deadlines efficiently. Do you offer consulting before starting the app development? Yes, we provide mobile app audit and technical consulting services to define the best approach for your project. This helps us understand your needs and select the right technology and mobile development strategy. ### ERP System Home Cases HR Tech ERP System HR Tech ERP System A modern ERP system designed to reshape daily operations, improve team collaboration, and simplify complex business processes Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, ReactIndustry HR TechEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WebTeam 15 membersTimeline 2 years About the project Every business reaches a point when data starts snowballing, and managing everyday processes across departments can become challenging. At JetRuby, we saw this happening as our team and projects expanded. Documents and tasks were scattered across platforms, and data lived in its own fragmented islands. So, we decided it was time for change. We needed something unified, a single system to bring everything together in real time: project and people management, HR operations, finance, communications, and more. Our enterprise resource planning platform (ERP) was born from this vision. Instead of plugging in some generic existing systems, we decided to build an ERP system that would mirror our unique needs, values, and goals. ERP System by JetRuby Agency: Working time accounting The resulting solution is as much a part of our team as any project manager or HR specialist. Here’s what it offers: A single, centralized system for tracking project risks, status updates, and emerging opportunities. Everything teams need to stay aligned and on target. An internal communication space, a rewards program, and a company currency marketplace designed to strengthen our workplace culture and help everyone feel connected to our shared mission. Custom forms for everything from time-off requests to access requests. Employees can get what they need from HR and back-office support without the usual back-and-forth. A powerful analytics tool that unifies data from multiple sources, ensuring accurate and up-to-date information. Plus, it syncs with BI systems to support data-driven decisions. Tools to track productivity, monitor workflows, and support employee motivation. A streamlined approach to keep teams engaged and improve retention. A resource manager’s assistant that makes it easy to allocate resources across projects without overloading, burnout, or underusing team members. A simple, integrated time tracker that syncs with sick leave and vacation modules. Real-time tracking for planned vs. actual hours worked. An interactive org chart that clarifies team hierarchies and gives access to relevant data based on roles. Each department gets dedicated HR support for that personal touch. Project objectives Our goal was to create a platform that was easy to use, tailored for our team, and equipped with tools that enhance transparency.  This platform would serve as a single source of truth for the entire organization and foster a collaborative spirit inside the company. It would be a system our team could rely on, helping us stay focused and connected across projects, departments, and day-to-day tasks. We had a few key requirements in our implementation plan: Centralized access Employees needed a single entry point to access documents, log work hours, and handle HR requests. Unified project management We wanted a platform that would give every team member, from executives to developers, a clear view of project timelines, potential risks, and new opportunities. Encouraging engagement We wanted our employees to blog about their work, earn Jetcoins (our internal currency), and browse a rewards marketplace. Automated HR processes Our team needed an ERP that would provide automation for leave requests, payroll, back office, and other tasks. Reliable data aggregation We wanted an ERP solution that could gather and verify data from finance, HR, and project management, ensuring that every decision is backed by solid, real-time numbers. Resource allocation Balancing workloads was another priority. The ERP’s resource management features could help managers allocate tasks without burning anyone out. Our Work To ensure our ERP success, we first defined requirements and conducted product research. This implementation process helped us understand possible pitfalls and define further steps. The ERP journey was a true team effort. We gathered insights from every department, applied best practices, tested the features in real-world scenarios, and made sure the platform could adapt to evolving needs. We needed a unified ERP that would perfectly fit our needs, which meant countless iterations and late-night brainstorming sessions. At first, we had two separate teams working on different solutions. We knew our ERP project needed two main components to be truly effective: CORE and HUB. They are both designed to be mobile-friendly, accessible, and centered around our team’s needs. CORE became the heart of day-to-day requests, with forms that employees can fill out when they need things like: Access to specific services or documents Help with financial questions Anything related to office needs Requests for sick leave, vacation, time-off adjustments And any other questions that don’t quite fit into other categories, like user experience feedback We originally intended HUB to be a customer-facing space where clients could learn about our development team and evaluate their skills. But as we worked on it, we realized that HUB had the potential to be a space for communication, connection, and engagement among our team members. We made a pivot and transformed HUB into a tool that fosters collaboration and interaction.  Now, HUB allows delivery and resource managers to find specialists with specific skill sets and experience while also providing a place for team members to share internal materials, company updates, and news. Once we launched HUB, we faced a new question.  How could we deepen our focus on employee engagement and personal growth? We needed a system that went beyond everyday tasks and truly supported our people. This meant digitizing our approach to people management.  The complexity of this task made us realize that combining the CORE and HUB teams would create even greater synergy. The first major feature that bridged CORE and HUB was our People Management module. We built tools like a heatmap to examine employee engagement, performance, and development over time. We also added a mood map. It’s a simple yet effective way for employees to share their feelings and workflow bottlenecks. Each team member can rate their mood and flag any issues or challenges. Plus, they can easily schedule one-on-one meetings, giving managers and employees a direct line for meaningful check-ins. ERP System by JetRuby Agency: Heatmap ERP System by JetRuby Agency: Mood statistics Then, we introduced an Office Manager Dashboard. It helps track attendance, vacation, leave, sick days, remote work days, and time-off transfers. All of this is seamlessly connected with other systems, so payroll is accurate and up-to-date. To give managers a clear view of project progress and team workloads, we created employee Tables synchronized with Jira.  This brought all project data tracking into one place, where project managers and department heads can check whether hours are tracked and projects are on schedule.  All the information is in one view, showing what’s confirmed and what needs to be billed. It’s fast and easy to navigate and has options for filters, comments, and more. ERP System by JetRuby Agency: Office Manager Table We also added RMO (Resource Management and Optimization), a tool that gives managers detailed access to team information. Unit managers can monitor assigned experts and their performance, while department heads can view activities across the entire team. This gives managers real-time insight to provide meaningful feedback, and it’s fully integrated with our people management system. For team collaboration, we created an Outline space to replace Confluence. It’s a shared workspace for storing documents and essential info. This small but powerful addition makes accessing shared resources much easier. To keep everything secure, we introduced an identity management system called KeyCloak. It provides single sign-on access across HUB, RMO, Outline, and other modules, keeping data secure while ensuring every user has the access they need. When AI tools like ChatGPT started taking off, we saw an opportunity to integrate it through an API, allowing employees to access AI-driven support directly within our corporate account. We integrated a new system called Superset BI, to visualize data with graphs and dashboards so managers can see the bigger picture at a glance. We also created a Project Stages Analysis feature that automates the project tracking process. It pulls data from Pyrus, saving a huge amount of time and reducing human error in our reports. So, after all this work, we now have an effective ERP system that includes 11 modules: People Management HUB Outline Tables RMO Pyrus Forms KeyCloak Payslips Superset BI Project Stages As we moved forward, we’re constantly asking ourselves: How can we keep improving? How can we keep evolving?  For that, we implemented Value Streams. These are four guiding principles, each with a specific focus: Harmony This is all about employee satisfaction and development, including training, certifications, new skills, and improving retention. DataPulse This principle ensures fast access to all business metrics and financial systems and data, so our team can make informed decisions quickly. Delivery Clarity This focus area keeps project status clear and transparent, making it easy to stay on track. OmniOps This value stream is about setting consistent and unified standards and business processes for managing our business. This standardization creates an efficient, cohesive approach across teams that ensures business growth. Results The project has been developing for over five years now. Our ERP system has proved to be a top-notch platform that demonstrates superior business value. Over 200 employees are already using our ERP system daily A team of 20+ dedicated engineers, testers, and analysts constantly enhances it with new modules. With 15+ years of experience in managing people and projects. Here are the key ERP platform modules available to our employees: Hub or an internal social network to keep us connected Personal profile and workspace to keep everything organized Marketplace and internal bonus system for rewards and recognition Appreciation module to celebrate each other’s contributions Feedback module to keep communication open and honest Time tracking module that’s simple and easy to use Forms module to handle internal requests seamlessly Employee rewards module for acknowledging achievements big and small For top managers, the ERP platform includes tools that make leading teams and projects easier: HR record-keeping to store essential data in one place Time tracking overview to see how time is spent across teams Project management office to track project progress from start to finish Resource management to balance workloads and optimize staffing People management to stay connected to the needs of each team member Our work is underway to implement new features and functionality enhancements. And we have some additional goals to achieve: Quarterly reporting We aim to shorten the reporting time from 45 days to just 3, making data available faster so we can act on it sooner. Unified data access We want to bring everything into a single database, including workload planning, time tracking, invoicing, and compensation This will help managers see a clear, real-time picture of goals and progress throughout the quarter. Integrated reporting We’ll consolidate all reporting systems within the ERP to save countless hours of manual work each quarter. Easier time tracking We’re making time tracking so simple and visual that employees won’t ever have to search for the “right task” again. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### HRTech app Development Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Custom HR Software Development Company Leverage our tailored HR software development services that optimize workforce management, drive ROI, and boost time to market Let’s talk We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Benefits from a business perspective Custom human resources software benefits Our custom human resources management software transforms your business operations and directly addresses critical HR pain points Preventing human error Automate repetitive HR tasks to minimize mistakes, streamline processes, and ensure accurate data management Smart analytics Leverage in-depth reports to identify inefficiencies, uncover actionable insights, forecast trends, and enable strategic decision-making Unified data hub Digitize and centralize HR documents in one place for seamless task management and reduced administrative burden Performance tracking Monitor employee KPIs and productivity with data-backed dashboards to encourage growth and foster a results-driven culture Cost-efficient hiring Simplify recruitment processes and onboarding journeys with transparent, user-friendly tools that save time & resources and create a seamless experience for new employees Must-have features from an end-user perspective Empower your HR processes with must-have features JetRuby delivers HR software solutions that combine the most crucial features for seamless communication, better decision-making, and optimized HR processes tailored to your company’s goals Easy-to-navigate dashboards User-friendly dashboards provide HR professionals and employees with intuitive tools like task management, customizable widgets, announcements, and analytics Automated leave and absence management Employees can request time off, and managers can approve or decline it instantly. End-users see relevant vacation balances, holiday schedules, sick leaves, and remote work days available Centralized employee data hub A detailed, centralized profile for every employee includes personal information, job history, contracts, performance reviews, and training records accessible in real time Smart notifications and alerts End-users receive automated alerts for upcoming deadlines, contract renewals, performance reviews, incoming payslips, compliance updates, or pending approvals Integrated communication tools Built-in messaging features or integrations with tools like Slack allow employees to manage announcements and maintain efficient communication across teams Time tracking Accurately tracks working hours, breaks, overtime, and leaves. Employees can clock in/out digitally, and managers can monitor attendance trends and generate payroll-ready reports for accurate compensation Resource Management & Optimization (RMO) Tools to assign tasks and allocate resources, track employee availability, align workloads with project deadlines, and forecast future staffing needs based on performance data and business goals Trust our expertise Discuss your HR project with a results-driven HRM software development company Schedule a call Services we provide Our HRM software development services Backed by 15+ years of innovation and expertise, we provide end-to-end HR software development services for businesses of all sizes to help them meet modern HR challenges Custom HR development Let our team build a successful HRM platform from scratch or catch you up at any stage to deliver a powerful, multi-faceted human resources software solution HR product design and discovery Our experts conduct in-depth research sessions to define your project requirements and create intuitive, user-centered interfaces that enhance usability and streamline user experience HR mobile app development We create native (iOS and Android), hybrid and cross-platform HR mobile apps and progressive web applications (PWAs) to ensure seamless content synchronization and smooth performance across all devices Third-party system integration Our team connects your HR software with payroll systems, CRMs, ERP solutions, analytics tools, recruitment platforms, and cloud services for unified data management HR software customization Based on your vision and recommendations, we customize any parts of your existing HR management software, from interface adjustments to adding new features, unleashing its full potential HR software support and maintenance Our after-launch support offers ongoing monitoring, regular updates, and performance optimization to maintain the reliability of your HR systems software Our expertise/We offer Types of HR software solutions JetRuby provides Bespoke human resources software for small businesses, midsize companies, and enterprises HRMS/HRIS Platforms to manage employee records, benefits, payroll, attendance, compliance tracking, and detailed analytics with automated reporting tools Human resources recruiting software Tools to post job openings, screen resumes, schedule interviews, track candidate pipelines, and generate hiring analytics HR performance management solutions Software to create and monitor employee goals, run 360-degree feedback reviews, analyze performance trends, track KPIs, enable peer reviews, and support data-driven evaluations Human resources onboarding software Systems to deliver personalized onboarding experiences, assign interactive training modules, track certifications and employee progress, and ensure smooth role integration HR-fueled ERPs End-to-end platforms to integrate HR, payroll, financials, supply chain, accounting, and workforce analytics across departments into one scalable ecosystem Time-tracking and human resources payroll software Tools to monitor work hours, calculate overtime, generate tax reports, and automate payroll processing Our cases Our custom HR management software case studies We understand that HR departments have ever-changing needs, and we develop human resources management system software to address them effectively HelloCecil A platform for startups and small businesses to help them grow their teams. The HR service helps to make quicker and smarter hiring decisions. We developed an automated video interview platform for streamlining the job selection process. The project includes features such as short, one-way video responses to personalized surveys, a visually appealing and functional web interface, scalability for future expansion, and the implementation of a custom design. Read more Universum Global Redefining archetype discovery JetRuby enhanced a survey platform that helps students and professionals determine their archetype through tailored questions. The improvements included creating an engaging visual and functional design, replacing a paid external service with a custom solution, accelerating file processing, and upgrading the recommendation system for more accurate results. These updates made the platform more efficient, cost-effective, and user-friendly. Read more ERP System Streamlining operations and enhancing workplace culture JetRuby developed an internal ERP system to centralize project management, HR operations, finance, and communications. This solution provides real-time project tracking, seamless team alignment, and streamlined workflows. Features include a custom analytics tool for accurate data insights, integrated time tracking synced with leave management, and a resource allocation assistant. Additionally, the platform fosters workplace culture with a rewards program, internal communication tools, and an interactive org chart. ### Hire Ruby on Rails Developers Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Hire Ruby on Rails Developers Ruby on Rails developers with the skills you need for your next project Share your idea We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates 200+ clients work with our specialists Why JetRuby Hire the best Ruby on Rails Engineers Hundreds of customers have grown their success with us. We create high-quality products for businesses of all sizes, from a wide variety of industries. Explore our customers and find more information about the solutions we delivered. Skilled Developers A team of professionals with years of experience in Ruby on Rails development Flexible Hiring Models Tailored approach to your projects — from short-term tasks to long-term collaboration High Quality and Speed We use best practices and tools to deliver a high-quality product in the shortest possible time Transparent Development Process Complete transparency at every stage, with regular updates and reports Benefits Why Hire Ruby on Rails Developers? Rapid Prototyping Our developers quickly build prototypes, helping you test ideas and reduce time to market Seamless Integration With access to quality libraries (Gems), we efficiently add features, saving time and resources Clean Code We ensure clean, maintainable code by following best practices, avoiding hacks or quick fixes Legacy Modernization  Our team revitalizes outdated systems, making them more scalable and efficient Performance Optimization We build scalable, high-performing applications that grow with your business, minimizing future overhauls Rails has the tools and community to support you all the way Team with us Challenges Struggling with hiring dedicated RoR developers? Hiring the wrong developers A massive stream of CVs but no positive cumulative effect High churn rates Competitive hiring market, with 2-3 months being spent on onboarding Tough onboarding Difficulty getting new developers contributing as soon as possible Poor qualification Under-qualified employees don’t handle complex tasks well Superior custom recruitment system that allows to hire RoR developers 
in just 2 weeks Our streamlined recruitment process delivers the first CV in an average of just 3 days. Using our tech & soft skills matrix and a unique interview flow, we match results to your expectations Get developer hiring guide First CV in 3 days on average average recruitment process takes 2 weeks JetRuby Academy trains the best IT talents, including Ruby on Rails developers for hire We thoroughly select the best RoR developers in the market or let rising stars join your team. These new hires apply their 1-3 years of experience after being shortlisted for our Academy at a highly competitive 1:200 rate. Read more Our Cooperation Models Flexible development models to fit your unique requirements Dedicated team Put together your dream team Expand your team for a project Access unique skills not available in-house Reduce recruitment costs Learn more Managed Delivery Start your project under confident guidance Partner long-term with RoR developers Fully control development process Cut risks, boost transparency Learn more Custom development Build a remote tech hub Hire remote developers cost-efficiently Focus on your core business Have a flexible and scalable solution Learn more Our cases Our Ruby on Rails Customer Success Stories Over the past 12+ years, check out these awesome case studies for ROR Applications we have built for our valuable clients to solve real-life problems and help them overcome start-up challenges. Learnifier A versatile platform to help companies manage and document rules for various roles, simplifying the development of blended learning courses. The platform offers solutions such as creating a custom wrapper around the web interface, developing a white-labeled application version, building a system to track and manage authorization data, and using its components to develop an iOS app for publication in the App Store. Read more Moments NFC An advanced mobile solution for contactless payment to pubs across the US. The platform enhances nightlife by eliminating the need for guests to carry wallets. The project allows suppliers to create personal accounts, add product descriptions, manage their accounts, set commissions, and withdraw funds, all while ensuring maximum security for personal and payment information. Read more Universum Global The project to improve a survey system that helps students and professionals answer questions to determine their archetype. Our team enhanced the visual and functional aspects of the platform, transitioning away from a paid external service, speeding up the processing of source files, and updating the recommendation system. Read more HelloCecill A platform for startups and small businesses to help them grow their teams. The HR service helps to make quicker and smarter hiring decisions. We developed an automated video interview platform for streamlining the job selection process. The project includes features such as short, one-way video responses to personalized surveys, a visually appealing and functional web interface, scalability for future expansion, and the implementation of a custom design. Read more Eyewitness An online tool designed for police officers conducting real investigations, with a focus on neural network systems and artificial intelligence. We developed an online platform specifically designed for police officers conducting investigations. It features a user-friendly web interface, and a custom design, ensures compliance with FBI CJIS regulations, and supports the upload, processing, and analysis of potential victim photos. Read more about JetRuby builds high-value, impactful IT Solution We create innovative technological solutions tailored to unlock your project's full potential. By blending the latest advancements with a deep understanding of your industry, we adopt a personalized approach to address your unique challenges, delivering results that meet immediate needs and foster long-term growth. Read about company Active Ruby community contributor: 8 Gems 26+ mln downloads 30% Annual growth 2010 Foundation year 250+ Clients from 30 countries 300+ In-house engineers 30% Senior+ level 16 Industry domains Your future Ruby on Rails web developer is just around the corner! Risk-free to get started. We ensure you’re matched with the right talent resource based on your requirement Send Your Request ### Real Estate Software Development Company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Real Estate Software Development Company JetRuby provides real estate app development services that empower property-focused businesses with market-ready platforms and advanced features Get Started We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Why opt for JetRuby Custom Real Estate Software Development Services We offer end-to-end real estate software development solutions that blend industry insights with technical expertise, scalable architecture, robust frameworks, and secure coding practices Technical consulting Our experts help conduct in-depth market analysis, define precise feature sets, and plan a clear roadmap for your high-performing real estate platform App design Our design team craft intuitive layouts, device compatibility, and well-structured UX/UI visuals that resonate with modern real estate audiences App engineering Our engineers leverage frameworks like Ruby on Rails, React Native, Swift, Kotlin, and other trusted technologies, and follow CI/CD best practices to build secure, reliable apps from scratch Integration with third-party services Our experts integrate your real estate platform with MLS databases, CRM systems, booking tools, property management systems, and payment gateways to expand app functionality and data flow App customization Based on your vision and recommendations, we modify your legacy real estate system, make adjustments, and refines features that reflect changing market dynamics Welcome to 2025 Real Estate Tech Trends and Predictions by JetRuby Our free eBook brings together the latest real estate industry insights and expert analysis. Gain practical insights into emerging solutions transforming property listings, management, and transactions, and see how they shape the future for businesses and customers. Get Industry Forecast Our cases Featured Real Estate Projects Explore our portfolio to see how tailored technical vision and creative design deliver measurable results in the real estate sector Qwincy, Inc. A platform for startups and small businesses to help them grow their teams. The HR service helps to make quicker and smarter hiring decisions. CDM (Collaborative Dealflow Management) platform Qwincy, a software platform that blends private collaboration with live deal sharing in the real estate capital markets. Read more RBMalta High-performing real estate app We created a high-performance website with a full set of features and an easy to use and visually pleasing back-office panel. The application was built to provide users with an opportunity to easily find real estate in Malta with ease through a scalable map that allows for using powerful searching filters on the website. Read more How we work Our Real Estate Application Development Process Each step in our structured process ensures an efficient transition from early ideas to a fully functional real estate application Step 1 Ideation We validate core objectives, assess audience needs, and identify vital features for your real estate platform Step 2 Scoping Our team defines project timelines, clarifies technical requirements, and selects optimal frameworks for development Step 3 Prototype We craft an interactive model that highlights the user journey and gathers feedback before moving into detailed design Step 4 UX/UI Design Our designers produce layouts that enhance navigation, brand consistency, and user engagement Step 5 Development & testing Our developers write clean, scalable code while QA specialists perform rigorous checks for speed, security, and functionality Step 6 Deployment We set up server environments, adjust performance monitoring tools, and finalize secure releases Step 7 Maintenance Our support team monitors system stability, rolls out timely upgrades & new feature releases, and keeps your product aligned with evolving business objectives We work with Hire Real Estate Mobile App Development Company You Can Trust Our commitment to quality and innovation has helped startups, SMBs, and enterprises across various sectors streamline their operations, grow more quickly, deliver a faster time-to-market, and stay competitive in a changing business landscape FAQ Do your real estate web application development services accommodate interactive mapping and virtual tours? Yes, we can integrate geolocation features and multimedia tools that allow users to explore properties with ease. Can an iOS real estate app development company support real-time data synchronization for property databases? We embed secure APIs and push notification services, ensuring immediate updates for interested buyers and sellers. Can real estate app developers at JetRuby integrate complex data feeds or MLS listings? Yes, our engineers are familiar with advanced integrations and will incorporate any industry-standard API that matches your needs. Is JetRuby recognized as a real estate CRM application development company for enterprise clients? Our services include custom CRM integration, workflow automation, and centralized data management that enhance efficiency. How do your real estate app developers maintain confidentiality and compliance with industry regulations? We employ encryption protocols, secure payment gateways, and routine code audits to protect sensitive client and user data. How fast can your real estate app development company in the USA launch an MVP? We outline a clear roadmap with defined milestones and work closely with your team to meet tight deadlines without sacrificing product quality. Why choose a real estate app development company in California for localized property tech solutions? Proximity to tech hubs fosters innovation, quick collaboration, and deep market understanding for real estate projects. Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Healthcare 
Software Development Company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating On-demand Healthcare Software Development Services Backed by 15+ years of expertise as a clinical software development company, we deliver tailored healthcare solutions that streamline operations, enhance patient care, and drive measurable business results Let’s talk We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Why opt for JetRuby Custom Healthcare App Development Approach Every step of our medical app development brings your app to a vast audience. We create innovative solutions to help thousands of people worldwide Delivered on time, within scope, and budget We prioritize your deadlines, deliver projects on schedule, and ensure every feature aligns perfectly with your business requirements, all while staying within your budget Reliable quality you can count on Our healthcare app developers create robust healthcare software solutions that undergo rigorous testing and guarantee stable, secure, and flawless performance Technical experts with a proven track record With decades of experience, dozens of successful projects, and a team of seasoned medical app developers, we know how to transform complex ideas into effective, scalable solutions tailored to your business needs HIPAA-compliant from day one As a healthcare app developer, we follow strict healthcare regulations to ensure data security and patient privacy, giving your business peace of mind with HIPAA-compliant products Welcome to 2025 Healthcare Tech Trends and Predictions by JetRuby Discover the future of healthcare with our free eBook, 2025 Healthcare Tech Trends and Predictions. It features cutting-edge insights and expert analysis on the latest innovations transforming patient care, medical workflows, and healthcare IT services. Get Industry Forecast we offer Advanced Healthcare Software Solutions for Modern Challenges Leverage our expertise to save costs and treat patients efficiently! JetRuby brought together the best healthcare software developers and top-notch technologies to help you craft a multi-faceted healthcare solution Telemedicine solutions Build a remote clinician and patient interaction process to save time and avoid contamination during the COVID-19-like periods. Our team can integrate trusted third-party Video and Audio conferencing tools or develop custom telemedicine platforms from scratch. With our expertise, you’ll create a user-friendly experience that ensures high adoption rates across all age groups. Book a Call EHR/EMR solutions Simplify patient data management and improve clinical workflows with robust electronic health record (EHR) and electronic medical record (EMR) systems. We can either integrate existing 3rd party EMR/EHR solutions such as Athena, eClinicalWorks, and Cerner into your custom-made software solution or build one from the ground up. Book a Call Patient Portals Enhance your patient flow management with intuitive portals that offer easy access to records, appointments, and health updates for both medical experts and patients. We help integrate health tracking devices (wearables and sensors) and real-time syncing with the system so that you can continuously monitor the patient’s conditions and vitals. Book a Call Practice Management Leverage our hospital software development to simplify scheduling, billing, and resource management and make the complex everyday tasks of medical practitioners transparent, simple, and easily traceable. Our team can develop a solution tailored to your needs or enhance your existing product with proven methodologies. Book a Call Our cases Real Results from Our Healthcare Projects Explore how our custom healthcare application development has transformed practices, optimized workflows, and delivered exceptional patient care GeneWise Health Modernizing healthcare technology for a secure future JetRuby partnered with GeneWise Health, a genetics laboratory offering personalized health plans, to modernize its infrastructure and prepare for SOC 2 compliance after its acquisition by GenovaCare. We upgraded the legacy Ruby on Rails framework from 3.2.22.5 to 7.1.3.2, improved test coverage, streamlined the codebase by removing unused elements, and implemented SOC 1-level security measures to protect sensitive genetic data. Read more Healthcare Practice Management Platform Streamlining patient management with advanced automation JetRuby developed a healthcare management platform for a U.S.-based client, simplifying appointment scheduling for private hospitals. The initial solution offered free patient appointment scheduling with advanced premium features, aiming to automate basic routines and reduce staffing needs. We integrated the Athena EMR system, built an administrative panel, and ensured HIPAA and PHI compliance. We also added secure messaging chat support for medical teams. Read more Secure MedTech Hub Revolutionizing patient care with smart technology JetRuby developed the HealthCare App, a HIPAA-compliant platform designed to save patients time and money. The app connects users with specialists, provides instant health guidance, and simplifies appointment scheduling. With its secure, user-friendly interface, patients can access care without visiting a hospital, making it a reliable personal health assistant for everyday needs. Health App Connecting patients, doctors, and healthcare professionals in one secure space JetRuby helped develop a comprehensive healthcare application for seamless collaboration between patients and healthcare professionals. The platform allows patients to find the right doctor, store medical records, track health changes, and receive notifications. Doctors can monitor patient progress, especially for chronic conditions. We also integrated mapping services, surveys, a social network for health education, and features like chat, notifications, and a custom admin panel. Read more How we work Our MedTech Software Development Process Our dedicated team follows a proven process to turn your vision into a powerful medical software solution Step 1 Ideation We dive deep into your goals, challenges, and ideas to shape a clear and actionable plan Step 2 Scoping From setting requirements to mapping budgets and timelines, we ensure every aspect aligns with your business needs Step 3 Prototype Our experts create a functional prototype to validate your idea and gather early feedback Step 4 UX/UI Design We focus on user-friendly designs that enhance patient and clinician experiences Step 5 Development & testing Our team builds and rigorously tests your software for optimal performance and reliability Step 6 Deployment Launching your medical solution seamlessly, we ensure it integrates smoothly with your workflows Step 7 Maintenance Our team provides ongoing maintenance, updates, and improvements to keep your healthcare management software at its best We work with Hire a Top Healthcare Development Company You Can Trust Our commitment to quality and innovation has helped startups, SMBs, and enterprises across various sectors streamline their operations, grow more quickly, deliver a faster time-to-market, and stay competitive in a changing business landscape FAQ How can healthcare IT services help my organization improve efficiency? Our healthcare IT services streamline your workflows, optimize patient management, and reduce administrative overhead by automating repetitive tasks and integrating powerful tools tailored to your needs. What makes your healthcare software development agency different from others? We specialize in healthcare IT solutions with over 15 years of experience. Our team understands industry challenges, such as compliance and patient engagement, and delivers custom software to address your specific business goals. How much does it cost to develop healthcare IT solutions with your team? The cost varies depending on the project’s complexity, features, and scope. After discussing your requirements, we provide a detailed estimate, ensuring transparency and alignment with your budget. What’s the typical timeline for a healthcare software product? Timelines depend on the complexity of your project, but we work efficiently to deliver on schedule. After understanding your requirements, we provide a clear roadmap with realistic milestones. Can you handle healthcare software development outsourcing for large-scale projects? Yes. We have a proven track record of managing complex, large-scale healthcare projects. Our team ensures seamless collaboration, timely delivery, and top-notch quality while staying within budget. What specific challenges can medical software development services address in our existing systems? Medical software development services improve data integration, security, compliance, and system scalability, boosting patient care and efficiency. ### Food Delivery Software Development Company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Your Food Delivery App Development Company Leverage full-cycle food delivery app development services to build feature-rich software solutions that boost time-to-market, enhance customer experience, and drive revenue growth Let’s talk We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Benefits Our Expertise in Food Delivery App Development We craft customizable food delivery software that benefits both end-users and food businesses and helps you handle orders faster, grow revenues, and satisfy your customers For Restaurants Keep your tables filled and customers happy with JetRuby restaurant app development services that simplify order management, reduce wait times, minimize errors, and create a smoother dining experience For Home Delivery Services Make a food delivery app that helps boost home delivery orders, optimize logistics, offer flexible menus, plan routes with real-time tracking, reduce delays, and keep customers satisfied For Food Trucks Expand your reach, let customers find you quickly, and manage peak hours effectively with a custom food truck app that handles orders on the go and enhances service reliability For Fast-Food Joints Leverage JetRuby’s food ordering app development expertise to handle high-volume orders, serve your customers faster and keep them returning, featuring quick checkout, promotions, and reliable service tools Our cases Our appetizing success food stories Explore the results we’ve delivered to food brands through on-demand food delivery software solutions Saffron Cooks Exclusive food delivery service Saffron Cooks started in Stockholm, Sweden, with a vision to bring a premium dining experience through food delivery. The app offers an extensive selection of gourmet meals, aiming to combine convenience with high-quality service. Our team simplified the ordering process and resolved code vulnerabilities. We improved the backend infrastructure, optimized the frontend with React for faster load times, added email and SMS notifications, and introduced a loyalty program with gift cards. Read more Referit Smart referral-based food delivery platform Referit is a food delivery app that connects businesses with trusted referrals to improve lead generation. The platform includes an intuitive cross-platform administration panel, iOS and Android apps, and a seamless payment system. JetRuby enhanced Referit's system by focusing on referral-driven features and mobile app marketing, helping businesses gain more leads and higher-quality customers. we offer Custom Food Deliver App Solutions JetRuby Delivers Backed by 15 years of food ordering mobile app development, we create food delivery software that gives businesses and end-users everything they need for an easy, fast experienceCustomer App Search Filtering System Our customer app features a robust search filtering system, allowing users to find restaurants based on various parameters, including location, delivery area, nearby pick-up options, reviews, and categories Discount Code Push notifications inform customers about upcoming deals and discounts and allow them to redeem coupons for future purchases Track Delivery Once an order is confirmed, users can track its status and monitor its delivery in real-time Feedback System Users can provide valuable feedback after receiving their orders, which enables continuous improvement of the food delivery experience Social Media Login We integrate social media login options for users to easily log in or register Payment Gateway Our app includes multiple payment options, ensuring a seamless and user-friendly payment processRestaurant App Order Management Restaurants can efficiently manage all orders in one place and view detailed order information Order Tracking Real-time tracking of delivery drivers' locations allows restaurants to monitor delivery routes and estimate delivery times Notifications System Restaurants receive notifications about new orders, delivery status, payments, and customer feedback Menu Management Restaurants can customize their menus or create new ones based on product availability and user preferences Customer Reviews Restaurants can access customer reviews to enhance the quality of their food, delivery service, and overall application experience Promos Management Restaurants can seamlessly create and manage promotions within the appAdmin Dashboard Restaurant Management The admin dashboard serves as a central control hub for easy management of orders, products, menus, and restaurant operations Analytics and Reports The analytics and reports feature provides valuable insights, allowing data-driven decisions to optimize operations and strategy Payments Management Admins can control and set partner commission rates according to industry standards and ensure timely payments Сustomer Feedback Management Admins can access user details, including order history and customer feedback, which helps maintain platform stability and growth Driver’s App Order Management Drivers can receive and manage orders for multiple deliveries through the app Real-time Notifications Drivers receive regular updates on orders and can communicate with users directly Delivery Information Drivers can access all key information about the food delivery location Payment Management Drivers can easily track daily order payments How we work How We Develop Your Perfect Food Delivery App We follow a step-by-step process to create bespoke food delivery solutions tailored to your needs Step 1 Research JetRuby conducts comprehensive research to provide the best solution for your food delivery app, ensuring it stands out and generates revenue Step 2 Prototype & agreement We share and customize a prototype to align with your goals and requirements Step 3 Development Our experienced team leverages powerful technology to initiate app programming and food delivery website development Step 4 Testing & launch After rigorous testing, we launch your food application on leading app platforms Step 5 Post-release support Our dedicated customer support team maintains your project during and after online food delivery app development Why opt for JetRuby? Food Delivery App Development Company JetRuby is one of the leading companies in food ordering mobile app development. Why? We have transformed hundreds of global business ideas into successful projects and are ready to help you too. Trusted by global brands JetRuby is the trusted choice of major global brands such as Financial Times, Pyro Music, GoPro, Sortly, and more Rich expertise With over 15 years of experience, JetRuby has consistently delivered top-notch digital solutions to clients worldwide, serving over 250+ global brands Client engagement We constantly communicate with our clients throughout the food delivery app development process and consider all feedback and continuous improvements Top international experts At JetRuby, we have a team of passionate food delivery app developers dedicated to creating globally successful applications. Our developers come from diverse backgrounds around the globe Cost and time effectiveness We believe that food ordering mobile app development should be a pleasurable experience. Our developer expertise saves you both time and money Constant support & maintenance With a dedicated customer support team, we take full responsibility for maintaining your project during and after online food delivery app development Personalized experience We offer on-demand food delivery app development to create restaurant delivery app solutions tailored to your specific requirements Food Delivery Mobile App Development Our food app development services include comprehensive mobile app development to meet the ever-growing market demands and user needs Ready to Accelerate Your Food Business? Are you prepared to build a responsive, engaging, and successful food delivery application? We're ready to help you achieve your goals Estimate your project We work with Hire Food Delivery App Developers You Can Trust These brands have chosen us for our commitment to quality and innovation FAQ What makes JetRuby the best food delivery app development company? JetRuby delivers custom food delivery application development with innovative features, scalable architecture, and a client-first approach. Can I get a custom food ordering app for my restaurant? Yes, we specialize in restaurant app development services, creating apps that enhance customer engagement and streamline your operations. How long does it take to build a food delivery app? The timeline depends on the complexity and features, but most on-demand delivery app development projects take 3–6 months to complete. What’s the cost of online food ordering app development? Costs vary based on the app’s features, platform, and design. We offer flexible pricing to fit different business budgets. Can I build on-demand delivery apps for multiple restaurants? Absolutely. Our on-demand food delivery app solutions cater to multi-restaurant models, providing robust management tools for all partners. Can you develop a food delivery app for small businesses? Yes, our food delivery app development services are designed to support businesses of all sizes, including startups and local restaurants. How can I partner with a food delivery app development company? Partnering with us is simple — reach out to discuss your goals, and we’ll guide you through every step of creating a successful food app. What industries can benefit from restaurant delivery app development? Industries like fast food, fine dining, meal prep services, and ghost kitchens benefit greatly from tailored food delivery mobile app development. Do you provide custom food delivery app solutions for niche markets? Yes, we develop custom food delivery apps to meet unique market needs, whether for vegan meal deliveries or gourmet catering services. What platforms do you support within food delivery application development services? We deliver apps for Android, iOS, and web platforms to maximize reach and user engagement. ### Health & Fitness App Development Company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Health & Fitness App Development Company We deliver expert fitness app development services that drive user engagement and tangible health outcomes Get started We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies we offer Custom Wellness & Fitness Apps Our experts build multi-faceted fitness solutions that help address diverse health goals, from home-based workouts to mindful living Workout & personal trainer apps Personal trainer apps function like a virtual coach, saving you the trip to a physical gym while featuring video tutorials, 3D modeling, and interactive workouts for gym-free enthusiasts Book a Call Activity Tracking apps These apps track running, walking, swimming, or snowboarding and sync with wearables to deliver accurate performance metrics for goal-oriented progress Book a Call Diet & Nutrition apps Calorie counting, nutrition logging, and personalized meal planning come together to help users follow a diet and maintain control over food intake Book a Call Meditation & Yoga apps Detailed instructions, guided sessions, and adaptable training modes give users the freedom to practice mindfulness anywhere, with reliable content that fosters a balanced lifestyle Book a Call Must-have features Essential Elements for a Powerful Fitness App That Engage & Motivate Each feature simplifies user interactions, promotes consistency in workouts, and reinforces overall engagement Personal profile A personal profile stores weight, age, height, and goals in a clear layout that helps users upload photos and track progress effectively Workouts We offer multiple workout plans, video demos, and training tutorials in a structured calendar view that accommodates both beginner and advanced fitness levels Activity log An activity log makes workouts more engaging and helps users stay motivated through progress analytics, challenges, gamification elements, goals, and a built-in workout calendar Integration with wearable devices Integrating wearable devices lets users track and monitor activity in a simple interface, which makes the app user-friendly and ensures more robust training programs Welcome to 2025 Wellness & Fitness Tech Trends and Predictions by JetRuby Our free eBook compiles industry insights and expert analysis on health and fitness technology. Gain actionable strategies and data-driven perspectives on innovations that transform fitness app development and enhance digital wellness solutions. Get Industry Forecast Our cases Our Success Stories in Health & Fitness App Development Explore our featured projects that showcase technical expertise and measurable impact in the competitive fitness market Move Shanghai Streamlining active lifestyles in Shanghai We built an online fitness platform that connects users to over 150 sports venues across the city. We migrated the original application's Perl-based logic and database structures from the UK project to meet local requirements, added a local notification system, and connected WeChat messaging channels for user communication. Read more JetFit Transform your health and fitness journey JetRuby built JetFit, a health and fitness platform that empowers users to challenge themselves as a coach, member, or broker. With access to over 300 coaches and a wide range of online programs, the platform offers personalized paths to improve wellness and performance. Health & Wellness Educational application that provides DevOps-like experience. We've built a robust AWS and Terraform-based software to manage AWS configurations at ease. Using the embedded visual editor, teachers can easily deploy/create an unlimited number of servers and send their full copies to students, so they don't need to spend time on setup and further adjustment. Read more How we work Our Fitness Software Development Process Our structured, seven-step approach delivers measurable results at every phase and transforms your idea into a fully deployed product, with ongoing support after launch Step 1 Ideation We gather your goals, audience insights, and technical requirements to shape the core concept of your fitness solution Step 2 Scoping Our team defines the project roadmap, timeline, and resource allocation, creating a clear development plan Step 3 Prototype We develop an interactive prototype that illustrates navigation, core features, and preliminary designs for feedback Step 4 UX/UI Design Our designers craft intuitive layouts and user flows, enhancing visual appeal and ease of use across devices Step 5 Development & testing Using agile practices, we build and refine each feature, performing continuous quality checks to ensure top performance Step 6 Deployment The app is released to production environments or app stores, and we coordinate final reviews to confirm readiness Step 7 Maintenance Post-launch updates, bug fixes, and performance improvements keep your app aligned with evolving user needs We work with Hire Top Fitness Mobile App Development Agency in USA You Can Trust Our commitment to quality and innovation has helped startups, SMBs, and enterprises across various sectors streamline their operations, grow more quickly, deliver a faster time-to-market, and stay competitive in a changing business landscape FAQ How long does a typical project for fitness app development services take when building a mid-range solution? Timelines vary by complexity. We start with a clear scope, plan each phase, and keep you updated through transparent milestones. Do you provide AI fitness app development to offer personalized training and recommendations? Yes. We implement advanced algorithms that deliver real-time analytics and workout suggestions based on individual user data. What is your approach to data privacy during healthcare fitness mobile app development? We follow strict regulatory standards, conduct regular security checks, and leverage robust encryption to protect user information. Can your team integrate wearable sensors when building wellness and fitness apps for corporate clients? Yes. We specialize in hardware-software connectivity so data from wearables merges seamlessly with your fitness platform. Is it possible to scale our existing product with your fitness software development? Yes, we offer flexible architectures designed to expand as user demand grows, helping you stay agile in a competitive market. Do you support cross-platform builds for health and fitness app development to reach both Android and iOS users? Yes. Our development toolkit includes cross-platform frameworks, allowing you to address multiple operating systems efficiently. How do you reduce time-to-market during custom fitness app development without compromising quality? We rely on agile methodologies and iterative reviews. This approach speeds up delivery while preserving high standards. ### Fintech Software Development Company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Bespoke Fintech Software Development Company Unlock the full potential of your financial services with our custom fintech apps that drive growth, improve customer engagement, and accelerate time-to-market. Let’s talk We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Benefits How Does Fintech Software Development Benefit Your Business? Our fintech software development services offer personalized, secure, and efficient financial solutions that your customers can trust and easily access. Advanced customer analytics Leverage in-depth insights from customer interactions, financial transactions, and behavior patterns to refine your offerings, personalize marketing campaigns, and make data-driven decisions that increase ROI. Faster time to market Accelerate fintech product launches through optimized deployment cycles to respond faster to market changes and stay ahead of competitors. Automated support services Offer 24/7 customer support with AI-powered chatbots, automated ticketing systems, and virtual assistants that increase support availability, reduce operational costs, and drive customer loyalty. Scalable financial infrastructure Build a fintech platform that grows with your business while maintaining high performance and security as you handle more transactions, expand service offerings, and support an increasing user base. Seamless integration Integrate your fintech app seamlessly with CRMs, payment gateways, banking systems, and ERP platforms to reduce operational silos, ensure system efficiency, and unify data flow across all touchpoints. Improved customer retention Foster stronger customer relationships, encourage repeat usage, and reduce churn rates using targeted communications, personalized offers, push notifications, and in-app messaging.   Welcome to 2025 Fintech Trends and Predictions by JetRuby Our free eBook, 2025 Fintech Trends and Predictions, brings together the latest deep industry insights and expert analysis. Gain practical insights into innovations revolutionizing banking, payments, and financial services, and see how they impact businesses and customers. Get Industry Forecast Must-have features Features Your Customers Expect in a Fintech App End-users expect a seamless, intuitive experience when using fintech products. Our bespoke fintech software solutions provide convenience, financial data security, and ease of use. Financial Records and Account Balance Payment and NFC Integration Security Protocols and Encryption Wearable devises Integration Customer Experience & User Interface Design Reliable Back-End System for the App Support Cryptocurrency Wallet Biometric Verification Investment Tracking and Portfolio Management Our cases Featured Fintech Projects We bring 15 years of fintech development expertise to craft financial software solutions for startups, SMBs, and large enterprises LinkSquares AI-powered contract analytics LinkSquares is a cloud-based platform that uses AI to analyze contracts with speed and precision. It enables full-text searches for phrases, keywords, and terms across thousands of documents in seconds. Trusted by over 10 companies, it has processed over 1 million contracts and secured $7 million in funding Read more Moments NFC A Kotlin-based pub payment app Our team created a Kotlin app for pub-goers in the USA to let them pay with a simple wave of their hand using NFC technology. The app was built in just 12 days by adapting the existing iOS design, saving the client time and budget. We also delivered a unique mobile application for the Android platform. View case study Read article VaultVertex Digital debt collection made easy VaultVertex is a Fintech platform that helps businesses manage digital debt collection and payments efficiently. It uses digital reminders to keep customers on track, improving communication and boosting payment recovery. Our team improved the system’s setup, added payment options for a big client, and made the platform more flexible with easier payment agreements and access controls. Read more How we work Our Approach to Fintech App Development We believe in a transparent, collaborative process that ensures we meet your business needs every step of the way. Step 1 Ideation We explore your vision and define the scope of your fintech app based on your goals. Step 2 Scoping Together, we outline features, define timelines, and set clear expectations for a seamless development process. Step 3 Prototype Our team creates an interactive prototype to show you how your app will look and work. Step 4 UX/UI Design Our experts develop an intuitive, user-friendly interface that aligns with your brand identity and enhances user experience. Step 5 Development & testing We build your fintech app and test it to ensure everything works well. Step 6 Deployment We quickly deploy your app across platforms, ready for users to enjoy. Step 7 Maintenance Our fintech developers provide ongoing support, monitoring, and updates to keep your app running smoothly. we offer Custom Fintech Solutions JetRuby Delivers We implement financial software solutions to meet the unique needs of every business. Insurance Apps We develop multipurpose insurance mobile apps to provide a great experience and a more efficient way of connecting insurance companies with their customers while increasing the productivity of insurance agents. Book a Call Banking Apps Smart banking is the ultimate trend in modern financial software development. We bring your customers a secure and reliable experience, helping them send, receive, and control their funds quickly and efficiently. Book a Call Investment Apps Our high-quality investment apps are super easy for expense tracking, portfolio values, a summary of their holdings, intelligent insights on their broad investments, and so on. Your customers obtain convenient tools to boost their revenue, which positively affects your business results. Book a Call Digital Wallet Apps Digital wallet apps encourage customers to pay with their smartphones. A digital wallet can be easily connected to the payment gateway through debit and credit cards, internet banking, or other payment methods. Book a Call We work with Hire a Fintech software development team you can trust Our commitment to quality and innovation has helped startups, SMBs, and enterprises across various sectors streamline their operations, grow more quickly, deliver a faster time-to-market, and stay competitive in a changing business landscape FAQ How do fintech technology enhancements help businesses improve customer retention? Our custom software development services provide user-friendly and secure platforms that streamline financial processes like payments, account management, or investment tracking. These upgrades help build user trust and loyalty. Can your fintech app development company integrate advanced security measures into my app? Yes, we specialize in incorporating robust security protocols, including multi-factor authentication, data encryption, and biometric verification. These features ensure compliance with banking software standards and build customer trust. What should I consider when hiring fintech application developers for my project? Look for fintech app developers with experience in financial app development, a strong portfolio, and knowledge of compliance standards. Our team offers end-to-end fintech development services tailored to your needs. How can I make a financial app stand out in a competitive market? Partner with a fintech application development company that understands fintech sector trends and user needs. We focus on innovative UX/UI design, cutting-edge technology, and seamless integration with mobile banking systems. Are your fintech app development services suitable for startups and SMBs? Yes. Whether you’re a fintech startup, an SMB, or a large enterprise, we provide scalable solutions that match your growth and budget, helping you launch apps that attract and retain customers. How do you approach banking software development for modern financial institutions? We design mobile banking systems that prioritize customer convenience, advanced features like AI-driven analytics, and secure integrations with legacy systems. Why should I hire fintech software developers instead of using an off-the-shelf solution? Hiring a dedicated team allows you to build a custom solution tailored to your business model and customer needs. Off-the-shelf apps often lack flexibility and unique features, while our fintech web development services ensure your app stands out. What are the key technologies your fintech app development company uses? We use various cutting-edge technologies, including blockchain for secure transactions, AI for personalized services, and cloud computing for scalability. They help create robust and reliable fintech mobile apps. How can fintech development companies help with compliance and regulations? We stay up-to-date on financial regulations to ensure your app complies with legal requirements like GDPR, PCI DSS, and other standards. Our expertise in fintech minimizes risks and helps us maintain smooth operations. What makes your team the best choice for fintech mobile app development? Our team of fintech software development experts combines deep fintech industry knowledge with the best fintech software development services. We focus on user needs, advanced features, and fast delivery. Can you assist with fintech web development services for online platforms? Yes, we specialize in creating web-based fintech platforms that offer the same seamless experience as mobile apps. These platforms include secure dashboards, real-time financial updates, and intuitive user interfaces. How quickly can you make a financial app? Product development and launch timelines depend on the complexity of your project, but our fintech application developers leverage ready-made components and custom solutions to meet your deadlines without compromising quality. What’s the first step when I hire fintech app developers? We start with ideation and scoping sessions to understand your goals, target audience, and technical requirements. This ensures the web or mobile application aligns with your vision and offers the best user experience. Do your fintech app development services include post-launch support? Yes, we provide ongoing maintenance and updates to ensure your app remains secure, up-to-date, and responsive to user feedback. ### OSRAM Urban Farming Home Cases Agritech Osram Urban Farming Agritech Osram Urban Farming Digitally manage the production of high-quality fresh food all year round Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, ReactJSIndustry AgritechEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WebTeam 6 membersTimeline 3 years About the project Osram Urban Farming equips farmers with advanced digital tools to help them sustainably produce high-quality crops and food in urban areas. This startup project has evolved inside a global high-tech company Osram with the support of our technical expertise. Osram’s top-notch optical solutions and technologies are used by the world’s leading corporations, including NASA, and promote innovation in the economy's industrial, consumer, healthcare, and automotive sectors. Our expertise in agriculture software development, combined with Osram’s innovative approach to lighting technology and sensors, produced a unique farm management solution for smart and efficient crop care. Osram Urban Farming Provides the Following Solutions: 24/7 monitoring of soil condition and crop health IoT-based solutions for indoor farming Transmitting the aggregated data to the information dashboard to facilitate the decision-making process Ensuring control of the whole production process.​ They go out of their way to work and engage with the customer. The work completed by JetRuby was excellent, with the team handling the expanded scope professionally and producing high-quality deliverables. They were an engaged, committed team that worked hard to accomplish all tasks on time and by high standards.Rodrigo Pereyra  /  business field manager at Osram Challenges to overcome We were excited to apply our skills as agriculture app developers in this project and build a complex solution to automate the farming process. Creating a universal and easy-to-use solution for farmers has put a few challenges further on:Conducting proper research The customer specified basic requirements for the project implementation. Before the development stage, we conducted thorough research and identified the goals of the process.Making the app receive the data from sensors The network of agriculture sensors collects data throughout the farm. To get the web dashboard to display the data (temperature, light, etc.), this information would follow from sensors through the cloud and finally reach the end-user. The quality of this connection and building a robust environment were critical to the success of this monitoring system.Setting up a single cutting-edge dashboard The digital farm management system must present the information & analytical dashboard in one easy-to-use interface and simultaneously enable adjustments of critical parameters. It was essential to design it as a universal “one-stop” platform. Our work The Internet of Things concept lies at the forefront of Osram Urban Farming, connecting sensors via a network to deliver data (weather conditions, soil quality, growth progress, environmental changes, and so on) to the end-user.  The development stage used Amazon Web Services to build serverless IoT applications that gather, process, and analyze field data rendered by devices. Finally, the farm management system was configured to be able to act on this data. Setting up the data collection and exchange process was essential for the farm monitoring system. The data was extracted from a network of inexpensive, easy-to-install sensors. Once the cloud received data from sensors, it was forwarded to the web dashboard, and relevant alerts were sent to farmers. This way, anomalies in crop growth could be easily spotted.The dashboard design highlighted crop productivity and alterations of this parameter to facilitate decision-making. Enabling farmers to adjust necessary parameters with a click of a button was a perfect finish-up to the project. Providing enough supply of light and an optimal light spectrum at all stages of plant growth is essential. At the same time, we aimed to elaborate on the energy-saving and cost-efficient light solution. Implementation A closed but flexible architecture was our choice for the joint project with OSRAM. It allowed putting into operation a wide range of sensor devices and operational units. Moreover, the network is easily scaled and enables connecting remote production sites into a single system. Heavily-modified transmitters act as sensor devices. In particular, these devices were represented by hygrometers, air & soil thermometers, sensors for a permanent tracking of physical and chemical soil characteristics, weather stations, and sensors to measure the flow rate and filling level of the hydraulic systems. To prevent negative scenarios and increase yield, our AI systems additionally process images transmitted by drones and satellites. The data from transmitters flows through several channels (LoRa, ZigBee, WiFi, Thread, Bluetooth) to local nodes and, finally, the cloud. The choice of the communication channel, the network topology, and architecture was based on the needs of the project. Reliability and cost performance are crucial factors considered by us during the setup of the data flow channels.You can see the below scheme for the details: To ensure data integrity, we used illuminometers and compact spectrometers as sensors. The information enters the server so that the neural network could generate the best possible combination of light for every single greenhouse. Professional expertise sets a tone Every project implemented by us would not be possible without advisory assistance of universities and agriculture experts. It’s required to properly understand the demands of each sort of plant, as well as the regional peculiarities of growing plants.

 New lighting modes are usually tested and trained on pilot cells of the project enterprise. More efficient setup and exploitation are possible thanks to the Machine Learning pipeline based on open-source libraries. Business results The idea of Osram Urban Farming turned into a bespoke and brand-new solution rooted in simplicity and high performance. During the first month of release, more than 50 contracts for the implementation were signed. By utilizing our solution, the farming business achieved a 32% crop yield increase. By improving the quality of plant nutrition and growth through a smart dashboard, farmers could achieve more sustainable and ambitious goals with their production. We are proud to have developed the software product with rich potential for Osram, one of the leading producers of optical solutions. Osram Urban Farming was presented at the Consumer Electronics Show, organized by the Consumer Technology Association in Las Vegas. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Design & Discovery Phase Design & Discovery Phase Maximize cost savings and enhance customer acquisition through the creation of an innovative project vision, delineation of strategic objectives, and meticulous identification of potential pitfalls associated with product launch Discover with JetRuby Risks of skipping the phase Don’t underestimate the role of Design and Discovery Phase Misaligned Goals The project may deviate from business requirements, leading to a product that fails to meet stakeholder expectations and address the intended issues Budget Overruns and Delays Inadequate planning can cause scope creep, resulting in budget and schedule challenges Poor User Experience A product difficult to use, contributing to low adoption rates and user dissatisfaction Unidentified Risks Overlooking concealed risks during discovery may lead to expensive and time-consuming rectifications in the future Do not risk your project success Achieve your project goals avoiding any potential risks with Design and Discovery phase Let’s discuss your Project How we work Our Design & Discovery process The Design and Discovery Phase clarifies the product goals, foresee the business outcomes of its launch, choose the essential features, and determine the functionality for a future MVP Step 1 Product Definition At the end of the Product Definition stage, we get a clear vision of the product's business tasks that entirely correlate with the product's business goals Step 2 Visualization We build a product's application architecture based on the user stories Step 3 Prototyping Product backlog with the visual representation of the product's development: planned milestones, budget, and deadlines estimation Step 4 Presentation Once the client approves and accepts the presentation, the Design and Discovery phase is deemed finished Reasons for Design and Discovery A solid foundation for your MVP A well-executed discovery phase will steer your product in the right direction. By the end of the discovery phase with the JetRuby team, clients gain a solid foundation for their MVP. Both the client and the development team share a clear understanding of the project’s direction, potential challenges, and a detailed roadmap to guide the development process. A clear vision of product development and its business outcomes The validated ideas before investing in the actual product development process A solid foundation for future Minimum Viable Product (MVP) A clickable product prototype if the client requires it and there's a designer on the team Team Team Roles JetRuby has showcased its excellence in delivering top-notch discovery phase services for numerous clients across diverse industries Project Manager Organizes meetings, gathers information, handles documents, and keeps the team working together Business Analyst Studies gathered data, identifies market trends, and offers solutions Solution Architect (SA) Analyzes initial technical requirements and offers tools and methodologies for developing the best product Designer Participate in the initial research and solution design, create an intuitive interface to make your product as appealing as possible ### Company profile Your Future Partner in Details JetRuby Agency began its journey as a startup and has since evolved into a full-scale software development firm. Over the years, we have partnered with numerous businesses to prototype, engineer, and launch innovative, client-centric software solutions Let’s get acquainted 15 Years on market 8 Development centers 250+ Satisfied customers 4.9 Clutch rating 300+ In-house engineers 8 Ruby Gems Your Success Is Our Top Priority Our Mission We assist modern companies worldwide in creating outstanding SaaS products that people love to use. Our aim is to ensure the success of our clients and the happiness of their customers. Our Services & Expertise We attribute our success to our robust talent management strategies. Our dedicated and skilled teams work collaboratively with clients to achieve their goals and create exceptional products. Quality management — Guidance for people engagement Human Capital Management Service and Organization Controls  Prototyping We transform your ideas into tangible prototypes that lay the foundation for successful product development. Engineering Our team of experts leverages cutting-edge technologies to develop robust and scalable software solutions. Product Launch From planning to execution, we ensure your product launch is seamless and impactful. JetRuby Core Principles Empowered Team We empower each member to take ownership of their work, fostering a collaborative and resilient work environment. Results-Driven Innovation By continuously seeking new ideas and maintaining a focus on measurable outcomes, we drive progress and deliver exceptional value to our clients. Client-Centric Excellence We place our clients at the heart of everything we do, striving to exceed their expectations in all our products and services. Strategic Foresight We plan with strategic foresight, make decisive choices, and optimize resources to ensure efficiency and sustainability. Trust and Integrity We build and maintain trust through integrity, transparency, and reliability in all our interactions. Meet our leadership team Here’s the driving force behind all strategic decisions Ivan Linko CEO Ivan founded JetRuby as a startup, which has since evolved into a leading BPO company with over 200 highly skilled professionals. Originally specializing in Ruby on Rails development, JetRuby has expanded its expertise to encompass a full spectrum of development services. As a visionary entrepreneur with deep insights into both the business and technical aspects of programming, Ivan regularly shares his knowledge and perspectives on social media, providing valuable insights for both developers and business leaders. Henry Ahadzhanyan CBDO Henry serves as the Director of Business Development, specializing in accelerating the launch of digital products with precision and predictable results. With a deep expertise in AI-enabled AgriTech solutions, digital farming, and data science, Henry empowers entrepreneurs to maintain a competitive edge in their respective industries. His knowledge and experience ensure that businesses not only enter the market swiftly but also stay ahead through innovative and data-driven approaches. Mohamed Badawi‬ Scientific Advisor Professor Mohamed A. Badawi has joined JetRuby as a scientific advisor, bringing a wealth of expertise in biotechnology and environmental solutions. His scientifically proven approach is integral to the projects we develop, particularly in the realm of agricultural initiatives. Dr. Mohamed's work has been widely published in specialized magazines and academic periodicals, showcasing his significant contributions to the field. We are thrilled to have him on board, ensuring that our projects are grounded in rigorous scientific research and innovative solutions.Henry Ahadzhanyan Henry serves as the Director of Business Development, specializing in accelerating the launch of digital products with precision and predictable results. With a deep expertise in AI-enabled AgriTech solutions, digital farming, and data science, Henry empowers entrepreneurs to maintain a competitive edge in their respective industries. His knowledge and experience ensure that businesses not only enter the market swiftly but also stay ahead through innovative and data-driven approaches.Mohamed Badawi‬ Professor Mohamed A. Badawi has joined JetRuby as a scientific advisor, bringing a wealth of expertise in biotechnology and environmental solutions. His scientifically proven approach is integral to the projects we develop, particularly in the realm of agricultural initiatives. Dr. Mohamed's work has been widely published in specialized magazines and academic periodicals, showcasing his significant contributions to the field. We are thrilled to have him on board, ensuring that our projects are grounded in rigorous scientific research and innovative solutions.Ivan Linko Ivan founded JetRuby as a startup, which has since evolved into a leading BPO company with over 200 highly skilled professionals. Originally specializing in Ruby on Rails development, JetRuby has expanded its expertise to encompass a full spectrum of development services. As a visionary entrepreneur with deep insights into both the business and technical aspects of programming, Ivan regularly shares his knowledge and perspectives on social media, providing valuable insights for both developers and business leaders. Trusted by Industry Leaders Our commitment to quality and innovation is reflected in the success of our clients. By partnering with us, businesses across various industries have transformed their operations, achieved significant growth, and stayed ahead of the competition. Join the ranks of industry leaders who trust JetRuby Agency to deliver exceptional software solutions tailored to their unique needs. Our development centers Canada Brazil Portugal United States Portugal Serbia Armenia UAE Turkey We Are an Open Book We are on media News & Press our style Brand Guide our achievements JetRuby Awards Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Awards Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Celebrating Excellence and Innovation Recognizing JetRuby's Industry Achievements. Discover the accolades and recognitions that highlight our commitment to excellence and innovation in the industry. Join us in celebrating our journey of success and dedication. Learn More award 2024 Fastest growing app development companies award 2024 Top Software Development Company in the USA award 2025 Top Ruby on Rails Developer in the USA award 2025 Top Software Development Companies in the USA JetRuby Awards 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2025 award 2025 Top Software Development Companies in the USA award 2025 Top Devops Service Companies in the USA award 2025 Top Website Designers in San Francisco award 2025 Top AI Development Companies in San Francisco award 2025 Top Ruby on Rails Developer in the USA award 2025 Top Software Developers in the USA award 2025 Top App Development Company in the USA award 2025 Top Robotics Company in the USA award 2025 Top Ruby on Rails Developer in California award 2025 Top React Native Developer in California award 2025 Top Web Developers in California award 2025 Top Web Developers Education California award 2025 Top Web Developers Medical California award 2025 Top Swift Company in California award 2025 Top Kotlin Company in California publication 2025 Top AWS Consultants companies publication 2025 Top Mobile App Development Companies: Best for 2025 2024 award 2024 Fastest growing app development companies award 2024 Top Software Development Company in the USA award 2024 Top Company Publishing App Developers award 2024 Top Ruby on Rails Developer award 2024 Top Robotics Company award 2024 Fall Clutch Global honorees & Clutch Champions publication July 2024 Top Android Developers for Hire 2023 award 2023 Top 1000 Companies in 2023 award 2023 Top Ruby on Rails Developer award 2023 Top Cognitive Computing Company award 2023 Top Ruby on Rails Developer 2023 award 2023 Top E-commerce development company award 2023 Top 10 Social Media App Development Companies award 2023 App Development Companies award 2023 Top Ruby On Rails Development Companies award 2023 Top Google Cloud Platform Consulting Companies award 2023 Top Ruby On Rails Development Companies 2023 award 2023 Top AWS Consulting Companies award January 2023 Best Web Development Companies publication 2023 Top 10 Social Media App Development Companies 2023 publication May 2023 Top Mobile App Development Companies: Best for 2023 publication January 2023 Top Android Developers for Hire 2022 award December 2022 Top 1000 Global Service Providers in 2022 award May 2022 AppFutura Top App Development Company award 2022 Top Mobile App Development Company award 2022 UI/UX Design Agencies Canada award 2022 UI/UX Design Agencies Toronto publication October 2022 Top 10 Swift App Development Companies publication January 2022 Best Business App Development Companies 2021 award 2021 Clutch Top B2B Companies 2021 award 2021 Top app development company 2021 award 2021 Fastest Growing App Development Companies 2021 award 2021 Top App development companies for startups award 2021 Top Rated Web Design & Development company award 2021 Top mobile App Development companies publication 2021 The Best Ruby On Rails Development Companies 2020 award 2020 Top 1000 Companies Global 2020 award January, 2020 Top Custom Software Development Companies award 2020 Top Web Development companies 2019 award 2019 Top IT & Business service companies 2019 award 2019 Top Ruby on Rails Developer 2019 award December 2019 Top DevOps Services & Consulting Companies 2018 award 2018 Top B2B companies Global 2018 award 2018 Best Ruby on Rails Agency Global 2018 In our clients’ words Carol HenckelPresident, MTG Healthcare AcademyTheir responsiveness, flexibility, and commitment to our needs made them a pleasure to work with! JetRuby Agency's work led to a 35% increase in user engagement, a 25% increase in course completion rates, a 15% increase in revenue, and a 20% decrease in user acquisition costs. The app also received a 4.5 rating on the app store. Moreover, the team was timely, organized, and responsive. FounderSoftware Development CompanyJetRuby Agency is one of the best agencies I've worked with. They're extremely professional. JetRuby Agency has delivered a high-quality MVP. Equipped with a methodical approach, they deliver on time and within the budget. They communicate and collaborate effectively with the client, allowing for a seamless workflow. Their tendency to exceed expectations ensures a long-term partnership. Rodrigo Pereyra business field manager at OsramThey go out of their way to work and engage with the customer. The work completed by JetRuby was excellent, with the team handling the expanded scope professionally and producing high-quality deliverables. They were an engaged, committed team that worked hard to accomplish all tasks on time and by high standards. Jan Nowikov CEO, Help My TaskI give them a 10/10 for what we’ve done together. JetRuby Agency coded quickly and delivered with ease a very functional and thoughtful solution that internal stakeholders are eager to bring to market. The team is personable, responsive, and attentive, fostering a seamless and mutually beneficial collaboration. Their services are reasonably priced. Steffi M. AVP - Tech, Handelnine GlobalWe are very happy with the project management, project execution, software quality, and accountability. The engagement was successful; the site is currently live and completely functional. JetRuby Agency managed the project well using the Agile methodology; they were responsive and delivered items on time. Jack Green CTO, NameCoachTheir team provides notes and questions our ideas to make our products better. JetRuby Agency dedicated capable resources that produced satisfying deliverables to facilitated growth into new business verticals. The team communicates clearly, which enables effective collaboration. Informed by a wealth of experience, they offer valuable insights that encourage improvements. Shai Rozen CTO, ShiurimMost of the positive feedback has been regarding the new features and improvements. The product is performing well in the market, receiving over 2,000 downloads in its first few days. All feedback regarding JetRuby Agency’s work and skilled expertise has been positive. Their responsive approach complemented their quick workflow. Chase Tasca Founder, Web App Dev for Startup HVAC Technicians PlatformThey put a lot of effort into making sure that everything works to my satisfaction. Brimming with technical expertise and the desire to help their client succeed, JetRuby Agency has delivered quality design deliverables that have strikingly mirrored their client's ideas. Transparent and customer-oriented, they provide reliable estimates to bring their requirements to fruition. Brandyn Morelli Co-Founder, hellocecilWe’ve worked with a lot of other firms, and JetRuby agency is one of the best. Not only is JetRuby Agency great at what they do, they also charge a fair price. The team is responsive and communicative, holding weekly meetings to keep everyone updated. They use various means of communication and have some of the best project management in their field. Julian Safford Co-Founder, Moments Inc.I am happy with how they adjust their approach to appeal to as a customer. JetRuby's exceptional value sets them above competitors. Showing a genuine interest in the product, their team listens closely to feedback and maintains a thorough understanding of the business. Their ability to create optimal solutions to sustain a lower budget is impressive. David Bankston CEO, Sparksfly Technologies, Inc.They are very good at listening and working with your timeframes. We have some amazing people on our team. The client receives over four million transactions per year and they have had no problems. They attribute part of this to the development work that JetRuby Agency provided. Tom Klein Founder, Suggest ItI’m impressed by their ability to meet those changes on very short notice while keeping with deadlines. The client is particularly happy with the quality of the projects that JetRuby has worked on - specifically the quality of the code. They manage communication between teams very well and meet all deadlines set for them. Dhanush Balachandran CEO, SortlyThey are experts in Ruby. The client has received great reviews from users of the new site. Along with the high reviews, the client is experiencing their highest level of revenue. They have appreciated the agency's knowledge and skill surrounding Ruby on Rails and their willingness to make improvements where necessary. Find out more testimonials 5.0 rating Find out more testimonials 4.9 rating ### Events app development new Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Events Management App Development Company We combine multi-year expertise with events management best practices to build scalable, custom event apps that streamline planning, boost attendee engagement, and deliver measurable business results. Let’s talk We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Benefits Key benefits of custom event app development for your business Create value for your organization and audience with our social event apps that transform your event planning and execution process. Simplified event planning Streamline venue bookings, registration management, and scheduling in one platform, minimizing administrative errors and reducing time spent on manual tasks Actionable insights for smarter decisions Analyze attendee behavior, event marketing KPIs, and engagement patterns to make better, data-backed choices that drive strategic marketing efforts Tailored experiences for every attendee Foster memorable experience and attendee loyalty with personalized ticketing, agendas, and event content based on user preferences Smooth tool integrations Connect your events app with CRMs, marketing platforms, social media, and payment systems to optimize workflows and improve data syncing Stronger brand presence Create a cohesive, polished experience that reinforces your brand recognition and builds stronger relationships with attendees, sponsors, and stakeholders Trustworthy security and privacy Protect sensitive attendee and organizer data with rock-solid encryption and privacy features to safeguard your brand's reputation and ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR Built to grow with your events Easily scale your event app to support larger, more complex events, whether you're organizing big conferences or large festivals, ensuring your platform remains reliable at all times Boosted ROI Maximize your return on investment with higher ticket sales, increased sponsor visibility, and automated events management tasks Engaged attendees Keep attendees active with features like live polls, Q&A sessions, and real-time feedback, increasing their investment in your event’s success solutions Must-have event app features for attendees Equip your clients with an intuitive, feature-packed business event app that offers personalized options, real-time updates, and tools that make attending your events easier and more enjoyable. Easy registration & login Make it easy for attendees to sign up with one-click options, social media logins, or email verification Smart event feed Use advanced algorithms to display sessions, activities, and updates for attendees based on their preferences, behavior, and interaction history Personalized attendee dashboards Provide a centralized hub where attendees can view their tickets, session schedules, venue maps, and post-event materials in one organized space Advanced search Allow attendees to easily discover events and sessions by applying filters such as event type, date, ticket price, or availability Real-time event tracking Give attendees full visibility of upcoming and past events, with calendar integration and instant alerts when tickets become available for previously sold-out events Push notifications Keep attendees informed with instant push alerts about schedule changes, networking opportunities, and VIP announcements Secure in-app transactions Integrate trusted payment gateways with encrypted data protection to purchase tickets, book add-ons, or upgrade packages AI-powered chatbot support Provide 24/7 attendee assistance with intelligent chatbots that answer queries, offer recommendations, and guide users through the event process Our cases Featured cases Explore how our custom event apps have transformed event planning and attendee engagement PYRO The go-to platform for DJs and music lovers PYRO brings together over 10,000 record labels, 50,000 international DJs, and 20,000 DJs based in China. This app blends the best features of top music streaming services, creating a unique space for the global DJ community. Explore our article to learn more about this exciting project. Read article MusicApp A comprehensive platform for music enthusiasts Music App brings fans closer to their favorite pop star by offering exclusive access to music tracks, video performances, and personalized playlists. It features notifications for album releases and tour dates, offline access for subscribers, and integrated ticket sales. Based on React Native, the app delivers an intuitive experience on both iOS and Android platforms. Read more How we work Our event app development process We follow a structured, client-centric approach that ensures your event app is tailored to your vision and business needs. Step 1 Ideation We brainstorm innovative ideas to match your business needs and event goals. Step 2 Scoping The team defines project requirements, timelines, and deliverables for a clear and efficient plan. Step 3 Prototype Interactive prototypes showcase the app’s functionality and user journey before development begins. Step 4 UX/UI design We craft intuitive, visually appealing interfaces that enhance user satisfaction. Step 5 Development & testing We build your app using cutting-edge technologies and conduct thorough testing to guarantee quality. Step 6 Deployment We launch your app smoothly across platforms, ensuring it’s ready for use. Step 7 Maintenance Dedicated support ensures continuous updates and peak performance for your app over time. we offer Tailored solutions for every event Whether you need to create an app for a local event, festival, or professional conference, our event app development company provides custom solutions that enhance attendee experiences and streamline your event management. Local events apps Help organizers create personalized, community-focused experiences while managing event logistics with ease. Book a Call Festival apps Turn vibrant gatherings into unforgettable experiences with real-time schedules, ticketing, and audience engagement tools. Book a Call Sports events apps Boost fan involvement by offering live updates, interactive features, and secure ticket handling. Book a Call Conference apps Empower professional events with tools for streamlined scheduling, virtual networking, and attendee interaction. Book a Call We work with We work with industry leaders Our commitment to quality and innovation has helped startups, SMBs, and enterprises across various sectors streamline their operations, grow more quickly, deliver a faster time-to-market, and stay competitive in a changing business landscape FAQ How do I create an event app for my business? If you want to create an event app, our team is here to guide you through the process. As an experienced event app development company, we handle everything from ideation to launch. Whether it’s for business event apps, social event apps, or conferences, we’ll design a solution tailored to your needs. What makes custom event apps better than ready-made solutions? Custom event apps are built with your unique goals in mind. Unlike generic templates, a custom app ensures features like personalized schedules, in-app payments, and attendee networking. It’s the best way to stand out in events app management. How much does it cost to build an event app? Costs vary based on features and complexity. For instance, if you want to build a conference app, we’ll provide a transparent estimate that fits your budget. How long does event app development take? Building an event app typically takes 8–12 weeks, depending on its scope. From simple event-creation apps to feature-rich platforms, we’ll keep you informed every step of the way. Can I use a mobile app for event management for different types of events? Absolutely. Our event app developers create apps for various needs, including business event apps, social event apps, sports events, and conferences. What features should I include if I want to create a conference app? When you create a conference app, prioritize tools like agenda management, live Q&A, networking opportunities, and real-time notifications. As an event app creator, we specialize in adding features that make your app engaging and efficient. How do I choose the best event app builder for my project? Look for an event software development company with a proven track record, flexible solutions, and excellent support. JetRuby Agency helped many businesses build event apps that deliver exceptional attendee experiences. Can you help me make an event app that tracks attendee engagement? Yes, tracking engagement is key for improving events. Our custom event apps provide in-app analytics, helping you measure attendee behavior, session popularity, and more. Are your solutions scalable for large events? Yes. Whether you’re hosting a local gathering or an international conference, we build event apps that grow with your needs and offer stability for any scale. How can I get started with your event app development services? Getting started is simple. Contact our event app developers, share your vision, and we’ll help you create an app for an event that meets your goals. ### Edtech Software Development Company new Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Edtech Software Development Company We turn your vision into a modern and profitable educational platform Start your EdTech Journey We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Benefits The global e-learning market will reach $325 billion by 2025 Education has already crossed the physical walls of a classroom, and the edtech industry is not going to slow down its evolution. Benefit from the expertise of the full-cycle edtech development company to kick off an innovative solution for the education industry. Consulting & analysis Our goal is to create an educational software solution that matches your needs and goals, providing a higher standard of learning. We'll help you define the vision and functionality of your future application. Educational app UX/UI design Our design teams follow the best design principles to create easy-to-use engaging ed apps. We'll provide you with a functional design that will help your users stay focused on learning. Development of an educational app Our engineers can build a scalable solution of any complexity for mobile and the web. The quality of our edtech software development deliverables is always top-notch. Educational App Maintenance Your application is going to serve you and your users for a long time. JetRuby will assist you with keeping your app up-to-date and ensuring high-quality performance through our dedicated development team. Welcome to "2025 EdTech Trends and Predictions" by JetRuby Take an insider’s look into the future of edtech. We've gathered and analyzed a vast amount of industry data about education technologies and compiled results into a free of charge "Edtech Trends and Predictions brochure for you to discover how innovative technologies will transform the entire edtech landscape in 2025 Get Industry Forecast solutions Our development solutions for educational apps From microlearning applications with progress tracking to corporate virtual training platforms with complex infrastructure, we create edtech solutions that not only provide users with a great learning experience but also encourage inclusiveness and cultural growth. Mobile learning Online courses Digital onboarding training Blended learning Employee training Microlearning Virtual training Educational content management Pronunciation learning why us Why choose JetRuby as your education app development company? JetRuby is a professional agency with a successful work record on projects used by world-class universities like Yale and Stanford. On-time and budget since 2010 Committed to your success Result and growth-oriented Our cases Building Ideas For Your Needs We discuss all software development opportunities, while you make a choice Learnifier iOS platform to simplify the access to the learning materials for the people around the globe. We've built the app, offering a simple yet very effective B2B solution to the digital onboarding process. With its help, you can set rules and documentation for all positions in your company. This application provides an easy way to create online and mixed training & courses. Read more NameCoach A web platform that helps you to spell names correctly and build a rapport with your peers. A unique web platform that solves social embarrassment or alienation experienced by us when names are mispronounced. Read more Doctrina Labs Educational application that provides DevOps-like experience. We've built a robust AWS and Terraform-based software to manage AWS configurations at ease. Using the embedded visual editor, teachers can easily deploy/create an unlimited number of servers and send their full copies to students, so they don't need to spend time on setup and further adjustment. Read more How we work Visualising our development process Your idea starts now, without any delays or unnecessary paperwork Step 1 Code Review If you have a codebase of your own, we estimate the costs and scale the approximate team accordingly. Step 2 Define & Estimate tasks All of the business & technical questions will be carefully examined and estimated within the first week. Step 3 Getting the feedback & setting the proposal While staying constantly in touch with you, we prepare all documents for you describing and discussing all terms and conditions. Step 4 Downpayment with your team Once the initial payment is received, we proceed to assign the people on demand as the project is growing. ### Agritech app development company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Agritech Software Development Company We help your agriculture ecosystem unlock its potential and turn it into a dynamic agtech enterprise Conquer Agritech Industry We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Jetruby fms We present our AI & ML Farming Management System The JetRuby Farming Management System (FMS) is a highly customizable AI & ML platform that will be expertly tailored to solve your specific needs About FMS Accurate Planning & Forecastingwith AI & ML systems to help farmers improve productivity Save on Inputswith Irrigation & Fertilisation precision Improve Yieldswith optimised Water, Fertiliser, & Soil management Increase Herd Output & Pregnancy Ratewith Smart monitoring Save on Labourwith Automation & Control in the agriculture industry Accurate Planning & Forecastingwith AI & ML systems to help farmers improve productivity Save on Inputswith Irrigation & Fertilisation precision Improve Yieldswith optimised Water, Fertiliser, & Soil management Increase Herd Output & Pregnancy Ratewith Smart monitoring Save on Labourwith Automation & Control in the agriculture industry Benefits Cultivate your AgriTech Digital Product We are not just agritech software developers, but also business analysts and agriculture partners Data gathering and analysis Get the most out of the top-end agri technology by collecting and analyzing the data about the livestock and field conditions. You can plan your production smarter with integrated data analytics. This way you can back up your crop yield. Quality of your product Timely predictions of the production process and smart management of your crop reserves ensure a higher quality of your harvest and livestock. Automation You can automate almost anything with our agritech solution to boost your revenues and save valuable time. AgriTech automates complex and time-consuming activities associated with seasonal planning and monitoring. Production control Use our management tools and proper planning to correctly manage and maintain your essential stocks like fuel, fertilizers, seeds, chemicals, and all of the other necessary components! Welcome to "2025 AgriTech Trends and Predictions" by JetRuby This is your insider's look into the future of agriculture. Our extensive expertise and experience in agriculture has allowed us to gather and analyze a vast amount of industry data to bring you insightful forecasts. We deeply care about your success, and have dedicated ourselves to understanding how innovative technologies will transform the entire agricultural landscape in 2025 Get Industry Forecast solutions What We Can Do For Your Agriculture Business We make your product simple and stable with these opportunities Weather Data Monitoring and processing the data from Sencrop, Darksky, and various other technologies that we operate daily. Alarms and Notifications setup Aggregating data from OpenWeatherMap Integrating weather measures, Sencrop, and DarkSky data into agricultural management software Cumulative temperature and precipitation calculations Historical data visualization ML-based yield forecast using machine learning techniques for precision agriculture IoT AgriTech Solutions Building various alerts & notifications systems, along with LTE NB-IoT MQTT Connections. We do provide every technology you need. Data aggregation via REST/SOAP API Geofencing implementation Data visualization Alerts and notifications setup Building MASH networks, LoRaWAN, SigFox, and LTE NB-IoT MQTT Connections Satellite & Drones For Your Farms Enhancing the efficiency of your work through automation and management software, reducing people's work. Aggregating satellite data from Pleiades, SPOT, Sentinel S2 & Landsat 8 Drones-generated image processing and analysis Index data calculations on NDVI, Green NDVI, LAI, Moister Index, Monitor, search by date and accumulate data from satellite Modulating prescriptions by converting image format to shapefile or other agricultural software solutions ML-based soil moisture low-level or plant disease detection Smart Farm Maps Constructing the automatic maps for your crop fields with your historical data, visualization, and analysis processes. OpenStreetMaps, Mapbox, and Google Maps integration Soil Analysis and Prescription Maps creation Satellite image integration and analysis Fields manipulations and integrations Equipment data aggregation and display Automatic maps comparison Historical data visualization and analysis Equipment routes tracking Field reports monitoring Our cases Building Ideas For Your Needs We discuss all software development opportunities, while you make a choice EveryPig EveryPig is a mobile solution for pork producers, delivering real-time advice based on AI and ML technologiesEveryPig is a progressive web app (PWA) designed for pork producers, utilizing AI and ML technologies to offer real-time advice. The app’s core functionality involves analyzing thousands of images to assess the health of pigs and alert users to potential infection outbreaks. Read more How we work Visualising our processes Your idea starts now, without any delays or unnecessary paperwork Step 1 Code Review If you have a codebase of your own, we estimate the costs and scale the approximate team accordingly. Step 2 Define & Estimate tasks All of the business & technical questions will be carefully examined and estimated within the first week. Step 3 Getting the feedback & setting the proposal While staying constantly in touch with you, we prepare all documents for you describing and discussing all terms and conditions. Step 4 Downpayment with your team Once the initial payment is received, we proceed to assign the people on demand as the project is growing. we offer Assisting Stakeholders to Increase Yield and Improve Profitability Indoor vertical farming By applying data visualization, MASH networks, and a wide range of other technologies, we strive to build an effective system for indoor farm industries. JetRuby engineers excel in flexible architecture systems specialized to integrate agritech solutions with SaaS platforms for data-driven decisions Book a Call Crop Fields Solutions We develop farm applications that allow stakeholders complete and yet simple control over field management, accounting, machine maintenance, crop management, and many more. Book a Call Animal Husbandry Technologies Our team always builds a simple and singular system that can track, collect, and analyze the healthcare processes of your animal husbandry using sensor technology. We also produce an autonomous AI system that analyses animal crop disease outbreaks. Book a Call ### DoctrinaLabs Home Cases Education DoctrinaLabs Education DoctrinaLabs DoctrinaLabs is an innovative solution designed to simplify and enhance the training process through immersive, real-world environments. Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, ReactIndustry EducationEngagement Model Managed DeliveryPlatform WebTeam 6 membersTimeline 3 months About the project The client requested the development of a platform that would revolutionize software application training. This led to the development and launch of a functional Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for DoctrinaLabs. DoctrinaLabs is an innovative solution designed to simplify and enhance the training process through immersive, real-world environments. The cloud-based virtual training labs empower client company to provide interactive and engaging training experiences across their entire enterprise. With DoctrinaLabs, setting up training sessions is quick and easy, ensuring smooth adoption and maximizing return on investment. Whether for a small team or the whole organization, DoctrinaLabs provides the tools and flexibility to take software training to the next level. Project objectives DoctrinaLabs was an application designed to provide an authentic DevOps-like experience for educational purposes. It allowed users to create and interact with server infrastructures, deploy applications, and monitor performance. Initially, the platform was developed exclusively for educational use. The product facilitated the creation of real-world environments to deliver interactive software application training effectively across an enterprise. Users could leverage the platform to generate new revenue streams through training programs, expand their customer base by reducing physical limitations, and ensure standardized, consistent, and repeatable environment setups. Additionally, it simplified setups, creating more cost-effective experiences. The application owner approached us with the request to enhance the platform's capabilities and optimize its codebase. The objective was to develop an efficient Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and make the platform an attractive investment opportunity. Upon reaching the release stage, the plan proved successful, resulting in the platform's acquisition by an innovative DevSecOps technology provider. Challenges to overcome One of the primary challenges we faced was establishing an infrastructure-as-code (IaC) framework while adhering to a strict budget of $100 per month. We carefully selected and integrated the AWS IaC solution into our deployment scripts. This approach allowed us to create a cost-effective infrastructure that met our technical requirements without exceeding the budget. We optimized resource usage and maintained financial efficiency by leveraging AWS's efficient and scalable services Another significant challenge was the seamless integration of the visual editor into the platform. This task required implementing the editor and optimizing its performance to ensure it was responsive and user-friendly. We focused on enhancing the editor's functionality and responsiveness, providing users with a smooth and intuitive experience. Our efforts included fine-tuning the editor's interface and ensuring compatibility across various devices and browsers, ultimately delivering a high-quality user experience. Our work We implemented Infrastructure as Code (IaC), a DevOps methodology that facilitates application infrastructure management in a code format. We simplified change tracking and enhanced collaborative efforts by defining infrastructure components such as servers, databases, networks, and storage through code. This approach aligned infrastructure with application development, optimizing the deployment process and minimizing configuration drift. The client required us to adhere to strict budget constraints for the MVP infrastructure, which we successfully managed. We used Terraform, an open-source tool, to manage the application infrastructure. Terraform allows for the creation and safe modification of infrastructure, with configuration files that team members can share, edit, and review.The benefits of using Terraform include: Comprehensive documentation Clear and straightforward configuration syntax Compatibility with both AWS and custom solutions Automatic identification of the deployed configuration, highlighting components to add or remove A supportive community Infrastructure immutability, with its inherent complexities Throughout the project, we expedited the delivery of results by leveraging IaC practices. This approach streamlined the processes of scaling and managing infrastructure, significantly reducing application deployment time and enhancing overall efficiency. We enhanced the platform by developing an application that enabled the AWS-based infrastructure deployment, guided by the visual editor's configurations. Additionally, we integrated a visual editor into the platform, allowing users to swiftly deploy and create an unlimited number of servers. This feature also empowered instructors to send complete server copies directly to students, streamlining the process and eliminating the need for setup and subsequent adjustments.Our engineers designed the dashboard with two primary objectives in mind: Facilitating user-friendly management of server infrastructures Providing the means to monitor key performance indicators effectively Results We successfully reduced infrastructure costs by implementing AWS IaC (Infrastructure as Code) solutions across various deployment scripts. As a result of these enhancements, Orasi Software acquired the platform and integrated it seamlessly into its portfolio of companies. The exceptional performance of DoctrinaLabs, particularly its advanced server management features, significantly enhanced DevSecOps capabilities.The application owner realized a substantial return on investment, with the MVP delivering a 20-fold return through the successful platform sale. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### E-Commerce Platform Home Cases E-commerce E-Commerce Platform E-commerce E-Commerce Platform An e-commerce world-known marketplace faced scalability and budgeting challenges of the existing box solution and decided to develop a custom one, to migrate on it without UX interruption Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby, ReactIndustry E-commerceEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WebTeam 7 membersTimeline MVP - 6 months, 18 months total About the project A thriving e-commerce marketplace with over 100 shops and 20 brands approached us for a critical mission: migrating their entire ecosystem from Shopify to a custom platform. With offices in all across the globe, this multi-brand store was experiencing rapid growth but found itself constrained by Shopify's limitations and escalating costs. The project's scope was ambitious: to transition a complex, multi-regional business with millions of loyal customers to a new platform without disrupting the user experience. This migration needed to support multi-language and multi-currency capabilities, handle a vast product assortment, and accommodate high traffic volumes – all while maintaining seamless operations across hundreds of warehouses and involving numerous employees in the process. Challenges to overcome The analysis of the application development process allowed us to identify a few compelling challenges. Let us highlight them below: Migrating extensive store data and user information without impacting the user interface or experience Implementing the transition within a tight timeframe to minimize risks and maintain business continuity Scaling the platform to handle over 100 stores and 20 brands with millions of customers Customizing features beyond Shopify's capabilities, such as integrating specific shipping carriers Reducing transaction fees and subscription costs associated with Shopify Improving search engine optimization through better data structuring Enhancing platform flexibility and control over the underlying code Our work Step 1 Design and Discovery Phase First things first, for this client, we performed a Design and Discovery phase, also known as Sprint Zero. Its aim was to specify the business requirements of the project and draft the initial steps the development team needed to take. Based on data from this phase, our Project Manager crafted a complex action plan with initial estimates and checkpoints. Step 2 Product Roadmap Next, we developed detailed user personas for merchants, buyers, and site administrators to guide our decisions. With a clear understanding of user needs, we created a strategic Product Roadmap and defined the MVP scope. This involved mapping out user journeys and iterating on use cases until we reached a consensus on the app's structure and features. Step 3 Choosing a Foundational Technology As the foundation for the new system, we chose an open-source e-commerce platform called Spree. It offered both the flexibility and customization options our client needed, along with potential cost savings on transaction fees. Step 4 UI/UX Enhancements The design team carefully enhanced the UI, creating a component library to ensure consistency while maintaining familiarity for existing users, which was one of the client's critical requirements. Step 5 Overcoming Scalability Challenges To overcome the technical challenges of scaling Spree, our engineers and DevOps team wrote custom scripts for bulk data upload to handle the migration. This alone resulted in a 10x improvement in productivity and speed, crucial for managing the client's large product catalog and high traffic volumes. Additionally, to address all scaling issues, we refactored the initial codebase, made tweaks to server performance, and optimized database queries. As a result, the client received not only a smooth migration of a relatively vast amount of data but also extensive room for further business growth. Step 6 Advanced Customization Solutions Lastly, we implemented a customizable admin panel for merchants and site administrators, allowing them to efficiently manage their operations. Business outcomes The migration to a custom Spree-based platform has yielded significant benefits for our client. Most notably, they've achieved a cost reduction of at least $10,000 per month in transaction fees alone. This substantial saving, combined with the elimination of Shopify's monthly subscription costs, has dramatically improved the client's bottom line.Beyond the financial gains, the new platform offers unparalleled scalability and customization options. The client now enjoys full ownership and control over their e-commerce infrastructure, enabling them to adapt quickly to market changes and implement brand-specific features with ease. The improved site performance and optimized user experience have positioned the client for continued growth and success in the competitive e-commerce landscape. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### The Jetruby Blog JetRuby Blog The place where cutting-edge technology meets expert insights. Dive into our latest articles to stay ahead in the world of digital innovation and software development Latest Popular Software Development Design Business Industry Insights Category Latest Show more Popular Show more Software Development Show more Subscribe to JetRuby blog updates Join our community and receive the latest strategies, innovations, and solutions to power your ideas straight to your inbox every week Choose what updates you would like to receive: By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy Design Show more Business Show more Industry Insights Show more Subscribe to our blog By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Campus Guard Pro Home Cases Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) CampusGuardPro Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) Campus Guard Pro A versatile EH&S platform designed for higher education institutions to assist campus safety professionals in enhancing collaboration, minimizing institutional risk, and fostering a stronger safety culture. Share Link copied! Technologies ReactNative, NodeJS, ExpressIndustry Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S)Engagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform iOS, AndroidTeam -Timeline - Overview The client, a company with decades of experience in providing educational institutions with administrative technology solutions to make educational institutions safe places to learn, work, and live, approached JetRuby Agency with the idea of Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) software designed specifically for higher education institutions. Initially, it was aimed at enhancing campus safety by improving collaboration among safety professionals, reducing institutional risk, and promoting a robust safety culture. The project result was viewed as a seamless, cross-platform software product on both iOS and Android devices, which had to feature incident reporting and management, risk assessment, training and certification management, audit and inspection scheduling, emergency notifications, and analytics and reporting. Project Objectives The project's objectives included a multifaceted approach to enhancing campus safety. Key goals were to significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of campus safety operations, which would involve optimizing the use of resources and ensuring that safety measures are implemented swiftly and accurately. Another crucial objective was to enhance communication and collaboration among safety professionals, thereby fostering a more coordinated and cohesive safety network on campus. A significant focus was also placed on reducing the number of safety-related incidents. This would be achieved through better reporting mechanisms and more thorough risk assessments, allowing potential issues to be identified and addressed before they escalate. Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements was another priority, aiming to keep the institution aligned with all relevant laws and standards, thereby avoiding legal complications and enhancing overall safety. Fostering a proactive safety culture within the institution was also a key goal. This involved creating an environment where safety is a shared responsibility, and everyone, from students to staff, is encouraged to be vigilant and proactive about safety measures. Clients view the future software product as an essential tool that would comprehensively manage all aspects of campus safety. They anticipated that the software would streamline various workflows, reducing the time and effort required to manage safety protocols and procedures. Moreover, the software was expected to provide real-time insights, enabling data-driven decision-making and timely responses to any safety concerns. Ultimately, clients believed that the designed software would create a safer environment for everyone on campus, including students, faculty, and staff. Tech stack React Native technology was chosen as a primary possible option because it was supposed to ensure that it might be effective and that the final product, through its usage, would be accessible across different platforms. The platform had to ensure that all safety data and communications were protected, thereby maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive information. Our work The development process began with meticulous planning and comprehensive requirements gathering. The development team assigned to the project was relatively small, which necessitated a highly efficient and collaborative approach to meet the project's demands. Additionally, the timelines for the project were quite strict, requiring meticulous planning and effective time management to ensure all deliverables were completed on schedule. During the design and discovery phases, no business analyst was involved. As a result, the project's requirements were discussed between the client's representative, who held the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and our product lead. This collaboration aimed to ensure that the project's objectives were clearly understood and adequately defined, despite the absence of a dedicated business analyst. To visually conceptualize the project, wireframes and mockups were developed using Figma, creating detailed and interactive prototypes that facilitated better communication of design ideas and user experiences among stakeholders and team members. Development adhered to the Agile methodology, utilizing bi-weekly sprints to maintain flexibility and responsiveness to changes. Git was employed for version control to manage code changes effectively. Our rigorous testing phase encompassed unit, integration, end-to-end, and user acceptance testing to ensure the software met all requirements and functioned seamlessly. Deployment was streamlined through CI/CD pipelines, which automated the process and ensured that code was first deployed to staging environments for thorough testing before being released to production. Maintenance and support were ongoing efforts, involving continuous performance monitoring, user feedback collection, and regular updates and feature enhancements to keep the software current and efficient. The tech stack was robust and thoughtfully selected. For the front end, we used React Native, leveraging its component-based architecture to create reusable UI components, and React Navigation for seamless navigation. The backend was built with Node.js and Express, providing a scalable and efficient server environment. Data management was handled through a RESTful API, with PostgreSQL chosen as the database for its reliability and ability to handle complex queries, ensuring data integrity and security. Firebase Authentication was utilized for authentication, offering secure and flexible authentication methods and user role management. Redux was employed for state management, ensuring a consistent data flow and efficient handling of asynchronous actions. AWS S3 was used to store user-uploaded media files, providing high availability and scalability. Real-time communication features, such as incident alerts and live chat support, were implemented using Socket.IO. Advanced analytics and reporting capabilities were achieved through integration with Tableau or Power BI, allowing for detailed insights and data visualization. JetRuby's work principle is centered around alleviating the routine headaches associated with product development. This principle is effectively implemented by our dedicated team of software testers. They play a crucial role in maintaining the quality and functionality of the product by rigorously testing and identifying any issues before the product reaches the client. Their efforts ensure that the development team can focus on creating innovative solutions while maintaining high standards of quality and reliability throughout the development process. Testing was a critical component of our process, with Jest used for unit testing and Detox for end-to-end testing. CircleCI facilitated continuous integration and deployment, automating the testing, building, and deployment processes to enhance efficiency and reduce the risk of errors. Overall, our development process was thorough and methodical, ensuring the delivery of a high-quality, reliable, and user-friendly product. Business outcomes Implementing Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) software has enhanced campus safety, compliance, and collaboration among safety professionals by 25%. It has reduced operational costs by 15%, insurance premiums by 10%, and liability by 20% by streamlining incident management and ensuring regulatory adherence. The software also improved efficiency by 30% through better communication and resource allocation, fostered a robust safety culture by encouraging employee engagement, and supported continuous improvement. Additionally, it aided strategic decision-making with data-driven insights and predictive analytics, while promoting sustainability through environmental monitoring and efficient resource management, reducing environmental impact by 18%.Overall, EH&S software drove significant business benefits by mitigating risks, lowering costs by 12%, and enhancing safety and efficiency by 28%. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### ADAPweb Home Cases Engineering & Construction ADAPweb Engineering & Construction ADAPweb This application was designed to automate tasks related to technical drawings, documentation, and calculation design for projects involving subsurface materials, aiming to significantly reduce task completion time and enhance team efficiency Share Link copied! Technologies Node.js, ReactIndustry Engineering & ConstructionEngagement Model Custom Software DevelopmentPlatform WebTeam 8 membersTimeline 4 months Overview The client, a well-established engineering firm with expertise in project design, engineering surveys, geological surveys and planning, construction and construction control, and aerial surveys, partnered with JetRuby Agency to develop an application. This application was designed to automate tasks related to technical drawings, documentation, and calculation design for projects involving subsurface materials, aiming to significantly reduce task completion time and enhance team efficiency. Project Objectives The client had set forth several primary objectives to advance its operations. By implementing automation in routine processes, the company aimed to significantly cut down on the time required to complete project tasks, streamlining workflows and accelerating timelines. A key goal was to enhance the precision of project documentation. This involved reducing the risk of errors in calculations and drawings, thereby ensuring higher quality and reliability in their engineering outputs. Additionally, the client sought to elevate employee productivity by enabling staff to focus on more complex and creative tasks. By automating simpler tasks, employees could devote more time and energy to innovative and challenging aspects of projects. The company aimed to improve overall project management and coordination. This involved fostering better collaboration among different teams and departments, ensuring smoother and more efficient project execution. Another objective was to create a system that could easily adapt to a variety of project types. The system needed to be scalable to accommodate the company's growth, allowing for seamless expansion and adaptability in handling diverse projects. During collaborative discussions, our team and the client agreed on the main goal - to embark on an advanced development initiative and drastically reduce project completion times for the company client. The application had to be specifically designed for deployment within a team of up to 400 members within the company’s geographical location. It was not meant for international use. The application concept included the capacity to create a comprehensive technical design for mining operation development. Furthermore, the app was designed to have the capability to incorporate new forms of computation and project components, personalize connections between sections, and create new rules for changes in the project. Tech stack Node.js and React were used for the development of the product. The application included a user-friendly interface with role-based access, allowing different levels of functionality based on user roles. Comprehensive strategies were developed to address potential integration complexities, user adaptation challenges, and project scope management. A detailed plan for ongoing system development and implementation was created. Key elements for the project's success were as follows Clearly defined project objectives Understanding the client company's needs and expectations enabled the development of a system that best met their requirements. Detailed development plan A structured development plan with clearly defined milestones and checkpoints ensured the project was successfully delivered on schedule and budget. System flexibility The system was designed to be adaptable to different types of projects and changing requirements, allowing the company to effectively use it in its work. Risk assessment and mitigation strategies Detailed risk assessment and development of mitigation strategies helped to avoid potential problems and ensure successful implementation of the system. User support and training Providing training and support to users ensured successful adaptation to the new system and its effective use. Updates and Technical Support Regular system updates and technical support are offered to keep the system up-to-date and satisfy the changing needs of the company. Business outcomes After the implementation of the application, the client company recorded the following process improvements: Reduction of time for project fulfillment Project task completion time decreased by an average of 40% due to automating routine processes and enhancing coordination between teams. Using pre-made templates and automated computations has cut down the time needed to create project documentation by 50%. Enhanced precision in computation Built-in data checking and validation functions have resulted in a 30% reduction in the number of errors in calculations and drawings. Increased calculation accuracy led to a 25% reduction in corrections and revisions. Increased team productivity By giving employees more time to concentrate on the more intricate and creative aspects of their work, routine tasks resulted in a 35% increase in productivity. Better resource management and coordination allowed the team to finish 20% more projects. Improved project management The enhanced visibility of all project milestones and the real-time progress tracking enabled a 45% increase in project management efficiency. Management decision-making time decreased by thirty percent due to the presence of precise and current information. Flexibility and scalability The company's flexibility increased by 25% as a result of the project system's ease of adaptation to new project types. The ability to scale the system as the company grows has increased the volume of work performed by 40% without significant additional costs. The project showed how the client company's operations could be significantly improved by automating repetitive tasks, improving project management, increasing team productivity, and improving calculation accuracy. Well-defined objectives, a comprehensive development plan, a flexible system, and effective user support all contributed to this success. The project's success is evidence of its effectiveness and applicability in the field of mineral deposit design and development. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### EquipRent Platform Home Cases Equipment Rental EquipRent Platform Equipment Rental EquipRent Platform Equipment rental for the construction industry and industrial sector Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, React, Redux, PostgreSQL, Sidekiq & RedisIndustry Equipment RentalEngagement Model Managed DeliveryPlatform WebTeam 7 membersTimeline 4 months About the project The client, a construction equipment company, approached JetRuby Agency to develop an online portal called "System." The portal aimed to allow equipment owners to showcase their machinery for rent and enable renters to find, book, and pay for it easily. Once a rental was confirmed, the renter would gain access to the owner's contact information. The goals included creating a user-friendly web application with a responsive design for mobile devices and the ability to moderate equipment postings for the system administrator. The platform had to be built as a commercial marketplace with a flexible design to support future growth and integration with outside services. The system's interface had to include three categories of machinery: crane, bulldozer, and excavator loader. Each category would have had a distinct attribute defined during the development phase. Renting equipment could help renters minimize the initial investment required to purchase expensive machinery. This enabled them to allocate financial resources more efficiently across different projects. For instance, renting equipment can save up to 50–60% of the cost compared to purchasing new equipment. Challenges to overcome The machinery rental platform development faced several significant challenges that required the team's attention. The project's progress could be slowed down because managers could have a hard time getting the construction equipment needed on time. This caused some delays. Another challenge was dealing with unreliable contracts that could result in missed deadlines and exceeded project budgets. As for specific project challenges, there were several: From the start, there was an unclear understanding of specific requirements, which could lead to inefficiencies and misunderstandings. Tight time constraints were set by the client for developing the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), which required efficient and effective project management. The clients’ stringent requirements for application stability and security made thorough testing and the implementation of robust security measures crucial. Our work It is common knowledge that starting a new project is like setting off on an adventure - full of excitement and potential. But, in any successful journey, a solid plan is essential. That's where the Project Discovery Phase comes in - the crucial first step that paves the way for success—where everyone involved gathers to figure out and write down the project's scope, goals, limits, and what needs to be achieved. The MVP (minimum viable product) stage during this project development aimed to test an idea with real users before committing a large budget to the product’s full development, learn what resonates with the target market, and attract early feedback to iterate and improve the product. This process minimized waste, focused on learning quickly, and tested fundamental hypotheses for the business model. Our teams’ strong belief is that the sooner you determine whether your product appeals to customers, the less effort and expense you spend on a product unlikely to succeed. So, during the MVP phase, the main processes and features included the following: For the machinery owner: Registering machinery into the system, including data input, photo uploads, and document uploads. Up to 30 attributes can be entered manually for each type of equipment. Specifying the location of the vehicle on the map. Displaying vehicles in a graphical calendar with the ability to manually change the vehicle status. Automatically updating the machinery status after payment confirmation. Receiving email notifications for machinery reservations. Preparing documents to finalize lease agreements. Generating a rental agreement based on a template. For the machinery lessee: Searching for equipment based on specific parameters and mapping. Booking equipment and making payments for the reservation. Receiving the owner's contact details. Communicating through message exchange. Providing feedback for the owner (company) and the equipment separately. Ruby on Rails 7 was chosen as the primary framework for developing the backend and API functionalities due to its robustness and scalability. The web application front end was constructed using React.js in combination with Redux for efficient state management, resulting in a seamless and responsive user interface. PostgreSQL was selected as the database management system for its reliability, powerful features, and adeptness in handling complex data requirements. In addition, Sidekiq, in tandem with Redis, was utilized for background task processing, ensuring efficient job queuing and processing while upholding system responsiveness. In the first stage of the MVP implementation for product development, the project team clarified and designed the requirements, created user story descriptions and user story maps, and updated and prioritized the backlog. This helped to detail the system features' requirements and expectations for further processing and coordination. In addition, the existing interface designs were finalized during this phase. During the MVP implementation phase, the project team worked on developing and finalizing the system architecture and development approach, conducted the MVP implementation process, and created test scenarios (checklists) for quality assurance. The final stage, testing and launching the MVP, involved system testing and the application's pilot version launch. Business outcomes Introducing a construction equipment rental portal has given the client company a great opportunity to improve economic efficiency, operational effectiveness, and environmental sustainability. The construction industry achieved greater flexibility, reduced costs, and a more sustainable future, to be exact: The introduction of the rental portal reduced the client's equipment acquisition costs by 35%, translating to annual savings of approximately $2.5 million. The utilization rate of the equipment increased by 50%, leading to better asset management and return on investment. The advanced technology integrated into the portal decreased the downtime of equipment by 20%, improving project completion times by an average of 15%. This enhancement in operational efficiency resulted in an estimated additional revenue of $1.2 million per year due to increased project turnover. By leveraging shared resources, the company cut its carbon footprint by 25%, equivalent to reducing CO2 emissions by 1,000 metric tons annually. Streamlined logistics and optimized resource utilization also decreased fuel consumption by 30%, saving about 200,000 gallons of diesel fuel each year. Overall, the construction equipment rental portal has significantly contributed to the client's economic, operational, and environmental goals, driving substantial improvements across all key performance indicators. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Portfolio Inspiring success stories of our clients Goodfirms / 5.0 rating 10 reviews Clutch / 4.9 rating 23 reviews Industry All Machine Learning Healthcare Insurance Marketplace HR Tech Health & Fitness Warehousing Events AgriTech Logistics E-commerce Fintech Education Food delivery Social media Real estate Productivity Equipment Rental Engineering & Construction Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) Technologies All Ruby on Rails Swift React JS Kotlin Node JS VueJS Kubernetes Electron React Native Java Redux PostgreSQL Sidekiq & Redis Apache Struts GitHub Copilot Express Platform All iOS Android Web Engagement Model All Dedicated Team Managed Delivery Custom Software Development Reset filter Filter Industry: Agritech Technologies: Ruby on Rails React PostgreSQL Engagement Model: Managed Delivery Map-Based Fence Planner A web-based platform that allows customers to design fences directly on a map, calculate material needs in real-time, and seamlessly purchase materials online, all while simplifying the process. Industry: Real Estate Technologies: Ruby on Rails React PostgreSQL Engagement Model: Managed Delivery Unit Rental Platform A web platform that lets the client's rent self-storage units online and run day-to-day operations for 20+ U.S. facilities designed, built, and rolled out by JetRuby. Industry: Healthcare Technologies: NodeJS VueJS Engagement Model: Dedicated Team Trusty Care Trusty Care is a platform that helps health insurance professionals find the best insurance plans for their clients. To prevent system crashes during busy renewal periods, the company worked with JetRuby to upgrade its system and enhance its performance. Industry: Insurance Technologies: Apache Struts GitHub Copilot Engagement Model: Dedicated Team StratusNex How we leveraged AI to update client’s old Java apps, and therefore reduced engineers’ manual effort by about 70%. Industry: Fintech Technologies: Swift Kotlin Engagement Model: Dedicated Team Backbase Backbase is a leading company that provides white-label banking solutions Industry: Engineering & Construction Technologies: Ruby PostgreSQL Engagement Model: Managed Delivery BuildSourced JetRuby built a user-friendly construction materials accounting system with full-text search and interactive maps to help contractors track equipment, manage suppliers, and control inventory from one platform Industry: Engineering & Construction Technologies: Ruby React Engagement Model: Custom Software Development NeptunusDetect A water loss and leak detection app that helps users find and locate leaks, even small or hard-to-detect ones, anywhere in the water system Industry:Healthcare Technologies: Ruby Engagement Model: Dedicated Team GeneWise Health GeneWise Health, an in-house genetics laboratory helping people manage disease risks with genetic testing and personalized health plans, in need of a major upgrade to meet a rigorous data security standard. Industry:HR Tech Technologies: Ruby React Engagement Model: Dedicated Team ERP System A modern ERP system designed to reshape daily operations, improve team collaboration, and simplify complex business processes Industry: Agritech Technologies: Ruby React Engagement Model: Dedicated Team Osram Urban Farming Digitally manage the production of high-quality fresh food all year round Industry: E-commerce Technologies: Ruby React Engagement Model: Dedicated Team E-Commerce Platform An e-commerce world-known marketplace faced scalability and budgeting challenges of the existing box solution and decided to develop a custom one, to migrate on it without UX interruption Industry: Education Technologies: Ruby on Rails React Engagement Model: Managed Delivery DoctrinaLabs DoctrinaLabs is an innovative solution designed to simplify and enhance the training process through immersive, real-world environments. Industry: Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) Technologies: React Native NodeJS Express Engagement Model: Dedicated Team Campus Guard Pro A versatile EH&S platform designed for higher education institutions to assist campus safety professionals in enhancing collaboration, minimizing institutional risk, and fostering a stronger safety culture. Industry: Engineering & Construction Technologies: NodeJS React Engagement Model: Custom Software Development ADAPweb This application was designed to automate tasks related to technical drawings, documentation, and calculation design for projects involving subsurface materials, aiming to significantly reduce task completion time and enhance team efficiency. Industry: Equipment Rental Technologies: Ruby on Rails React Redux PostgreSQL Sidekiq & Redis Engagement Model: Managed Delivery EquipRent Platform Equipment rental for the construction industry and industrial sector. Industry: Productivity Technologies: Swift Engagement Model: Custom Software Development ScannerJam The scanning app provides accurate scanning, efficient document management to meet and exceed the client’s needs. Industry: Events Technologies: React Native Java Engagement Model: Managed Delivery MusicApp Music application for listening music, compose custom playlists and get notifications for upcoming concerts and album releases, and more Industry: Real Estate Technologies: Electron VueJS NodeJS Engagement Model: Custom Software Development Qwincy, Inc. CDM (Collaborative Dealflow Management) platform Qwincy, a software platform that blends private collaboration with live deal sharing in the real estate capital markets. Industry: Logistics Technologies: Ruby VueJS Engagement Model: Dedicated Team ANOVA Our software product for Anova represents a universal platform that efficiently leverages a fuel supply. Industry:HR Tech Technologies: Ruby ReactJS Engagement Model: Dedicated Team Universum Global Improving the survey system for career opportunities! Industry: Warehousing Technologies: Ruby ReactJS Engagement Model: Dedicated Team Sortly Sortly is the #1 inventory iOS app to track your belongings. Industry: Social Media Technologies: Ruby NodeJS Swift Kubernetes Engagement Model: Dedicated Team Cronycle A cross-platform app, organizing teamwork with the featured content. Industry: Fintech Technologies: Ruby Kotlin Swift Engagement Model: Custom Software Development Moments NFC The idea to provide contactless payment in pubs across the US turned into a reality. Industry: Healthcare Technologies: Ruby ReactJS NodeJS Engagement Model: Managed Delivery Healthcare Practice Management The platform allows hospitals to schedule patients' appointments in a smart way. Industry: Marketplace Technologies: Ruby Engagement Model: Custom Software Development Beazzy A functional P2P marketplace for buying and selling businesses. Industry: E-commerce Technologies: Ruby Kotlin ReactJS Swift Engagement Model: Dedicated Team Glowforge Cross-platform e-commerce app for selling branded 3-D printers. Industry: Marketplace Technologies: Ruby React Native Engagement Model: Custom Software Development CashOutMyCar An online used car auction platform, allowing users to place their bets at a record speed. Industry: Healthcare Technologies: Ruby ReactJS Swift Engagement Model: Dedicated Team Health App The telemedicine platform for interaction between doctors and patients, including online monitoring of the patient's health. Industry: Social Media Technologies: Swift Engagement Model: Managed Delivery Leepsee This app works just like your college social club, where you meet the people who study in the same city. Industry: Marketplace Technologies: Ruby ReactJS Swift Engagement Model: Custom Software Development HelpMyTask A two-sided full-cycle freelancer platform, covering all steps of interaction between freelancers and contractors. Industry: Education Technologies: Ruby Kotlin Swift Engagement Model: Managed Delivery Learnifier An online course builder platform with materials for more than 12.000 various courses and 500 000+ users. Industry: HR Tech Technologies: Ruby ReactJS Engagement Model: Managed Delivery HelloCecil We created an easy-to-use automated video interview platform that improves job selection. Industry: Health & Fitness Technologies: Ruby ReactJS Engagement Model: Managed Delivery Health & Wellness A feature-rich, lighter, more comfortable, and user-friendly tool for healthy lifestyle fans. Industry: Health & Fitness Technologies: Ruby ReactJS Swift Engagement Model: Dedicated Team Move Shanghai A cross-platform fitness app aggregating sports venues in Shanghai city. Industry: Education Technologies: NodeJS Engagement Model: Dedicated Team NameCoach A web platform that helps you to spell names correctly and build a rapport with your peers. Industry: Food delivery Technologies: Ruby ReactJS Engagement Model: Managed Delivery Saffron Cooks An app for premium food delivery service bringing a restaurant-like dining experience. Industry: Machine Learning Technologies: Ruby ReactJS Engagement Model: Dedicated Team Eyewitness This software assists with the police investigation process, utilizing AI and neural network mechanisms. Industry: E-commerce Technologies: Ruby ReactJS Kotlin Engagement Model: Custom Software Development Kuwait E-commerce App Grocery ordering and delivery app with a wide choice of items from local suppliers. Industry: Fintech Technologies: Ruby ReactJS Engagement Model: Dedicated Team VaultVertex app It is a fintech platform that helps businesses collect debts and payments digitally. Testimonials In our clients’ words Carol HenckelPresident, MTG Healthcare AcademyTheir responsiveness, flexibility, and commitment to our needs made them a pleasure to work with! JetRuby Agency's work led to a 35% increase in user engagement, a 25% increase in course completion rates, a 15% increase in revenue, and a 20% decrease in user acquisition costs. The app also received a 4.5 rating on the app store. Moreover, the team was timely, organized, and responsive. FounderSoftware Development CompanyJetRuby Agency is one of the best agencies I've worked with. They're extremely professional. JetRuby Agency has delivered a high-quality MVP. Equipped with a methodical approach, they deliver on time and within the budget. They communicate and collaborate effectively with the client, allowing for a seamless workflow. Their tendency to exceed expectations ensures a long-term partnership. Rodrigo Pereyra business field manager at OsramThey go out of their way to work and engage with the customer. The work completed by JetRuby was excellent, with the team handling the expanded scope professionally and producing high-quality deliverables. They were an engaged, committed team that worked hard to accomplish all tasks on time and by high standards. Jan Nowikov CEO, Help My TaskI give them a 10/10 for what we’ve done together. JetRuby Agency coded quickly and delivered with ease a very functional and thoughtful solution that internal stakeholders are eager to bring to market. The team is personable, responsive, and attentive, fostering a seamless and mutually beneficial collaboration. Their services are reasonably priced. Steffi M. AVP - Tech, Handelnine GlobalWe are very happy with the project management, project execution, software quality, and accountability. The engagement was successful; the site is currently live and completely functional. JetRuby Agency managed the project well using the Agile methodology; they were responsive and delivered items on time. Jack Green CTO, NameCoachTheir team provides notes and questions our ideas to make our products better. JetRuby Agency dedicated capable resources that produced satisfying deliverables to facilitated growth into new business verticals. The team communicates clearly, which enables effective collaboration. Informed by a wealth of experience, they offer valuable insights that encourage improvements. Shai Rozen CTO, ShiurimMost of the positive feedback has been regarding the new features and improvements. The product is performing well in the market, receiving over 2,000 downloads in its first few days. All feedback regarding JetRuby Agency’s work and skilled expertise has been positive. Their responsive approach complemented their quick workflow. Chase Tasca Founder, Web App Dev for Startup HVAC Technicians PlatformThey put a lot of effort into making sure that everything works to my satisfaction. Brimming with technical expertise and the desire to help their client succeed, JetRuby Agency has delivered quality design deliverables that have strikingly mirrored their client's ideas. Transparent and customer-oriented, they provide reliable estimates to bring their requirements to fruition. Brandyn Morelli Co-Founder, hellocecilWe’ve worked with a lot of other firms, and JetRuby agency is one of the best. Not only is JetRuby Agency great at what they do, they also charge a fair price. The team is responsive and communicative, holding weekly meetings to keep everyone updated. They use various means of communication and have some of the best project management in their field. Julian Safford Co-Founder, Moments Inc.I am happy with how they adjust their approach to appeal to as a customer. JetRuby's exceptional value sets them above competitors. Showing a genuine interest in the product, their team listens closely to feedback and maintains a thorough understanding of the business. Their ability to create optimal solutions to sustain a lower budget is impressive. David Bankston CEO, Sparksfly Technologies, Inc.They are very good at listening and working with your timeframes. We have some amazing people on our team. The client receives over four million transactions per year and they have had no problems. They attribute part of this to the development work that JetRuby Agency provided. Tom Klein Founder, Suggest ItI’m impressed by their ability to meet those changes on very short notice while keeping with deadlines. The client is particularly happy with the quality of the projects that JetRuby has worked on - specifically the quality of the code. They manage communication between teams very well and meet all deadlines set for them. Dhanush Balachandran CEO, SortlyThey are experts in Ruby. The client has received great reviews from users of the new site. Along with the high reviews, the client is experiencing their highest level of revenue. They have appreciated the agency's knowledge and skill surrounding Ruby on Rails and their willingness to make improvements where necessary. Follow us Follow us ### Scanner App Home Cases Productivity Scanner App Productivity ScannerJam The scanning app provides accurate scanning, efficient document management to meet and exceed the client’s needs. Share Link copied! Technologies SwiftIndustry ProductivityEngagement Model Custom Software DevelopmentPlatform iOSTeam 5 membersTimeline 3 months About the project The client, a software company, approached JetRuby Agency for the development of an iOS scanning application. The client had specific requirements, including extensive code documentation, which was not typically provided due to its rapid changes. However, the client strongly requested this information for this project. The application was expected to have the following features: Automatic capture with document recognition through edge detection or machine learning algorithms. Checking for acceptable blur levels and straightening the image after capturing the document. Automatic cropping using edge detection to recognize document dimensions and remove unwanted elements. Implementation of image filters to enhance contrast and make the text more readable, as well as the option to binarize the document for black text on a white background. Our work The technology stack utilized for this project included IOS development and innovative Swift development for IOS. Leveraging Swift's capabilities and iOS frameworks, the team built an app that provided accurate scanning, efficient document management, and an exceptional user experience. The app incorporated advanced image processing, real-time data handling, machine learning integration, and robust security measures to meet and exceed the client’s needs. The results of our team’s work included Optical Character Recognition (OCR) The application included OCR functionalities, enabling the transformation of analog text into digital data. This allowed for searchable PDFs with an invisible text layer for reliable copy-pasting of information. File Encryption To secure sensitive information, the documents were encrypted on the device before transmission and only unlocked after reaching the designated server, ensuring confidentiality. Automatic Capture and Image Processing The application successfully recognized documents, checked for acceptable blur levels, and used edge detection for automatic cropping. Additionally, image filters were implemented for enhanced contrast and text readability. The application’s interface was designed to provide a user-friendly experience, making it suitable for individuals who may not be tech-savvy. A unique feature, the ‘Count Similar Objects’ tool, was introduced, allowing users to count items in an image, catering to professionals in various industries such as construction and inventory management. Furthermore, the app’s compatibility with Google accounts for sync purposes enhanced its utility, making it a versatile scanning solution. Business outcomes The developed application offered convenience and a wide range of features for users, enabling accurate document scanning on the go. Whether it was receipts, business documents, notes, or any other paper document, the scanning app provided a comprehensive solution, unlocking the full potential of any iOS device as a powerful scanner and document organizer. The application simplified document management processes, increasing productivity for users. The company's client achieved the following business outcomes after implementing the scanning application development: Formed at least 3 major partnerships with cloud storage and productivity tool providers within the first year. The growing number of customers helped to analyze data to identify trends, resulting in a 20% accuracy improvement rate. In terms of social and environmental impact, the scanner application usage led to a reduction in paper waste and enhanced the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) profile by 25% through environmental sustainability efforts. In summary, the development of a document scanner iOS application led to numerous positive business outcomes, ranging from increased revenue and market share to enhanced customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. The key to achieving these outcomes laid in delivering a high-quality, user-centric product that, as a result, met the evolving needs of users and businesses.The client expressed satisfaction with the results, and application users were able to bid farewell to paper clutter, enjoying the convenience of having all their documents at their fingertips. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### MusicApp Home Cases Events MusicApp Events MusicApp Music application for listening music, compose custom playlists and get notifications for upcoming concerts and album releases, and more Share Link copied! Technologies React Native, JavaIndustry EventsEngagement Model Managed DeliveryPlatform iOS, AndroidTeam 6 membersTimeline 6 months Overview The client, Music Production Company - an agile, highly responsive global team of experts dedicated to helping artists achieve creative and commercial success, building their long-term careers, helping artists achieve their vision, and providing a broad network of supportive, creative professionals, approached JetRuby Agency with a request for a music application for their label’s pop star fans to access the music label’s artist, engage with his fan club members, send notifications for upcoming concerts and album releases, and more. The client had several goals in mind, including showcasing performance photos, album covers, fashion statements, and more through photo galleries to captivate the audience.The client wanted the app to allow fans to listen to musician pieces and sample tracks, including a YouTube player function for music videos or live performances. A customized page had to feature a brief biography of the singer, highlighting various aspects of the artist's lifestyle, awards, and achievements. Furthermore, the playlist feature must enable listeners to select and play tracks from different albums consecutively, and the app would also have a notification feature to alert users about new music releases, tours, and performances without having to search the internet. Our work First things first, our team decided to use React Native for application development. The chosen tech approach proved to be exciting and challenging, but it was definitely worth the effort. As a result, we have created a functional and user-friendly application that met the needs of our client. With its flexibility, ease of use, and ability to run on both iOS and Android platforms, React Native appeared to be an excellent choice for developing a music app that is now enjoyed by music lovers everywhere. When it came to building the app, the client had a vast collection of templates to choose from and had a chance to pick the template that best matched the idea and customize it.  Music applications and platforms rely heavily on powerful software engineering to deliver high-quality audio, intuitive user interfaces, and personalized recommendations. Our team used one of the most prominent programming languages - Java. Due to Java, the music application leveraged advanced algorithms and machine learning techniques to analyze user listening habits, preferences, and historical data. By understanding the user's musical taste, the App was able to provide personalized song recommendations, curated playlists, and tailored discovery experiences, ultimately enhancing user engagement.  With adaptive bitrates and sophisticated audio encoding techniques, listeners could enjoy their favorite songs without any compromise in sound quality, regardless of their internet connection speed. App features Music discovery features Сharts, playlists, search bar, artist profile Music player features Navigation elements, lyrics, share button, and others Offline mode Download and offline access for song samples User profile management User-friendly interface, listening history, navigation Others Push notifications, song identification, ticket selling Adding Essential Features Enabling Registration and Login Authentication Making the registration and login process smooth and engaging was our primary concern. We developed an attractive UI/UX design and integrated social media connections to address this issue. Incorporating popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram was one of the App features that aimed to enhance user interaction and expand the app's reach. Simplifying social media sharing and providing multiple platform options was crucial. Making the registration and login process smooth and engaging was our primary concern We developed an attractive UI/UX design and integrated social media connections to address this issue. Incorporating popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram was one of the App features that aimed to enhance user interaction and expand the app's reach. Simplifying social media sharing and providing multiple platform options was crucial. Enhancing Navigation & Song Search This feature was supposed to allow users to seamlessly select and play tracks from various albums consecutively. By embracing the best "look and feel" practices from trendsetters like Apple Music and Spotify, we have crafted a mobile application that is essential and practical, and also possesses a unique personality, fostering a special bond between the app and the user. Implementing Push Notifications The application offered a feature to notify users about new music releases, tours, and performances without the need for manual internet searches. Leveraging push notifications was an effective way to increase user engagement within the app. Enabling Download and Offline Access for song samples Another important capability was the offline mode, which was exclusively available to subscribers. This feature was supposed to serve as an incentive for users to subscribe and thereby contribute to the app's profitability. Facilitating Sharing Options People often share their favorite music tracks with friends and family. This behavior not only promotes the music but also the music app itself. Hence, the addition of a share button was a significant benefit to the app. Incorporating Lyrics Viewing We included a convenient lyrics feature that allowed users to access song lyrics without leaving the app or manually searching the web. Our team assumed this feature could be particularly helpful for those learning foreign languages through music. Supporting Ticket Sales The label expressed interest in selling concert tickets directly through the app. To accommodate this, we enabled data retrieval from ticketing marketplaces via API and incorporated affiliate links. This initiative proved to be a valuable source of additional revenue. Business outcomes The designed application improved user interaction and expanded its reach by integrating popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Utilizing push notifications proved to be an effective strategy, increasing user engagement within the app by 40%. Offering download and offline access as part of the subscription incentivized users, which contributed to a 25% increase in the app's profitability. Additionally, providing sharing options promoted the artists’ music tracks and the app itself, resulting in a 30% boost in new user acquisition. Selling concert tickets directly through the app also emerged as a valuable source of additional revenue, accounting for 20% of the app's total revenue.The Music Production Company has successfully enhanced its capacity to captivate and motivate audiences through the innovative development and launch of the designed App. Through this app, the company has been able to engage users with interactive and inspiring content, elevating their entertainment experience to new heights. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Qwincy, Inc. Home Cases Real Estate Qwincy, Inc. Real Estate Qwincy, Inc. CDM (Collaborative Dealflow Management) platform Qwincy, a software platform that blends private collaboration with live deal sharing in the real estate capital markets. Share Link copied! Technologies NodeJS, Vue.js, ElectronIndustry Real EstateEngagement Model Custom Software DevelopmentPlatform WebTeam 8 membersTimeline 1.5 years Overview Our client company, Qwincy, was founded in 2020 by a former commercial real estate acquisitions professional and co-founded by a former Apple software engineer. The goal of the envisioned Qwincy platform was to optimize real estate transactions globally by providing deal makers with a platform to effectively find and manage commercial real estate opportunities. By giving all parties a platform to exchange opportunities and work together with their respective teams discreetly, this initiative aims to significantly improve the process of closing deals in commercial real estate. The client saw the project as a way to make property discovery easier by developing advanced search and filtering tools while integrating a thorough commercial real estate database with detailed property information and multimedia content. The project aimed to enhance the user experience by developing a user-friendly interface and ensuring optimal performance across various devices through responsive design. The client company had in mind the improvement of transaction management, this could be gained by providing tools for tracking and managing deals, including features for document management, communication, and collaboration among deal participants. Our work The client presented a product vision but lacked expert knowledge in this area. Our team worked to articulate clear functional and non-functional requirements. Subsequently, we successfully translated their vision into comprehensive requirements, laying the essential foundation to start product development. Our team’s idea was to incorporate data analytics to offer insights into market trends and property performance, as well as enable integration with external data sources for real-time updates on property values and market conditions. Of course, it was crucial to implement strong security measures and adhere to all relevant regulations and industry standards for real estate transactions to bolster security and ensure compliance. The solution was to develop a networking module to connect deal makers with potential partners, investors, and service providers, and include features for sharing information and collaborating on deals in real time. As a result, the project was supposed to enable multi-currency support, localization features, and tools for managing cross-border transactions and understanding international real estate markets to support global transactions. After collaborative brainstorming sessions, we decided to leverage AI-driven recommendations for property matches based on user preferences and historical data, as well as utilize machine learning to predict market trends and identify lucrative investment opportunities; automate routine tasks and processes to save time, deliver exceptional customer support, and continuously improve and scale the platform based on user feedback and the addition of new features. Tech stack Backend NodeJS Front end VueJS The platform designed to empower deal makers to discover and manage commercial real estate opportunities was built using a comprehensive tech stack that ensures a seamless and robust user experience. The backend was developed with NodeJS, providing a powerful and scalable server-side framework that handles the core logic, data processing, and communication with the database. For the front end, VueJS was employed, delivering a responsive and interactive user interface. This modern JavaScript framework is known for its flexibility and ease of integration, allowing developers to create a dynamic and intuitive client-side experience. Electron was utilized for developing the desktop application, ensuring a consistent experience across different operating systems. This allowed the platform to harness web technologies for desktop apps, providing users with a native application experience and seamless update capabilities. The design process incorporated several leading tools to ensure the platform was visually appealing and user-friendly. Miro was used for brainstorming and collaborative planning, helping the team map out the user journey and wireframes. Figma served as the primary tool for designing high-fidelity user interfaces and prototypes, enabling real-time collaboration and iteration among designers and developers. InVision was then employed for creating interactive prototypes and conducting user testing, ensuring that the final product meets user needs and expectations. Together, this tech stack formed a solid foundation for a platform dedicated to optimizing real estate transactions worldwide, combining robust backend capabilities, a dynamic front end, a reliable desktop experience, and a meticulous design process. Business outcomes The utilization of a platform constructed with this extensive technological framework in the real estate sector resulted in numerous favorable business results, bolstering efficiency, productivity, and profitability industry-wide. The platform effectively simplified the process of discovering commercial real estate opportunities. By harnessing a robust backend and a dynamic front end, users were able to swiftly search for and pinpoint properties that met specific criteria, reducing the time and effort needed to find suitable deals. Equipped with robust tools for managing real estate transactions, the platform simplified the intricate processes involved in deal-making, including organizing documents, monitoring deal progress, and facilitating communication between stakeholders, leading to smoother and faster transactions. By providing comprehensive data analysis and visualization tools, the platform empowered deal makers to make well-informed decisions. Access to real-time data and insights into market trends resulted in improved investment choices and risk management. The platform's user-friendly interface and intuitive design, crafted using tools like Figma and InVision, contributed to a superior user experience. Satisfied clients are more likely to return and recommend the platform to others, driving growth and expanding the user base. Built on scalable technologies such as NodeJS and VueJS, the platform effortlessly handles a growing number of users and transactions, ensuring its reliability and efficiency even as demand increases. The company's innovative platform and streamlined processes led to a 30% increase in industry professionals, a 15% expansion in market share, and substantial cost savings. Access to comprehensive analytics enabled customized marketing strategies, a 10% rise in conversion rates, and facilitated international deals, potentially unlocking new markets and growth opportunities by 20%. Qwincy aimed to streamline the process of sifting through deals across different platforms to ensure that fewer opportunities are overlooked. The Qwincy platform innovated this process by introducing an intuitive feature known as live 'deal sharing.' This advancement eliminated the need for extensive communication and reduced reliance on memory. Instead, it empowered users to seamlessly share and access any type of offering through their personal Deal Feeds. Users can now effortlessly monitor deals and quickly transition to private collaboration with a simple click. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Move Shanghai Home Cases Health & Fitness Move Shanghai​ Health & Fitness Move Shanghai​ A cross-platform fitness app aggregating sports venues in Shanghai city. Fitness app with more than 150 activities. Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, React, SwiftIndustry Health & FitnessEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform IOS, AndroidTeam 5 membersTimeline 4 years About the project The idea of the "Move Shanghai" app was to create a platform to manage the active lifestyle in Shanghai city of China by connecting the most famous and best sports venues. It was inspired by the other project, called “Move”, which was based in the UK and had nothing to do with the new app. Among other solutions, the project renders the following service: Transferring most of the existing logic and the database structures written in Perl from the original application; Integration of the local notification system; Integration of the communication channel nodes of the "WeChat" messenger for user communication; Full integration and adaptation of the original idea of "Move" to the local market in Shanghai. Challenges to overcome The analysis of the application development process allowed us to identify a few compelling challenges that we highlighted below: Unification with the API system of applications for both iOS and Android OS The challenge to bypass “The Great Firewall” of the China network because it would block all potential clients and services by default Implementation of local Chinese systems for working with notifications and accepting payments Ensuring the integration of third-party services with a difficult system, such as "Paymentwall and "MindBodyOnline" Our work The “Move Shanghai” platform already existed and therefore, we decided to utilize only some core structures and features. It has allowed us to reduce the development time and budget cost.We adjusted the Twilio notification system to a local adaptation, which is called YunPian. The application can send an SMS for any “sign-in” or “sign-up” confirmations to Chinese phone numbers through its service. At the same time, the phones numbers that are registered abroad will be notified with Twilio.As most global social services are not supported in China, our team has specifically integrated “WeChat” communication channel nodes. The chat solution was improved with elegant functionality to allow users to communicate with each other.The payment system was completely replaced with the “Paymentwall”. It was a challenging task to set it right within the app and the final integration fully meets an original purpose. What made the business succeed The startup project, which began with just a simple idea, had successfully bloomed into a fully-fledged product in Eastern Asia. As of now, it is available in more than 150 countries. 96% of its active users belong to iPhone fans. Since the first release, there’ve been more than 11,000 downloads of the app. The application is growing in popularity, gaining millions of views every year. With over 200+ different variations, it allows users to use the most trending, beautiful, and functional sports outlets.Now “Move Shanghai” is a personal fitness management tool and an online platform solution for any daily physical activity. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### VaultVertex app Home Cases Fintech VaultVertex Fintech VaultVertex Improving the functionality and adding new features Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, ReactIndustry FintechEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WebTeam 4 membersTimeline 7 months About the project VaultVertex is a FinTech platform that facilitates businesses with a digital collection of debts and payments. With the help of VaultVertex tools, companies simplify the collection process and increase the debt return rate. A well-thought system of digital reminders keeps the attention of a payer or a subscriber, which ensures a higher quality of interaction and helps businesses to accomplish ambitious business goals. Our software development agency joined the team of 10 developers invited to improve the web platform’s functionality and set up new payment integrations. Project Challenges Requirements varied depending on the diverse needs of multiple clients Clients of the VaultVertex platform embrace mobile operators, telecommunication companies, financial agencies, and big companies interested in optimizing cash flow within their organization. Many of these clients utilize a different payment system, which requires an individual approach to integration. Transferring the Rails Views component to React This component must be transferred from the monolith Rails application step by step as it implies significant shifts in the app’s architecture. Our work Step 1 Making components of default payment agreements more flexible The platform serves different types of payments, including subscribers’ recurrent subscription fees. A subscriber pays these funds as per the terms of payment agreements, and its components are set by default. Initially, making adjustments to these agreements by client companies was not possible. They had to apply to the service provider (VaultVertex company) to make the necessary changes. We enabled the possibility of adjustments on the customer’s end by editing, removing, or adding the sum of monthly payments in the user admin panel. Step 2 Payment integration for a global auto manufacturer The payment integration was needed by a global automobile manufacturer — one of the FinTech platform’s clients. The developer from our end was entirely responsible for integrating the payment system as a web service. As a result, we set a safe integration of the Bambora payment system used by this global car manufacturer for processing payments from various contractors via bank cards. Step 3 Introducing dynamic permissions Initially, accesses were distributed according to user roles, limiting access management’s flexibility. Dynamic permissions instead of user roles would ensure more flexible levels of access to the platform. The system of dynamic permissions allows for providing specific access above a particular role or limiting the standard scope of accesses determined for a particular role. We made relevant changes in front and back end. Step 4 Adding dynamic tags The project profile mentions a well-structured system of digital reminders and notifications sent to users. These communication elements incentivize the user or subscriber to make a timely payment or redeem their debt. This information system pays particular attention to the organization of electronic newsletters.Letters’ templates include specific variable components. They were set by default once added to the system, which prevented adding new or updating existing variables. When some clients occasionally asked for new tags, developers had to update the code level. Thanks to the dynamic tags system introduced by our developer, flexible elements became part of letters’ templates. From now on, every client can set the tag in the user admin panel. The autosuggestion function allows for an easy choice of a necessary tag. Step 5 Refactoring and assistance with transferring Rails Views to React The platform stored the standard component Views in the Rails monolith application. With our assistance, this component was transferred from the mono repository, as the Ruby on Rails stack is one of our primary specializations. We helped the developers’ team to integrate Views with the React system using the Context data distribution method. Project results Our cooperation with VaultVertex resulted in the following benefits: Optimization of the app’s architecture due to the transfer of the Views component to React. Setting up the payment system integration for one of the large clients of the platform. Improving the app’s functionality after introducing the system of dynamic access permissions, tags, and better flexibility of the default payment agreements. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Kuwait e-commerce app Home Cases E-commerce Kuwait E-commerce Kuwait A complex digital solution for the e-commerce business, that allows you to order goods online and have them quickly delivered to your doors Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, React, KotlinIndustry E-commerceEngagement Model Custom Software DevelopmentPlatform Web, iOS, AndroidTeam 10 membersTimeline 1 year About the project Kuwait E-commerce is a grocery ordering and delivery app with a wide choice of items from local suppliers. The app allows buyers to browse and shop for food, grocery, and household items from the local retail stores. The combination of e-commerce and retail purposes in this project opens the door to a variety of business opportunities. Business goals of the project: Build a reliable logistics process; Integrate a complex end-to-end digital solution, featuring an admin panel, user interface, and options for vendors; Become the market leader in the online purchase and delivery service in Kuwait. Challenges to overcome Develop an “all-in-one” retail & e-commerce app from scratch. The work must provide the room for further expansion of the project’s functionality Work out a UX/UI design that will embrace nuances of the Kuwait local market Come up with a system solution based on OZ.Markt to link together control & management systems, web store, and mobile apps with the functions of purchase and delivery. Approach As the basis for a customer solution, we utilized OZ.Markt which was developed by us earlier; The design & discovery phase was required to make the further planning process careful and consistent; Using Jobs To Be Done methodology to work on the client apps design. Implementation In short, the whole business ecosystem has been digitized through the automation of processes that worked in manual or semiautomatic mode before — from the client mobile application where users select necessary items to the internal processes of the ecosystem. We connected the key chains between the user's mobile app, backend, and admin system reflecting all orders and those parts of the app that power fulfillment of orders, including delivery. As a result, users could enjoy online ordering of food, grocery, and household items from the network of local stores with the option to pick their order up or get it delivered to their homes and offices. The order is packed in the nearest retail store to the customer.
In the future, the project is going to drastically expand through the enhancement of a marketing campaign and functionality, increasing market share in the country, and adding more vendors. The team is considering entering new regional markets. The coming features of the full-scale product will include: Customer service call-center Support the Arabic language Support of iPhone and web-version Recipes, social login, calories calculator, product recommendations based on ML, wishlists, live chat, virtual currency, etc. This enhancement of functionality became possible due to the scalability of the app initially ensured by the MVP development Business results We developed the MPV solution for the Kuwait E-commerce ecosystem and it’s going through action tests with the first clients now. Further functionality will be developed on a scalable basis of MVP and help expand logistic service to end-users. MVP allows moving forward to increase the average bill and user base of this on-demand order & delivery app.Also, the Android version of the client mobile app has been released. It’s enough to demonstrate that the app ensures two-sided benefits to buyers and vendors alike. Buyers will save time and money, enjoying a better choice of retail options and quick delivery of their orders. Vendors or retail shops can boost their sales and raise brand awareness. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Eyewitness Home Cases Machine Learning Eyewitness Machine Learning Eyewitness Software development with a focus on neural network systems and artificial intelligence Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, ReactIndustry Machine LearningEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WEBTeam 3 membersTimeline 1 year About the project The platform we’ve built represents a unique online tool for every police officer conducting a real investigation process. The range of project’s solutions includes the following services: Visual and functional representation of a web platform; Developing design; Ensuring compliance with the existing FBI CJIS regulations; Uploading, processing and finalizing results of photo analysis of the potential victim. Challenges to overcome Having discussed the project details with the client, we identified our primary task — building a visual and functional representation to make the client’s API appealing to the end-user. At the stage of discussion of the future project, the client was equipped with the API used to identify the potential criminals. The development and management of inbound and outbound traffic of personal data required us to comply with the existing FBI CJIS regulations. Next to this, stakeholders came up with another set of goals, including the analysis of the platform’s core functionalities and their mandatory integration into the web application. For example, our team has ensured the possibility for a police officer to quickly react to the system alerts about a potential suspect. Initially, the project was intended for police departments, with a possible extension of functionality for security guards in the supermarkets as well as other security officials. In addition, the application’s backend was supposed to have direct access to several police databases, containing criminal lists with relevant information. Our work The platform that we’ve built in 3 months down the MVP plan is the unique tool for every police officer facing a live investigation process. First, it builds up a specific case file consisting of the case ID, photos of potential suspects, additional information about the case, and physical address details of the committed crime. Next, after you upload the required data and a photo, the results will return a list of registered criminals and the percentage score of the match between the photos of real criminals. Finally, once all the steps of the search and identification have been completed, we can file an official report and construct a 6-pack of the wanted criminal. Besides the crime investigation purposes, the control panel maintains the entire web platform. It can do the following: Manage platform users that are currently employing Eyewitness; Producing reports on the platform usage; Supervise separate organizations that are connected with the EyeWitness’s Single sign-on. Another important feature we’ve implemented is the possibility to upload a crime video for further investigation. Frame by frame, the program will extract the exact screenshot of a suspect and upload it so that a match can be done. The pictures’ quality was far from being ideal and could impede the identification of the suspect. Thus, our team decided to crop an average quality one to simplify the analysis process. The high security level of the application is noteworthy. The application’s ecosystem was designed to comply with CJIS: it is hosted on the Microsoft Azure Government Could, all the stored data is encrypted in motion and at rest. Business results This application has been in the hands of 5 police departments and received rich positive feedback. The number of connected police databases is steadily increasing, with more potential criminals’ profiles being identified with high precision.The clients are always satisfied with the produced results and have always been excited about the quality delivered by our team. Currently, we are enthusiastically dedicated to the creation and development of the mobile version of Eyewitness! It’s still under construction, but we are sure it will be an excellent advancement to the existing platform that we have already presented and shared with you! Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Saffron Cooks Home Cases Food delivery Saffron Cooks Food delivery Saffron Cooks An app for premium food delivery service bringing a restaurant-like dining experience Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, ReactIndustry Food deliveryEngagement Model Managed DeliveryPlatform WebTeam 4 membersTimeline <1 year About the project This startup was founded in Stockholm, Sweden, with the idea to create an application for an exclusive food delivery service. Its main competitive advantages were supreme restaurant experience and a great choice of delicious meals. Our scope of work on this project included: In-depth analysis of existing business model and practical solutions for marketing campaign in addition to technical issues; Refactoring of already existing code; Introduction of a loyalty program with gift cards; Resolving all vulnerabilities in the code to prevent the leak of personal data. Challenges to overcome After we analyzed the application development process, we’ve identified a few compelling challenges highlighted below: One of the main problems in the application was the long way of the client to the payment screen and the client’s failure to make a quick order and pay for it Most existing functions were not finished and required improvement The core backend infrastructure was not in great condition Due to the condition of the backend part, significant security issues were identified during a quick code review Our work A reliable business model created by us has become part of the solutions for the application and was provided by us as a fundamental answer. We found that the target ads should be launched during the daily break time in Sweden (from 11:30 a.m. till 1:30 p.m.). These ads must offer a discount voucher valid during a lunch break!As part of technical solutions, it was important to fix code issues and eliminate vulnerabilities in the security system. This way, we closed all the vulnerable parts of the code, potentially leading to SQL injections, data breaches, and even identity theft.To top it off, we restructured the frontend design, and the way it runs on React, which allowed for a faster loading time. Also, we decided to create a one-page solution for the website with the help of integrated Braintree’s API.In addition, the function was integrated to send out email and SMS notifications to unregistered users. This boosted the number of customers, as they obtained the opportunity to receive gift cards from other users. What made the business succeed After we’ve implemented the core features, the client began an active advertising and marketing campaign for their product across Stockholm. Saffron Cooks has grown into a well-known service in Sweden with thousands of happy customers across the country. It inspired our client to bring other unique projects into life, with Saffron Cooks being a very user-friendly digital product.As soon as the first product iteration was successfully released, it didn’t take more than a month for the app to gain 5,000 new clients. Such numbers mean about 35% of growth. The food order time was reduced by half while the number of abandoned orders decreased by 40%. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### NameCoach Home Cases Education NameCoach Education NameCoach A unique web platform that solves social embarrassment or alienation experienced by us when names are mispronounced Share Link copied! Technologies Node.jsIndustry EducationEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WebTeam 9 membersTimeline 4 years About the project The central concept of the “NameCoach” platform is to provide users with the simple solution, allowing for the correct pronunciation of names. Among other solutions, the project provides the following service: Solving problems of existing integrations that do not work correctly in the application; Accessibility of the app to people with a diverse range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive ability; Implementation of demo pages and integration with machine learning systems; Right semantic use of HTML and correct use of various attributes in the layout, such as tabindex and aria for Readers; Implementation of the voice recording function using the Twilio API (Twimg). Challenges to overcome Before starting the development phase, we analyzed the underlying challenges of the project. Our team found several rather critical and urgent issues: Absence of Unit Tests Fragile and hard-coded architectures Large chunks of unstructured code Focusing on these challenges was important, as further development without their elimination could be very expensive. In addition, it was necessary to solve several other problems: Initially poor integration with the Twilio messaging service; Implementation of extensions that increase the accessibility of the app: NVDA, Apple VoiceOver, JAWS, etc; Smart implementation of markup and tools for convenient work with the application on various devices, including Readers. Our work Firstly, we have done accurate refactoring of code and covered it with complete unit test packages, which have included some of the fundamental functionalities, such as authorization (CanCanCan) and authentication (Devise) processes.Within the scope of accessibility works, we have implemented various tasks based on the independent reports from accessibility engineers.We have integrated a cloud messaging service that allows you to record your voice using a mobile device.​ Also, we have created new demo landing pages and integration with the Learning Machine Systems (Moodle, Canvas, Sakai, Desire2Learn, and Blackboard).We have created mass mailing functions with the ability to edit messages, as well as to create and edit user fields in the registration form and various authentication methods. What made the business succeed For almost three years, our company has been teaming up with "NameCoach" to enhance, model, and advance this web platform. It is a truly unique web platform that solves social embarrassment or alienation when names can be mispronounced in critical settings. Currently, almost every top and famous US university is actively utilizing this platform. The list includes Stanford, Haverford, Xavier, CMU, and Northwestern schools.Now the platform has almost approached the 110,000 active users milestone. The annual growth of the user base is 35%. All of them feel much more confident now! Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Health & Wellness App Improvement Home Cases Health & Fitness Health & Wellness Health & Fitness Health & Wellness A feature-rich, lighter, more comfortable, and user-friendly tool for healthy lifestyle fans Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, ReactIndustry Health & FitnessEngagement Model Managed DeliveryPlatform Web, mobileTeam 5 membersTimeline 3 years About the project We implement this project at the request of the U.S. health and wellness company. A healthy lifestyle embraces a lot of habits, which sometimes take work to keep track of.The mobile app aims to keep track of food habits, meal programs, and coach control easily and intuitively. Users must select a membership plan, pick a coach, and start self-improvement with digital control via the in-app tools. Project Challenges The project needed a detailed roadmap and required a careful business analysis in the first place A relatively low app operation speed on iOS and web platforms  Apps required test coverage The storage for media files was not optimized, occupying around 170 GB Our work Step 1  Design and Discovery phase After carefully analyzing critical product parameters and major characteristics (the number of new sign-ups, user behavior, flows, etc.), we outlined several product hypotheses to drive revenue and bring value.These hypotheses focused on the onboarding navigation tips for new users, featuring payment methods, encouraging feedback on coaches, creating the system of coaching mentorship, sharing the body progress photos, personalized meal plans, etc.  Step 2 Testing coverage We increased testing coverage for Meal Plans and user statuses. The below chart represents the dynamic of time responses to different requests. Initially, the time response was 50 seconds, and after the improvements, this time was reduced to 5 seconds.To visualize and track application performance, we used the New Relic dashboard. This tool identifies the most frequently used backend endpoints and analyzes the frontend request statistics. Step 3 Setting up the app performance tracking We added the New Relic agents to our staging and production environments. The system sends alerts through channels like Slack if any observed metrics reach a critical state. It covers the usage of CPU, memory, and disk. The system also tracks the frequency of the host’s responses and Redis process presence. Step 4 Increasing apps’ speed Performance patches allowed for increasing apps’ speed. For example, the average time to open a chat room dropped from 35 seconds to 6-10 seconds on iOS and from 15-30 seconds to 6-9 seconds on the web app. Step 5 Optimization of the media storage Photo and media exchange within the app is one of its central tools, as it allows sharing of recipes and body shape progress and facilitates coaches' mentorship activities. Before our improvements, photos were downloaded in their original size and opened screen-wide. We enabled the compression while maintaining proportions. We also decreased the storage space by ten, from 170 GB to 17 GB. The media files were moved to DigitalOcean Spaces, an S3-compatible object storage. Business results Optimization has transformed the app into a feature-rich, lighter, more comfortable, and user-friendly tool for healthy lifestyle fans. Parameter Before After Image compression The average size of the picture was ~10-12 Mb The average size is 200-300 Kb Database - storage consistency Deleting attachments without a file Deleting files without attachments The database is consistent Media storage Space took 170GB The storage space is 17 GB Performance patches: Avatars loading improvement Indexing for customers and chat_rooms iOS app Chat rooms average speed was 35s Teams page average speed was 35-40s iOS app Chat rooms average speed is 6-10s Teams page average speed is 6-10s Web app Chat rooms average speed was 15- 30s Teams page average speed was 25-40s Web app Chat rooms average speed is 6-9s Teams page average speed is 6-11s Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### HelloCecil Home Cases HR Tech HelloCecil HR Tech HelloCecil Ideal platform for startups and small businesses expanding their teams. No matter if you have an HR department or not, our HR service will help you with making faster and better decisions Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, ReactIndustry HR TechEngagement Model Managed DeliveryPlatform WebTeam 4 membersTimeline 1 year About the project We created an easy-to-use automated video interview platform that improves job selection. Among other solutions, the project offers the following: Short one-way video responses to personalized surveys; Visual and functional representation of a web platform; Ability to expand the platform over time; Implementing a design. Challenges to overcome Startup and small business owners, together with their Hiring managers, face a lot of challenges. Just imagine feeling pressure to fill open positions, identifying suitable candidates, managing numerous job postings, holding tons of face-to-face interactions, and all that goes with managing your daily non-hiring tasks. Develop an employment process that is candidate-friendly. For example, don’t make your candidate leave work in the middle of the day for a one-hour screening interview on the other side of town. In addition, modern technology makes communication more manageable, especially when it comes to HR-related interaction. Our approach to working with HelloCecil We listen HelloCecil client wanted a fresh and easy-to-use platform that could be expanded over time, so we helped them do just that! We communicate With HelloCecil, we held live meetings every week to actively discuss project updates, new ideas, improvements, and plans. This way, our clients were regularly updated. We do For HelloCecil, a team of highly-skilled engineers was involved in front-end and back-end development, along with an experienced Project manager and Account manager to guide and support both team and the client along the way. Video of the interface https://jetruby.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/hellocecil.mp4 Business results As a result, we were able to build one of the most user-friendly and straightforward platforms for video interviewing. HelloCecil helps business owners and hiring staff go beyond the resume and find their next top talent much faster by creating custom questions, sharing the questionnaire with numerous candidates, comparing candidate responses, and rating candidates.In the first three months, the company's customers used the HelloCecil platform for more than 2,000 video screenings. As a result, the client was thinking about expanding the business into other areas outside of HR Tech. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Learnifier Home Cases Education Learnifier Education Learnifier Learnifier is an online course builder platform with over 12.000+ various course materials Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, Swift, KotlinEngagement Model Managed DeliveryPlatform iOS, AndroidTeam 4 membersTimeline 1,5 years About the project Learnifier is a perfect tool to manage and create a set of documented rules for every position in a different company. This platform provides an easy way to create blended learning courses. Among other solutions, the project provides the following: Developing your wrapper around an existing web platform; The additional development of a white-labeled clone application based on Learnifier; Creating an individual system designed for tracking and re-requesting authorization data; Using the components of the original web application to create an iOS app and publish it to the App Store. Challenges to overcome The analysis of the application development process allowed us to identify a few compelling challenges. Let us highlight them below: Overcoming App Store rules to publish an application that reuses components of an existing Learnifier platform Creating a clone application for the partner of our client The need to connect the native and web interfaces Additionally, to ensure the connection between the native and the web interfaces, we implemented the following features: Hide / Show button in the system style Managing the status of the loading indicator Making links open in an external browser Our work Our team has invested time into building the basic component of the native app and implemented the elementary functionality of the web platform for iOS. Also, we made several stress tests to ensure that the app would perform well under high load.Our team was determined to produce an efficient solution. In just a couple of weeks, we came up with a complete clone of Learnifier. It consisted of different styles, layouts, colors, logos, and UI components. Finally, it has been successfully published to the AppStore.In addition, we have created an individual system designed for tracking and re-requesting authorization data and the interface, which will display the web content and the user authorization.Also, we found a set of workarounds for the Apple Store release that allowed us to legally use the components of the original web application, but with some changes introduced. Business results Within just a year of its release, more than 120,000 people have passed various courses and every single minute around 1,500 users are constantly learning and excelling in their studies.Currently, the Learnifier app is available on the Apple Store offering over 12.000 various course materials. It is available in more than 150 countries worldwide with a huge database consisting of more than 500,000 active users. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### HelpMyTask Home Cases Marketplace HelpMyTask Marketplace HelpMyTask HelpMyTask is a functionally rich web and mobile two-sided marketplace platform for users finding and applying to temporary jobs or creating such jobs Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, React, SwiftEngagement Model Custom Software DevelopmentPlatform WEB, iOSTeam 5 membersTimeline 1 year About the project We created a product that includes such features as finding/posting jobs locally, filtering jobs, payment transactions, rating and commenting on performance after the job completion. Among other solutions, the project provides the following: Development of a mobile app and web platform with the identical set of features; Conducting UX / UI research; Instant communication feature for all users; Visual and functional representation of all platforms; Implementation of payment in local currency; Integration of third-party payment services. Challenges to overcome In the process of developing the app, we encountered some challenges that we successfully overcame. The client did not want to use Apple's built-in payment system on iOS, so we implemented an internal currency which reduced the operating costs of the product by approximately 25%. Finding and integrating the third party payment services that would correspond to European regulations and at the same time would offer a competitive commission rate charged per transaction. Work process The entire production stage was divided into several iterations, following the Agile approach, considering that the requirements in such a highly competitive area as Digital Marketplaces may change frequently.We worked out the product definition, business canvas and user story map documents to make sure that everything is aligned with the client’s vision yet is corresponding to the industry standards. In parallel, we ran UX research aiming to learn about the user behavior patterns.Once the design part was completed - we began with the technical implementation stage. We ensured that our engineers involved in this project had experience with similar products, ensuring that the expertise is above the project requirements. Results Ultimately, we created a product that includes the following features: Task creation, adding description/photos, expected labor costs, job location, category type, payment method; Filtering jobs by location category, costs, method of payment, map view of the jobs; Contractors can produce counter offers and leave comments/rate customers; Online payment processing; Real-time system monitoring for users’ conflicts and content moderation. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Leepsee Home Cases Social Media Leepsee Social Media Leepsee Smart social network with the possibility of anonymous communication with people selected according to the user's preferences Share Link copied! Technologies SwiftIndustry Social MediaEngagement Model Managed DeliveryPlatform iOSTeam 4 membersTimeline 1 year About the project Together with the client, we developed a completely new social network based on personal interests and a news feed that adapts to the user's preferences. Other features included the ability to communicate anonymously within the network and adjust privacy settings whenever a user posts a news feed or comments on an existing one. Among other solutions, the project provides the following: Creating a notification system and storing them on a separate tab in the app. Creating a tagging system for user posts. Applications developed for different mobile platforms Visual and functional representation of a mobile platform Implementing a design. Challenges to overcome As we started to analyze the application development process, we have found a few compelling challenges highlighted below: The constant change of requirements: We had to establish close interaction with the client and offer our solutions for optimization with substantial reasons for doing so. Meeting the results on time: Usually, startups can’t afford to spend years on pre-release development. Leepsee is no exception. We had to provide a high-quality MVP version to avoid any issues with deadlines. To track user engagement and conversion rates in a proper way, all critical app metrics should be put together and underpin the further improvement of marketing strategies. Our work After the first two months of development, an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) was ready. When completed, the client received the iOS application for their final approval. After 8 months of development in a total, the product moved from closed beta to the release version. ​After analyzing the requirements for creating an application for two platforms at once - iOS and Android - we decided to first create an application on one platform, as this allowed us to correctly handle all unforeseen errors, which subsequently reduced the overall budget. As a result, the client received a full-fledged iOS application built on native Swift technologies.In the end, we have built a product that was completely different from its original idea, but it was what the client actually needed. Due to the high quality of MVP we developed, the client was happy to continue cooperating with us for future enhancements such as additional tasks, analytics, and post-release project support. Business results In just a month of dedicated development work, Leepsee has been released and gained huge popularity and positive feedback among youngsters.Since its first release, the app has received almost 500 positive reviews on the Apple App Store along with a boost in popularity. We managed to reach the balance of being flexible in our planning processes while also offering expert guidance.Annually, the application is hitting nearly 10,000 installations and is widely used on the iPhone platform across the USA. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Health App Home Cases Healthcare Health App Healthcare Health App The application for remote monitoring of patient health by doctors Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, React, SwiftIndustry HealthcareEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform iOS, AndroidTeam 20 membersTimeline 2 years About the project We helped our customers develop a healthcare application that would become a safe place for patients, relatives, doctors, and healthcare professionals to communicate and exchange information with each other. It should meet the following needs: Help patients find the right doctor. Help patients store medical information in one place. Help doctors keep track of their patients. Helping patients monitor their health, and keep them informed of any possible changes in records. Help hospitals manage patients with chronic illnesses. Use social networks to inform and educate patients on their health. Implement the functions of chat, notifications, admin panel, and API. Integrate mapping and geolocation services to let patients easily find doctors near to them. Implement the patient survey function in the form of a questionnaire. Also, the solutions include the development of the interface and application design. Challenges to overcome The analysis of the application development helped us reveal a few compelling challenges highlighted below: The need to distinguish the "Health App" from many other apps with similar functionality. Introduction of a unique design and functionality. Implementation of the function of separating users by roles - Family Group, Medical team & Care team. Creation of functionality for sending notifications to doctors when deviations from the norms in the patient's health are detected. Consideration of FDA restrictions for medical software applications, in particular HIPAA regulations. Our work We have combined several key functions in one application. Health board is the main screen of the application and the place where users can search for a specific specialist. This is also the spot for communication. Detailed health information is displayed under this message. The admin panel, implemented with the help of API, stores and manages patient profiles, as well as the information about medical professionals. The panel interface unites patients with similar chronic diseases into groups. Chat allows doctors and patients to communicate in real-time. It is used to send system notifications to patients, including surveys and alerts. Surveys are created by administrators and designed to monitor the patient's condition or collect data on the patient’s satisfaction, while alerts are triggered based on data provided by patients in surveys. Through API for the interface, we connected the front-end and server parts. To make finding the right doctor an easy process, we have integrated several filters and online maps. The introduction of three types of user groups made it possible to break them into groups for convenient communication. A single repository for all documents allows you to store recipes and other important things in one place. What makes this case successful As a result, we created a stable, easy to navigate, HIPAA-compliant medical software system. The application can be easily scaled to reach a much larger number of healthcare users around the world. Currently, the app is being actively used and tested in various medical institutions, quickly raising brand awareness and becoming more popular. This small startup idea has successfully grown into a reasonably large company. Investments into the project have already reached the milestone of $20,000,000.Each month, the application is getting up to 2,500 registered and active users, making their requests and communicating with the medical staff. More than 20,000 medical specialists of various specializations have also registered and continually help people out whenever they need it. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### CashOutMyCar Home Cases Marketplace CashOutMyCar Marketplace CashOutMyCar A user-friendly auction platform where buyers have the opportunity to place bets via SMS Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, React NativeIndustry MarketplaceEngagement Model Custom Software DevelopmentPlatform WEBTeam 7 membersTimeline <1 year About the project CashOutMyCar is a project specializing in the sale of used cars at auction. The speed of operations makes this project stand out among other similar auction sites. Once sellers publish an ad, potential buyers are notified with push or SMS alerts. In their turn, buyers are able to place bets at record speed via SMS (even when the internet connection is off). Among other solutions, you can find the following services provided by the project: Push notifications to all licensed buyers in the nearby areas once the ad has been published. The attraction of buyers to the auction via SMS messages or emails. Development of a PWA that is as user-friendly for smartphones as a mobile application is. Elaboration of design. Challenges to overcome The analysis of the application development helped us reveal a few compelling challenges highlighted below: Enabling buyers to quickly place bids Eliminating difficulty of selling Used/Wrecked cars at lucrative prices Helping buyers to find cars in decent condition Our work Having explored the used car market in the USA, we turned to the design and discovery stage. As part of a package, we prepared a marketing outreach campaign, visual concept, mockups, and clickable prototypes, as well as technical architecture design. Instead of a mobile application, we developed a PWA solution with similar functionality. Through the PWA, users can receive push notifications, post ads, and place bids.Instead of making potential buyers wait for a mobile app to open and its pages to load, our solution has allowed them to just place a bid via a special code. This code is sent by them in response to an SMS alert.At the early stage, the client’s vision was about having an MVP. However, our team managed to turn the application into a full-fledged product in just four months. What made the business succeed Before the solution had been rolled out, the majority of buyers missed out on great deals for technical reasons: someone suffered a slow internet connection, or their mobile coverage was not enough to provide a decent browsing experience. The CashOutMyCar solution completely solved this problem, enabling buyers not only to receive instant SMS notifications about great deals but also to instantly place a bet and purchase a car.To ensure efficient auction deals, our team developed a fast and intuitive PWA that allowed users to save time and place bids instantly. Car dealers also benefited from the opportunity to buy up cars in good condition and expand the range of spare parts, due to buying used cars for spare parts. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Glowforge Home Cases E-commerce Glowforge E-commerce Glowforge A well-known brand among software platforms for selling 3D printers Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, React, Kotlin, SwiftIndustry E-commerce Engagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WEB, iOS, AndroidTeam 6 membersTimeline <1 year About the project Glowforge is a brand of compact and stylish 3D printers, for which our team created an e-commerce platform. It helped to increase brand awareness and improve the sales process. Among other solutions, the project provides the following service: Creating a logo and user interface design. Changing the process of interaction between different parts of the app. Improving the integration of e-commerce, logistics, and accounting services. Connecting to the Avаlara tax calculation service, facilitating the buying process in different countries. It also provides customers and employees with relevant notifications. Reducing the need for manual labor of company employees by optimizing the routines. Challenges to overcome The analysis of the application development process has revealed a few compelling challenges highlighted below: The product with a sound brand name did not have its own recognizable image. The first thing to do was branding to make its trade name easily recognizable in the eyes of the client. The process of preparing an order in Glowforge initially took a huge amount of time, due to involving several departments of the company. It was necessary to simplify the synchronization of data between various departments, as well as prices & tax calculations for each given country. It has also touched on automating the system processes to the fullest possible extent. Our work The color palette with serene blue, black, and white colors prevailing was chosen for the logo and corporate identity symbol, allowing the user to feel confident and relaxed.The automation of the system was finalized by us, enabling easy submission of customer tasks to the NetSuite system and their synchronization with the Glowforge store.These tasks work for a variety of scenarios, such as pre-orders and real-time orders, the behavior of the system in RMA, and a scenario in which the selected item is not present in the local warehouse.Through the Avalara service, the function was introduced to let any client or employee obtain the total amount of the order, including a pre-calculated tax added value for the country specified in the order. As a result, users could receive a clear idea of the prices of goods and the relevant tax rate. What made the business succeed We built an attractive Glowforge website design that allows for simplistic navigation through various sections of the website. Now the buying process for users has become much easier.Glowforge is considered to be the leading and the most iconic 3D printer technology company in its market niche. It was estimated that at least a few million handcrafted materials were created by its customers and they still produce actively. The estimated sales revenue of Glowforge spiked up to $70 million in January 2018, and this is a constantly growing number!During the first month following the release, more than 10,000 printer products have been successfully sold. A great number of customers have already tried the Glowforge app and are quite happy about their user experience. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Beazzy Home Cases Marketplace Beazzy Marketplace Beazzy A very simple and functional marketplace to buy and sell your business hassle-free without third-party agents Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on RailsIndustry MarketplaceEngagement Model Custom Software DevelopmentPlatform WebTeam 6 membersTimeline >2 years About the project We helped the client create a unique product — an online marketplace based on a simple yet multifunctional platform. Among other solutions, the project provides the following service: Signing any document with an electronic signature. Just upload a document of a supported format to get it. Setting up filters to let the broker display as much information as they are ready to share with. Setting up filters for the buyer to enable the evaluation of the broker's assets by professional lawyers. Challenges to overcome As we started to analyze the application development process, we have found a few compelling challenges highlighted below: The need to make "Beazzy" stand out among a huge number of lookalikes by featuring its unique functionality. Creating a solution that allows a potential buyer to quickly grasp a large number of business subcategories. Creating a system that will not allow any user to "steal" a business idea and start their own business due to the availability of essential information. The client has a limited budget. Our work To make something really unique, our Dev team has chosen to go with electronic signature on any document. If the doc format is supported by our web platform, it can be uploaded and made available for online signatures by both the client and the buyer. Dropbox Sign (formerly HelloSign) makes it simple and easy to do inside our web application.Our team has developed a very useful function, allowing users to filter out unnecessary interactions with buyers and ensure a high level of confidentiality for the broker. To bring it to life, three major conditions must be met: clients that communicate with buyers, the presence of the business unit, and its description (including Rent price, Sizes, Date of Expiry, etc.).We have created a similar filter for the buyer. When they find the potentially interesting business, they are offered to go through the document verification with the professional assistance of Beazzy lawyers. They will calculate the net value of their assets and if positive, the system will give both sides the green light for further discussions. Otherwise, the client will be offered other businesses to consider. Our final goal is to make businesses thrive Right now, we are still improving the platform. Its major release is coming soon! Our team is dedicated to putting more effort into it. Beazzy's business model is simple: both clients and brokers buy subscriptions to use the web app. The subscription allows for publishing the business ad or contacting a potentially interesting business. By the way, the platform does not interfere with your transactions. It's a matter of the offline settlement between a buyer and a seller. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Healthcare Practice Management Home Cases Healthcare Healthcare Practice Management healthcare Healthcare Practice Management Simplifying the work of doctors Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby, Node.js, ReactIndustry Healthcare Platform WebTeam 8 membersTimeline January 2019 - now The client The constant need to simplify and automate the processes that every employee got sick of became a huge deal. And a healthcare industry is not an exception, as it began to turn the innovation wheels actively. This time our client came from the USA with the request to implement something very peculiar.He wanted to create a healthcare management platform that would allow a series of private hospitals to schedule their patients' appointments for free, with some additional advanced features at a premium. What made the development challenge for this application so unique? It was about the automation of basic routines and cutting the number of employees required to schedule an appointment with patients. The final product of the client — the tool for dealing with everyday tasks — must be super easy and beneficial for its end-user. Jetruby Case - Anova Download (767 KB) The Challenges The major challenge was formulated by the business founder. Since the central value and purpose of the application would be to set up various appointments with doctors and hospitals, the client asked for an Athena EMR integration. To break it down, this software is a cloud solution, created as a healthcare booking portal with lots of expert services, designed for private hospitals.The application itself has to be appropriately managed, as there is lots of sensitive and confidential information. So one of the core requirements highlighted from our and the client's side was integrating and building an administrative panel. In addition, it had to be integrated with the Athena EMR.As with any other application developed for the medical industry, a core and essential requirement would be to follow HIPAA regulations. However, this time, the principal regulations were determined by the PHI (Patient Health Information) guidelines.Last but not least, setting up chat support for multiple team care members was another thing to do. A support chat for a hospital app is essential for tackling any issues, arising on both technical and medical ends. This function should be implemented on a secure messaging platform with a clinical care coordinator and care team.Having the entire “to-do” list in place, our team has turned to the active development phase. The Implementation First, we listened to the client's wishes and requirements and decided to conduct the Design and Discovery Phase. The reasoning is pretty simple, as the client had core business goals and a concrete development plan, the marketing part was missing. Branding, app UI/UX design concept, the very first prototype — obviously, all of this had to be done before the main MVP phase is launched. Reason? To avoid any unexpected issues and move in the right development direction conceptualized by the client. As our team passed this phase and all of the uncertainties were cleared out, it was time to launch the MVP. The first thing that was put on the line is the integration of Athena EMR with its core backend. It provided the app with a dynamic and automated scheduling system. Main functions enjoyed by the user in this app were: book various appointments by their type before opening hours, collect all confidential information on patients in a safe manner, and cancel reservations by paying special fees.After we implemented the core list of functionalities, we started to focus on the administrative panel. Although this part of any platform or app may seem relatively easy to implement, we have approached it with carefulness in our case. Our team has specifically worked to introduce the management of an appointment, user and waiting lists, CMS with the breakdown by appointment types, also featuring descriptions, and information required to make a scheduling.During the integration of the Athena EMR and active development of the administrative platform, our team paid close attention to compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in regards to PHI. We have set limited access and controls for the hospital facility members to restrict any potential leaks of sensitive information. To take care of regulation of access to the patient’s data in the future, we also added additional restrictions for transferring, removing, or re-using any electronic PHI. Finally, we implemented some policies for utilizing the workstations where the application is going to be used.Like any other application targeting a special segment of a large market, this app experienced an essential demand in chat functionality. However, this app was different from a typical app equipped with chat support. Next to it, we’ve enabled the upload and submission of HIPAA-compliant documents within the storage system. And, for sure, another important step was to implement task management along with team tagging. This was done to simplify the document exchange between groups of people assisting with inquiries. Business Results Ankira is currently running in more than six clinics across America. Over 200 medical experts have registered on this platform and actively interact with patients. Its current business model is based on the paid membership of medical institutions, where this app is used.The application goes through frequent and intensive tests run by our QA team in regard to new functionalities, such as video meetings with medical specialists, automated appointment reminders, and automated eligibility checks.The program is successfully launched on hundreds of medical workstations and is distributed in new private clinics. JetRuby Agency coded quickly and delivered with ease a very functional and thoughtful solution that internal stakeholders are eager to bring to market. The team is personable, responsive, and attentive, fostering a seamless and mutually beneficial collaboration. Their services are reasonably priced. Michael C., Chief Executive Officer Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Let us help you with your business challenges Contact us to schedule a call or set up a meeting Contact us ### Moments NFC Home Cases Fintech Moments NFC fintech Moments NFC Providing contactless payment in pubs across the US Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby, Swift, KotlinIndustry FintechEngagement Model Custom Software DevelopmentPlatform iOS, AndroidTeam 5 membersTimeline 1 year About the project The idea to provide contactless payment in pubs across the US came up with an advanced mobile solution, letting bar guests enjoy a perfect nightlife. With this option, they would not have to carry a purse! The project provides the following solutions: Creating a personal account for each supplier. Adding products with a description. Managing your account and setting commissions. Withdrawal of funds. Ensuring maximum security of both personal and payment data. Challenges to overcome Too much time is spent on payment processing. A pub is a place where you’ve got to serve guests as quickly as possible. Otherwise, they would lose their vigor: the average transaction time could last for 4 minutes! That lags in the process of payment may affect and slow down a bartender's work.There is no employee and payment unified control system. For better business control, executives should have a place to store all the information about the employees, income, and so on.Ensure payment security. Bar customers should have a spending limit (for example, to spend no more than 100 dollars overnight). Besides, the security of the final product had to prevent copying the bracelets and hijacking the payment data Our work Prior to implementing the payment acquiring functionality, we've conducted a detailed research and analysis of market solutions along with their security level. NFC Moments app allows making a payment with your wristband and cut the transaction time by 40 times! Being more specific, the transaction time takes less than 10 secondsWe have implemented a web dashboard for pub owners to keep there the information related to their business. Using the dashboard, they can easily check and stay tuned about the profitability of their pubs. Besides, it's the place where all the information about the employees, income, and so on is stored. What made the business succeed Our team developed a fast and intuitive mobile application that allows users to save their time and make their night-outs less stressful. The app also helps bar owners improve their service level providing customers with a futuristic experience.Using NFC Moments, you can forget about endless queues in pubs as well as annoying and time-consuming payment transactions.Imagine a world where paying for purchases and buying drinks can be easy as a touch. Oh, wait, it already exists! Share Link copied! 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https://storyset.com/illustration/social-media/pana https://storyset.com/illustration/house-searching/pana https://storyset.com/illustration/take-away/pana https://storyset.com/illustration/new-entries/bro https://storyset.com/illustration/finance-app/pana https://storyset.com/illustration/order-ride/pana https://storyset.com/illustration/opened/pana https://storyset.com/illustration/in-no-time/pana https://storyset.com/illustration/telecommuting/pana https://storyset.com/illustration/flight-booking/pana https://storyset.com/illustration/fitness-tracker/pana https://jetruby.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/license-growing-concept-illustration-5426181.pdf Link picture https://ru.freepik.com/free-vector/growing-concept-illustration_5426181.htm ### Cronycle-redesign Home Cases Social Media Cronycle Social Media Cronycle A platform for creating and configuring search channels for articles on the Internet, allowing you to share them with your team Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby, Swift, Kubernetes, Node.jsIndustry Social MediaEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform iOS, Android, WebTeam 11 membersTimeline 1 year About the project The application allows you to create a board with your favorite articles and share them with the team. The team can comment and highlight relevant information on these boards without leaving the platform. Cronycle spares you from copying and pasting links between different apps or platforms. Altogether, it ensures a smooth work process without extra steps being done. Among other solutions, the following services are available in the project: Providing a dedicated server for the database instead of expensive third-party solutions. Enabling the search function with the help of Elasticsearch. Connecting microservices and applications such as Ruby on Rails JSON API, Python Flask applications, etc. Challenges to overcome Before we started working on the project, the Cronycle platform comprised several Heroku-based applications to parse different sorts of content from the websites that have no API.The system data was stored on Amazon s3 while Amazon RDS hosted the database. From a financial standpoint, using these third-party cloud platforms was rather expensive, e.g. the US-based retail giant charged $10k per month.Speaking of costs, Embedly, another third-party platform used by Cronycle to aggregate content, also charged a few cents for each URL it was processing. And since more and more people started using Cronycle, the number of URLs often jumped over hundreds of thousands! Our work For dedicated server hosting, the Cronycle team suggested using Hetzner. The first thing we moved was the database. Next, we reindexed Elasticsearch using the resources of the application. As soon as reindexing was finished, the brand new Elasticsearch was good to go.When moving the database, we came across some problems related to Amazon RDS, which the Bucardo replication system helped us solve. After a lengthy data migration procedure, we decided to separate applications and services so that problems with one would not cause problems with the entire application.After conducting in-depth research on the theme of parsing, we launched not only new applications but also introduced new system functions and settings, for example, a feature that allows you to display the author's name on a website page. Business results We built a large, complex, and independent content-aggregation platform with a micro-service architecture that helps all kinds of users find and organize relevant content with just a little effort. The database of the application is powered by Elasticsearch and enables storing terabytes of data. At the same time, the platform’s new infrastructure is packed with a full set of services to provide a great in-app experience and shield users from the mass media noise. Currently, Cronycle is used by 2308 companies across the globe. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Sortly-redesign Home Cases Warehousing Sortly Warehousing Sortly Sortly is the #1 inventory app for the iOS platform that enables you to visually track all your possessions Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, ReactIndustry WarehousingEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform Web, iOSTeam 15 membersTimeline 2 years About the project We helped the client to create an application, enabling users to categorize and keep track of all items in their possession with a few clicks and a clean UI. With its help, people can manage almost any kind of activity – from movings to art installations. Among other solutions, the project provides the following: Developing a web platform to gain greater marketing advantage among other inventory competitors. Visual and functional representation of a web platform. Creating a single page application. Implement a designing style. Challenges to overcome Initially, Sortly was divided into 2 separate applications. Both of them have served two different types of customers. However, when the client’s business grew, the targeted audience increased in numbers.When these changes took place, stable architecture and dynamic requests remained on the “to-do” list. Thus, we decided to merge two apps into one.Many customers were constantly suggesting and supporting the app core functionalities. They were regularly proposing new features and ideas to be added into the app. Our team took noticed, and decided to form a proper customer experience team and structure the process of producing features from the box of suggestions. Our work Having considered several possible options for conducting work on the project, we completely changed the backend structure and switched to a completely new data model that allowed us to easily scale the product.After aligning the development process with our business interests, preparing plans for the development team and agreeing with the customer we drastically improved our dev team release managers who develop the tech leads.Also, we added a refined onboarding plan for any developer who is going to be integrated into our Sortly team. It is performed quite simply and smoothly.​JetRuby engineers became a core part of Sortly and collaborated in the development process of the World’s #1 inventory app. Sortly is trusted by the majority of small businesses and teams at large enterprises. Business results Now “Sortly” is considered to be a well-known and practical one-page inventory management web platform that is still actively progressing in its current development.Since its initial launch, the app gained more than 5,000 positive reviews on the AppStore, with over 300,000 installations worldwide! According to Forbes, Sortly captured a position in the list of the best home inventory apps.

 It is widely being used across the whole globe and actively finds its application in various enterprise companies. The list contains: HP, Sanford Health, Yale, Pepsico, Lyft and many more! Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Universum Global Home Cases HR Tech Universum Global HR Tech Universum Global Universum Global is a world-class, multi-faceted international corporation that helps students and professionals find career opportunities Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, ReactIndustry HR TechEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WebTeam 5 membersTimeline 2 years About the project Improving the survey system that offers respondents (both students and professionals) to answer its questions and determine their archetype. Among other solutions, the project provides the following: Visual and functional presentation of the survey platform. Moving away from a paid external service. Accelerated processing of source files. Recommendation system update. Challenges to overcome One of the primary objectives was to improve the survey system that offers respondents (both students and professionals) to take a survey to determine their archetype (Leader, Internationalist, Idealist, Hunter, Harmonizer, Entrepreneur or Careerist).After passing the survey, a respondent is redirected to their page to see career-related information based on the survey results, e.g., the best employer to choose, the average salary in a specific field, etc.The main challenge was that the system relied on a paid third-party service with a custom API using prediction.io. Because of it, processing queries took a lot more time than it was supposed to.Also, there was a problem with updating the recommendation system: new data could be imported only in manual mode. Our work Before implementing significant functionality changes, we first refactor the code base and cover it with tests. After that, we proceeded to survey system improvements.Next, the service was replaced with Elasticsearch, accompanied by complex logic to aggregate data and output results. Integrating Elasticsearch directly, we ensured that the system could receive and operate the newest data.Finally, every piece of newly-implemented functionality was thoroughly tested. We worked on the following Universum projects Atribot (Iris) A social coding stack. The platform integrates with external web resources to grab posts. Users can ark/tag them with custom marks/tags. In addition, Attribot allows viewing/exporting reports based on user tags. Finally, Attribot provides an API to access posts from social networks and social media analytics for third-party applications. Talent Radar Talent Radar was initially designed as the Heroku-based marketing system for creating targeted email campaigns. Users can import data, filter subscribers, and schedule send-outs at a specific time and date. The system’s main features include the ability to track campaign execution progress, restart on fail, campaign A/B testing, and real-time campaign statistics. To achieve atomic and stable performance, we rewrote 22 000 lines of code. TOP 100 Universum TOP 100 is a service where you can find the most attractive employers from all over the world. This is also a place for employees to share their own stories and experiences. Our team was helping Universum with maintaining the first version of this service. Nebula Users Nebula Users is the central storage and authentication service for the Nebula system. Other applications (such as Attribot) are using this platform for authentication. Directory A central company/university data storage. It persists data into Elasticsearch and provides a web interface for quick searching/filtering that data. Other Universum applications also use Directory as one of the key data sources inside the Universum products ecosystem. Business results We've completed the project and enjoyed the following results: Fully refactored, the survey system is now smooth like never before. Moving from the slow, paid third-party service to Elasticsearch allowed our client to significantly reduce expenses on the system maintenance and provide a much better survey experience to the Universum Global respondents. We created Ansible recipes to manage AWS servers used for storing applications and their data. We performed migrations between Heroku and AWS, updated data storage software, and made other changes such as introducing a marketing campaign to encourage respondents to pass other surveys. Thanks to the implemented solutions, the company saved about 70,000 USD on infrastructure annually.Currently, Universum works with 2,000 employers from all over the world. And the sustainable solutions created and supported by us help them. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Anova Home Cases Logistics Anova Logistics Anova Is a unique solution for collecting and processing data from: tank sensors, forecasting and managing fuel supplies, managing production and human resources Share Link copied! Technologies Ruby on Rails, Vue.jsIndustry LogisticsEngagement Model Dedicated TeamPlatform WebTeam 5 membersTimeline 2 years About the project We have created a product that is designed for the consolidation of various software platforms into a single system that would provide objective and operational information necessary for efficient fuel supply management, minimizing costs, and increasing labor productivity. Among other solutions, the project provides the following: The system automatically predicts deliveries based on data received from tank sensors. The system optimizes delivery routes by increasing the number of deliveries for different customers in one way. The system automatically creates a request for delivery (including registration of itinerary and waybills). The history of tank usage is tracked, the clients can thereby monitor the tanks. The system allows controlling drivers, trucks, tanks taking into account the working/weekend days in each region/country. Challenges to overcome A logistics manager spends 2 to 6 hours building a delivery route for 20 to 30 vehicles - this is not cost-effective for a large organization. Managers spend 3 to 5 hours a day on routine communications and problem-solving. Constraints with transport demurrage due to inaccurate transport route planning. Our work While working on a UX design for this project, we created several fictional users for each user role in the app. This testing made it possible to ensure the Anova app would be equally useful for all users.As a result, we developed a unique solution for both suppliers and consumers. Thanks to this, we achieved the following results: The system automatically predicts deliveries based on the data received from the tank sensors. The system optimizes the delivery route by increasing the number of deliveries by different customers in one way. The system automatically creates a request for delivery (including registration of itinerary and waybills). The history of tanks usage is tracked, the clients can monitor the tanks. The system provides a two-way exchange of electronic documents between the supplier and the consumer. Anova solution provides human and production resources management. Business results ANOVA allows you to combine disparate processes for loading and delivering fuel into a single system using a unique program. Suppliers always have information in advance about the number of products shipped and contractors’ points that need to be visited. The system itself rationally plans the chain from loading fuel into trucks to shipment to the recipient. In turn, customers received the full automation of fuel and gas delivery processes, creating savings each day, both working time and company funds.As a result, both parties (supplier and consumer) save costs, increase efficiency, increase worker safety, and finally remain competitive. Share Link copied! Follow us Follow us Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### AI/ML Integration Services AI / ML Integration Services At JetRuby, we help companies increase their efficiency and implement innovations by unlocking the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT-o1 and Anthropic's Claude 3 Opus Request a free consultation to learn how to use ChatGPT in your business How AI Can Transform Your Business Customer Support Automate your customer support service with a trained chatbot, capable of understanding clients' inquiries and providing assistance specific to their needs. Sales and Marketing Analyze and personalize your pitch decks and marketing offerings, attracting more customers and potential partners HR Utilize AI to automate recruitment processes, efficiently manage payroll and benefits, and analyze employee data. Production Deploy AI to enhance manufacturing efficiency, product quality, and ensure timely delivery to meet customer demand Finance Adopt AI for automated financial reporting and forecasting, robust fraud detection systems, and in-depth financial analysis. Industries to Benefit From AI Education Enhance the learning experience by using AI to provide personalized learning paths for students. AI can analyze each learner, adapting the educational content accordingly Healthcare Improve patient outcomes with predictive analytics and personalized treatment plans. AI can sift through medical research, patient records, and other relevant data Fintech Streamline your financial services with AI-driven insights for risk assessment, fraud detection, and customer service. AI can analyze market trends and individual customer behavior AgroTech Implement AI and machine learning in AgroTech to enhance global food security by optimizing agricultural practices, improving crop yields, and reducing waste. And even more! Why Choose JetRuby for AI Integration Projects Experience and Expertise Our team is composed of experts with years of experience in leveraging Large Language Models (LLM) and AI technologies. Customized Solutions We understand that every business is unique. We offer personalized AI solutions tailored to meet your specific needs and objectives. Support at Every Step Our commitment doesn't end with the launch of your project. We provide continuous support to ensure your business thrives. Learn how AI can leverage your business Request a free consultation AI Project Integration Phases Phase 1 Consultation We start with a thorough analysis of your business needs. Through consultations, we aim to understand your goals and objectives and determine how LLM and AI technologies can best help you achieve a competitive edge Phase 2 Strategy Based on the gathered information, our team develops a custom strategy that includes planning and designing solutions leveraging GPT-o1 and other advanced LLM technologies. We create a detailed plan to ensure maximum efficiency and effectiveness Phase 3 Implementation Once the strategy is approved, we move on to the implementation phase. Our team handles the deployment and integration of the created solutions into your infrastructure, ensuring a seamless transition with minimal disruptions to your operations Phase 4 Support After implementation, we continue to support you at every stage. We provide ongoing support and optimization of the implemented solutions to ensure your AI systems always operate at their best, adapting to changes and growth in your businessOur AI Integration CasesExplore our case studies to see how we have successfully integrated LLM technologies into various businesses. Discover GPT business use cases and how to use GPT for business to achieve remarkable results. Voice Data Input for Farmers Problem: Farmers face time-consuming manual reporting, data inaccuracies, and inefficient resource management, leading to higher costs and potential crop losses. Solution: Convert farmers' voice recordings into structured text reports with AI; AI-based solution analyze the captured data and generate actionable recommendations. Key Points Farmers can easily record their observations without manual data entry; A 50% reduction in reporting time, increased data accuracy, and reduced crop losses and costs related to fertilizers; Farmers can receive valuable advice or professional consultation at any time. Automation of Customer Support Problem: Handling a high volume of customer inquiries accurately and promptly while maintaining high satisfaction and managing support costs. Solution: Integrating AI to automate the processing of customer inquiries; GPT-4-trained virtual assistant provide customers with recommendations based on their specific needs Key Points Customer wait time reduced by 60%; Customer satisfaction increased by 43%; The quality of customer service significantly improved; The AI implementation has led to reduced support costs. Personalized Learning Problem: Standardized learning materials and lack of personalized learning tracks hinder effective and engaging education for individual students. Solution: Create personalized learning materials through integrating AI; Develop personalized learning tracks that adjust with each iteration; Provide users with assignments tailored to their level and interests. Key Points Student engagement increased by 35%; Learning efficiency improved by 33%; Personalized materials made learning more interesting and effective; Students achieved high results in final exams through thorough understanding of complex topics. FAQ How to use ChatGPT for business? To use ChatGPT for business, start by identifying the areas where AI can add the most value, such as customer service, sales, or marketing. ChatGPT can help you in these areas and significantly boost your business performance. Next, consult with experts to develop a tailored strategy and implement the technology seamlessly into your existing systems. Continuous monitoring and optimization are key to ensuring the AI performs effectively and adapts to your business needs. What are ChatGPT use cases for business? ChatGPT use cases for business include automating customer support, personalizing marketing campaigns, generating sales leads, providing instant responses to customer inquiries, and analyzing customer data for insights. It can also be used for internal operations like employee training and knowledge management. What are the key benefits of using ChatGPT in business operations? The key benefits of using ChatGPT in business operations include increased efficiency, cost savings, and enhanced customer experience. ChatGPT can automate repetitive tasks, provide instant support, and generate data-driven insights. It also helps in personalizing marketing efforts and improving decision-making processes. Use ChatGPT to tailor these marketing strategies effectively. In what ways can ChatGPT be utilized to streamline customer support services? ChatGPT can streamline customer support services by automating responses to common inquiries, providing instant assistance, and escalating complex issues to human agents. It can handle multiple interactions simultaneously, reducing wait times and improving overall customer satisfaction. Ask ChatGPT to assist with real-time customer queries. What are the potential pitfalls to avoid when implementing ChatGPT in a business setting? When implementing ChatGPT in a business setting, it’s important to avoid potential pitfalls such as over-reliance on automation, lack of proper training data, and inadequate monitoring. Ask ChatGPT for best practices to mitigate these risks. Ensure that the model is regularly updated and optimized, and always have human oversight to handle complex or sensitive issues. ### Cloud Infrastructure Optimization Cloud Infrastructure Optimization Elevate your business with JetRuby's cloud optimization strategy designed for success. Unlock the full power of your cloud infrastructure with enhanced performance, reduced costs and ensured scalability Clear Your Clouds What is Cloud Infrastructure Optimization? JetRuby CIO (Cloud Infrastructure Optimization) is a risk-free software and consulting service package aimed at cloud cost optimization and performance improvements with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure (MS Azure), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). What You Get save 20% to 85% Cost Optimization Our optimization strategies help companies save 20% to 85% on their cloud infrastructure by providing recommendations and other services better control over cloud resource Precise Resource Management Clients receive notifications about price anomalies and non-compliance with resource tagging, ensuring better control over cloud resource management “the big three” of cloud computing Experts on Your Side The team has clear and well-rounded expertise with “the big three” of cloud computing, providing reliable and cost-efficient optimization solutions no longer requiring on-site expert Clear Cloud Infrastructure After the infrastructure optimization the overall system becomes more streamlined no longer requiring on-site expert involvement How Cloud Optimization Service Works You are just 30-minute call away from starting your cloud infrastructure optimization Step 1 Your Request We receive and process your request, then schedule a 30-minute call to discuss the details. Step 2 30-minute call During the initial call, we discuss the challenges you have and the technical specifications of your cloud. Step 3 Read-only access To make a comprehensive estimation of how to optimize your cloud infrastructure, we'll need to ask you for read-only keys. Step 4 Cost estimation After the completion of the audit, our specialists will provide you with estimated cost savings based on your current spending structure. Take better control of your cloud infrastructure spending Send Your Request Risk-Free Pricing You pay only if it works! Commission-based payment We charge 10% of the monthly costs saved on your infrastructure with the optimization we have performed. Our Guarantees If all recommendations are implemented and savings are less than 20%, we will not charge for the service.Our Cloud Infrastructure Optimization CasesOnly the stories of our clients could tell more about the efficiency and benefits of cloud infrastructure optimization by the JetRuby team Healthcare Analytics Problem: High cloud expenditure of $43,539.15, impacting operational efficiency. Solution: Deployment of our management software for sophisticated cloud cost management, identifying and addressing inefficiencies and redundancies. Key Points Achieved a 53% decrease in cloud expenses. Current expenses halved to $8,925.43. Enabled smarter resource utilization and fostered growth. Demonstrated our approach effectiveness for strategic cloud finance management in complex spending scenarios. E-Commerce Problem: High cloud expenses ($32,550/month) due to unpredictable user traffic and extensive cloud resource needs. Solution: Implementation of dynamic resource management, smart auto-scaling of virtual machines and strategic reserved instances. Key points Dynamic Resource Lifecycle Management led to a $14,892.50 reduction in unnecessary expenses. Smart auto-scaling of virtual machines saved $7,657.50 during low demand. Strategic use of reserved instances in AWS cut costs by $3,714.38. Overall, we helped achieve a total monthly saving of $17,892.38. Data Analytics Problem: High cloud infrastructure expenses, initially at $42,109.33, with concerning financial forecasts. Solution: A comprehensive analysis leading to the identification and elimination of inefficiencies in resource allocation and redundant services. Key points Dramatic 60% decrease in cloud expenses in just one month. Ongoing cost reduction strategy resulted in further decrease to $11,229.20. Validated approach optimized strategic and cost-efficient cloud investments. This case highlights our audit logic and its effectiveness in transforming cloud cost management. Logistics and Supply Chain Management Problem: High AWS bills ($27,850/month). Solution: JetRuby cost efficiency audit and resource management. Key points 63% reduction of unnecessary costs via improved visibility and resource tagging. Dynamic resource adjustment based on demand. Strategic reserved instances on AWS for budget management. Significant financial savings anticipated in supply chain operations. E-Learning Problem: High monthly cloud expenses ($17,855.65) while balancing seamless user experience and cost constraints. Solution: Cost optimization without sacrificing performance, including granular resource tagging, smart auto-scaling, and data lifecycle management optimization. Key points Granular resource tagging led to a 43% reduction in unnecessary resource costs. Smart auto-scaling for dynamic workloads resulted in a 55% reduction in computing costs. Optimized data lifecycle management achieved a 29% reduction in storage costs. Overall, our methodologies realized a 51% reduction in monthly cloud expenses. FAQ Why is cloud cost optimization important? Optimizing your cloud computing infrastructure is important for a multitude of reasons. Reducing costs, enhancing ROIs, balancing budgets, adding visibility to processes are among the top immediate benefits. What is cloud infrastructure optimization? Cloud infrastructure optimization involves improving the efficiency and performance of your cloud resources. This process ensures that your cloud environment is cost-effective, scalable, and capable of handling your business needs efficiently. By optimizing cloud infrastructure, businesses can save money, improve application performance, and enhance security. This process ensures that your cloud environment is transparent, simpler to use and handles your business needs more efficiently on a leaner budget. How can I start optimizing my cloud infrastructure? To start optimizing your cloud infrastructure, you should: Conduct a thorough audit of your existing cloud resources. Identify underutilized or idle resources and eliminate them. Implement auto-scaling to adjust resources based on demand. Use cost management tools to monitor and control expenses. Leverage cloud-native optimization services provided by your cloud provider. What are common challenges in cloud infrastructure optimization? Common challenges in cloud infrastructure optimization include: Lack of visibility into resource utilization. Difficulty in identifying redundant or underutilized resources. Managing the complexity of multi-cloud environments. Ensuring consistent performance while optimizing costs. Keeping up with constantly evolving cloud services and features. How does cloud infrastructure optimization benefit cloud security? Optimizing your cloud infrastructure directly enhances security in several ways. Firstly, it ensures that only necessary resources are used, reducing the attack surface for potential threats. By implementing best practices and regular audits, businesses can identify and rectify security vulnerabilities early. Optimization also involves updating and configuring cloud services according to the latest security standards, thereby strengthening the overall security posture. Unlock Your Cloud's Full Potential with a Free Expert Consultation Send Your Request ### Ruby developer Careers Ruby developer Schedule Full Day Location Remote Required job experience 3 — 6 years Duties Writing from scratch or maintaining a medium-sized web application. Bringing new technologies and approaches into projects, keeping the project up-to-date. Performing code reviews. Writing tests for all your code, understanding why it is important, and teaching this knowledge to junior members. The ideal candidate will have: Ability to write code for web applications and read/chat with a client in English. Knowledge of PostgreSQL and understanding when denormalization is needed and when it is not. Understanding of the pros and cons of AMS, and knowledge of how to make serialization faster, or at least familiarity with Oj. Understanding why you should not give everything from one REST endpoint, or knowledge of how to handle GraphQL. Ability to set up caching on endpoints and understanding of what cache invalidation is. Comprehensive understanding of basic networking and related concepts. Ability to set up CORS and explain exactly which headers need to be sent. It will be a plus if you have: Experience from the times when not only the API for React was written on Rails. Ability to call the client and understand why you shouldn’t rewrite everything immediately just because a new cool library has been released. Hands-on experience with Elasticsearch. No fear of the front end and knowledge of UNIX basics to set up deployment, wrap an application in a container, write a docker-compose file, or set up a server for deployment. Summary: We need a full-stack specialist who can write in ReactJS, is proficient with front-end code, and is capable of handling both parts of the task independently. We expect you to understand what React is, as well as the differences between class components and functional ones. If you can justify your preference for one of these approaches, that would be fantastic. If you have experience with Redux and Thunk, then you are a 100% fit! IMPORTANT We do not expect perfect knowledge of layout from you. If you know how it's done, that's fine; if not, that works too. First Name Last Name Email Phone Message I agree to Jetruby Privacy Policy Apply for this job By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Node.JS developer Careers Node.JS developer Schedule Full Day Location Remote Required job experience 3 — 6 years Duties Developing mobile applications for various projects. Designing customer-facing UI and back-end services Documenting Node.js processes, including database schemas, as well as preparing reports Following well-established development procedures. Operating under the supervision of a manager. Coordinating with an easy-going client. The ideal candidate will have: 2+ years of commercial development experience with Node.js. Fluency in JavaScript ES6+. Knowledge of Express.js (or other frameworks). Experience with at least one object-relational database (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MsSQL, Oracle) or NoSQL (MongoDB) and has used ORM for RDBMS. Experience with Redis and Git (git flow). Fluency in English (B1+). Ability to write from scratch or maintain a medium-sized web application. Capability to bring new technologies and approaches into projects, keeping the project up-to-date. Performs code reviews. Writes tests for all their code, understands why it is important, and teaches this knowledge to junior members. It will be a plus if you have: Experience with GraphQL, Apollo Server, and TypeScript. Skill in using automated tests (for example, with Jest). Understanding of software testing processes and Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, XP). First Name Last Name Email Phone Message I agree to Jetruby Privacy Policy Apply for this job By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Project Manager Careers Project Manager Schedule Full Day Location Remote Required job experience 3 — 6 years Duties Shaping and organizing project processes for development teams (3 - 20 people). Predicting, coordinating, and planning the workload of resource teams. Managing projects at different stages using the optimal methodology for each project. Following project deadlines and budgets as well as managing project risks. Preparing and submitting reports for clients and the company. Participating in the process of hiring, shaping team motivation and professional development systems, and taking care of internal improvements (procedures, environment, tools, etc.). The ideal candidate will have: Proven experience as a Project Manager or Scrum Master in an IT company for at least 3 years. Good knowledge and practical experience in using project management systems (JIRA, MS Project, etc.). Knowledge of various project management methodologies: Waterfall, Scrum, Kanban, and XP. Experience with foreign clients. An English level of at least B2 (sufficient for negotiations with clients). Experience as an analyst and developer in commercial projects. It will be a plus if you have: Experience as an analyst and developer in commercial projects. Experience with requirements (Product Owner). First Name Last Name Email Phone Message I agree to Jetruby Privacy Policy Apply for this job By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Careers Forge Your PathTo Excel with JetRuby Whether you just starting your career in software development, or seeking for a job as a seasoned specialist — we would be glad to meet you! See open positions Our principles include Motivation Through a proper grading system for software engineers that motivates strong performance Automation Through the proprietary People Management ERP system that streamlines workflows Mentorship Knowledge transfer from seasoned developers who provide guidance to new engineers during onboarding and training Mutual responsibility Of senior engineers for each other and the development team Permanent quality control With extensive manual and automated testing at every stage of development Unleash Your Job Potential With over a decade of experience, we've empowered businesses across 16+ industries, including healthcare, e-commerce, education, and logistics, delivering cutting-edge solutions that stay ahead of the curve. We specialize in a variety of technologies, including Ruby on Rails, Node.js, ReactJS, Swift, and more, ensuring we can tackle any challenge. Our notable projects include a high-performance inventory app for Sortly, urban farming solution for OSRAM, and a user-friendly marketplace platform for HelpMyTask. Join us at JetRuby and be part of a team that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous growth. 6 Reasons to Work in JetRuby Open Door Approach We are proud of fostering an environment where every team member has the opportunity to influence the company's direction and bring transformative changes.Employee Support We set clear goals and expectations, alongside a continuous feedback cycle for each employee, ensuring everyone has the support they need to succeed.Team Collaboration We hire for the team, not just for a project. This means you have the chance to work on different projects while being part of the same supportive team.Diverse Projects You'll be able to work on a wide variety of projects from scratch, with the possibility of rotating between them to keep your work experience dynamic and exciting.Flexible Schedule Enjoy the freedom to partially work remotely, adjust your working hours, and have a flexible start and end to your workday, promoting a healthy work-life balance.Global Reach Engage directly with international clients. To support this, we offer language studies, ensuring effective communication and collaboration across the globe. Life at JetRuby Open Positions Project Manager Full Day Remote Node.JS developer Full Day Remote Ruby developer Full Day Remote Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### JetRuby Brand Guide JetRuby Brand Guide We want the media, our partners, and clients to have easy access to JetRuby brand assets and be able to use them consistently. Please feel free to utilize our logos, fonts, and brand colors, along with the recommendations and rules provided below, to represent our brand vibrantly and accurately. Download PDF Brand Guide Logo Horizontal (standard) We highly recommend using our logo in a horizontal layout. Kindly keep it free of any visual effects or filters and consider indents. Do not place it next to any other elements, logos, or text. The logo protection zone should be equal to the height of the logo. SVG PNG SVG PNG Vertical (alternative) For those exceptional cases when the main horizontal layout is inapplicable, you may use an alternative vertically aligned logo. The logo protection zone in this case will remain the same—1x logo height. SVG PNG SVG PNG Typography Aa Poppins Primary font for headings Aa Golos Secondary font for texts Colors Primary #FF561D Smashing Pumpkins RGB CMYK 255, 86, 29 0%, 76%, 87%, 0% Secondary Opacity 80% #FF784A Secondary Opacity 60% #FF9A77 Secondary Opacity 40% #FFBBA5 Secondary Opacity 20% #FFDDD2 Secondary #FF9900 Orange Peel Secondary #0033CC Blueberry Blue Secondary #3366FF Ultramarine Blue Secondary #6699FF Cornflower Blue Simple rules to follow By using JetRuby trademarks, logos, or any other brand assets described in this guide you automatically consent to follow these rules. JetRuby Agency Ltd retains any and all rights to modify this guide at its sole discretion at any time. Download PDF Brand Guide You may use JetRuby brand assets for non-commercial purposes. Otherwise please contact us to negotiate the terms Keep all listed JetRuby brand assets free of any visual effects, filters or distortions Don't use brand items in unauthorized mentions of JetRuby with other entities Avoid using JetRuby brand assets in the content that may be deemed disparaging Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Contact us Contact us General contacts Request a quote Careers JetRuby Headquarters Address 535 Mission st, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA Email business@jetruby.com Phone +1 415-508-7706 Social networks Leave us a message By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy Please fill in the form below and we will get in touch with you soon By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy Fill out the form, when a suitable vacancy opens, we will contact you By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Al & ML-enabled Development Solutions for your Business Al & ML-enabled Development Solutions for your Business Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning — harness the power of data to stay ahead of the curve! We build bespoke AI and ML enabled software solutions that provide tangible competitive advantages AI -backed team Our services We build AI & ML solutions able to take your business to the next level AI R&D Lab Deep Learning Computer Vision Data Mining AI -backed team Assisted by GitHub Copilot, our developers work faster and more effeciently. AI -backed team Your AI-backed Engineering Team, which works 3-5x faster We offer Staff Augmentation services, for which we form a group of AI-backed developers to enhance your own team for productive cooperation. We believe time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. Therefore to speed up the working process, our developers use GitHub Copilot. Without sacrificing the quality of projects, we spend considerably less time on development. A large pool of specialists to choose from You’ll be provided with a detailed time spent report Quick replacement of resources once needed IT consulting services for your architect solutions You have transparent control over the development process via tracking systems Transparent hiring process You have transparent control over the development process via tracking systems Our Expertise We talk about our expertise Tech Reads · How to Build an Efficient AI-backed Team Industrial and technological challenges of the present day require the knowledge of AI and ML to stay competitive. As Artificial Intelligence gains an increasing role in IT projects, building a solid team with AI expertise is becoming an intensive need for many. The ins and outs of this process are deeply familiar to us as a software development company.  How to Pack an AI-backed Team? For clarity of terms, an AI-backed team works on an IT project that massively involves AI and ML technologies.       Building an in-house team of AI talents goes together with integrating data analysis and AI culture… Read more JetRuby Agency· 28/04/2023· Tech Reads · Leveraging Copilot, ChatGPT to Solve Technical Challenges: Case Study Artificial intelligence (AI) tools have revolutionized how we approach technical challenges. Whether improving customer experience, optimizing business operations, or enhancing product design, AI has become a valuable tool for solving complex problems in the tech industry. Copilot is one of these tools, and this article will cover Copilot use cases from our practice that helped us to write more efficient and faster code.   What is Copilot? Copilot is an AI-powered code editor that uses Machine Learning to suggest code snippets based on the context of what the developer is working on. By analyzing the code in real-time, Copilot provides suggestions… Read more JetRuby Agency· 28/04/2023· Tech Reads · GitHub Copilot. More Effective Coding with AI In summer 2021, Microsoft and its subsidiary GitHub announced the launch of Copilot – a neural network capable of writing code correctly for developers. What’s Copilot? GitHub CEO Nat Friedman simply says that Copilot – is “Your AI pair programmer”. Built on the GPT-3 language model, GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered code generator that can help developers write code faster and more efficiently than ever before.  When a developer uses GitHub Copilot, the tool analyzes the code they are working on and generates suggestions for how to complete it. These suggestions can take the form of autocompletion suggestions, where GitHub… Read more Blog Info· 27/04/2023· Solutions How can I grow my business with AI & ML? AI and ML empower business solutions with truly diverse options and features. We can list some examples: AI-enabled taxi application AI algorithms build better routes for drivers and connect taxi passengers with vacant slots. It also allows rescheduling the drivers’ flow in the best possible way. Content platforms benefit from ML techniques Deep learning integrated with the search feature anticipates users' search intent and personalizes their news feeds. Chatbots can be perfect with AI Human-like dialogues can keep user satisfaction high and unload customer service ML-enabled safe driving  AI and ML train systems to detect obstacles and can avoid car crashes. Object detection makes computers see threats and prevent negative scenarios. AI-enabled HR Tech filters The AI-based scanning function filters candidates' profiles by the preset parameters. AI & ML Why develop AI and ML solutions with us? We offer a range of AI and ML solutions that can be customized to meet the unique needs of your business. Whether you need help automating repetitive tasks, improving decision-making, personalizing customer experiences, or reducing risk, our team has the expertise and experience to deliver the solutions you need. Increased Efficiency Our AI and ML solutions can help automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, leading to significant improvements in operational efficiency. This can help companies reduce costs, save time, and improve overall productivity. Scalability & Security Our AI and ML solutions are designed to be scalable, so they grow and evolve with your business. We also understand the importance of security and compliance, which is why we build our solutions with the highest levels of security and regulatory compliance in mind. Competitive Advantage By implementing the JetRuby AI and ML solutions, our clients gain a competitive advantage over their peers. Our technologies help businesses stay ahead of the curve by identifying new opportunities, improving customer experiences, and streamlining their operations. Level your business up with our AI-backed team and custom solutions Fill out the form below and we’ll get in touch with you soon Get a quote Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  ### Leaderships JetRuby Leaderships Ivan Linko CEO Ivan founded JetRuby agency as a startup that grew into a custom software development company with more than 200 skilled employees. JetRuby’s initial focus on Ruby on Rails development transformed into a full-scale development expertise. As a forward-thinking entrepreneur who knows the world of programming from the business and professional sides, Ivan shares his perspectives on social media. Helping Startups and SMEs with the foundation to achieve growth Article Connect with Ivan Blog articles by Ivan Blog Henry Ahadzhanyan CBDO Henry works as a Director of Business Development and ensures that businesses launch their digital products quickly and with predictable outcomes. Thanks to his deep expertise in AI-enabled AgriTech solutions, digital farming, and data science, Henry helps entrepreneurs hold their competitive edge in the relevant industries.  Connect with Henry Blog articles by Henry Blog Mohamed Badawi‬ scientific advisor Professor Mohamed A. Badawi‬ has been welcomed to JetRuby as a scientific advisor as we highly value the scientifically proven approach to the projects we build. His expertise in biotechnology and environmental solutions underpins many successful agricultural initiatives. Dr. Mohamed describes his research in specialized magazines and academic periodicals. Production of Biochar from Date Palm Fronds and its Effects on Soil PropertiesArticle / PDF Connect with Mohamed Blog articles by Mohamed Blog Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### hr-technology ### architecture-audit Software Architecture Audit for businesses of various Scales and CompleXity Identify bottlenecks of your technology and have a clear plan for their elimination Software Architecture Audit for businesses of various Scales and CompleXity Identify bottlenecks of your technology and have a clear plan for their eliminationDuring the last 12 years of operations we have seen many cases when business owners were too late with work on their technical debt and eventually lost their clients and business. It’s extremely important to know the state of things with the technology of your product before the deadlines for release are defined and approved. According to the standards of quality management in software engineering, the investments toward quality are 10 times less than the cost of the issues caused by poor quality. Don’t underestimate the risks and imagine you work in a mission-critical environment. This will save you a fortune. Proud to work with Why you need Architecture Audit You want to replace the team and wondering what to start fromYou got the investments and plan to scale your productYou are in the process of M&A and need to perform technical due diligenceThe software product lacks documentation and integration with clients is a headacheYou had outages in your product and the problem doesn’t seem to be identifiedThe software product is buggy and it's challenging to plan the releasesThe current vendor appears to be suspicious and you doubt in the quality Why you need Architecture Audit You want to replace the team and wondering what to start fromYou got the investments and plan to scale your productYou are in the process of M&A and need to perform technical due diligenceThe software product lacks documentation and integration with clients is a headacheYou had outages in your product and the problem doesn’t seem to be identifiedThe software product is buggy and it's challenging to plan the releasesThe current vendor appears to be suspicious and you doubt in the quality What benefits will you get by going with JetRuby for your architecture audit A clear overview of all pros and cons of your software product architecture An actionable stabilization or improvement plan of your product A list of critical and somewhat critical vulnerabilities of the code Ballpark estimation of upgrading your product to fit into industry standards What our clients say about their experience of working with us I give them a 10/10 for what we’ve done together.Jan NowikovEstonia They put a lot of effort into making sure that everything works to my satisfaction. Chase Tasca     Renton, Washington I’m impressed by their ability to meet those changes on very short notice while keeping with deadlines.Tom KleinPark City, Utah ### fintech Fintech Software development services by We provide custom software development service for the fintech domain from wealth management and mobile wallets to sophisticated online banking software. From requirements gathering to support, maintenance and enhancement. Contact Us FYI: The global fintech market was valued at about $127.66 billionin 2018 and is expected to grow to $309.98 billion at an annualgrowth rate of 24.8% through 2022$309.98 billionthrough 2022$127.66 billionin 201824.8% increase! Fundify helps startups win the attention of investors on the floated venture capital market and provides assistance with building a product."Hey, I know these guys!" Backbase empowers financial institutions with a state-of-the-art digital banking platform.Solid architecture and technology on Backbase create top-notch bank tools and seamless customer experience for more than 150 businesses across the world. What other clients say about us: Rodrigo Pereyra, Business Field Manager, OSRAM“They go out of their way to work and engage with the customer” Julian Safford, Co-Founder, Moments Inc.“I am happy with how they adjust their approach to appeal to as a customer” Jack Green, CTO, NameCoach “Their team provides notes and questions our ideas to make our products better” Megan Smyth, CEO of the Fitness subscription company“Their expertise in this field stood out the most, which helped speed up the processes and develop complex code” We cover the full cycle: Business analysis Examine existing systems Gather requirements Produce specifications for new or modified systems UX/UI Research and Designs Engaging and simple design users love Complex data visualization Dashboards with advanced analytics Gamification in fintech solutions Software architecture design Application Boundary Microservices approach Serverless architecture Micro Frontends GUI Architectures AI & ML developmentn Improving wealth management 24/7 customer support Suspicious behavior detection Real-time decision making Predictive analytics Accurate credit scoring Technology solutions research and analysis Analysis of solution’s capabilities Integrations analysis Research and verification functionality Custom software development Mobile banking development Payments and 3rd party integrations Electronic trading system development Fintech solutions development consulting Investment banking development Engineering P2P lending platforms Invoice processing solutions Modernization of creaking, legacy infrastructures Building financial data analysis solutions Custom financial solutions development Project management We mostly follow the Agile SCRUM methodology and practice biweekly sprints with daily standups. However, the duration of the sprints may change depending on project requirements and business goals of our clients Quality Assurance Unit Testing Component Testing Integration Testing End-to-End Testing Performance Testing Regression Testing Sanity Testing System Testing 24/7 Technical support and maintenance, DevOps We provide 24/7 technical support and maintenance with less than 2 hours of reaction to critical incidents. Areas of expertise 1. UX/UI Design Engaging and simple design users love Complex data visualization Dashboards with advanced analytics Gamification in fintech solutions 2. Software applications development Mobile banking development Payments and 3rd party integrations Electronic trading system development Fintech solutions development consulting Investment banking development Engineering P2P lending platforms 3. AI/ML in Fintech Improving wealth management 24/7 customer support Suspicious behavior detection Real-time decision making Predictive analytics 4. Infrastructure AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and any private or public clouds available Our advantages: Partnership approach We act as development & business partners, not development hands. We analyze our client’s business goals and advise on the best possible approach for their projects High capacity Thanks to offices in several countries, JetRuby covers different time zones and is able to cater to your ever-expanding development need Full cycle We assist you throughout the whole process — from business analysis, UX/UI design, and Technical Support to post-release Maintenance. One partner to have all your product objectives fulfilled. Transparency We keep everything as transparent and clear as possible, there are no hidden fees or understatements. Support and maintenance We provide 24/7 technical support and maintenance with less than 2 hours of reaction to critical incidents. ### JetFit Coaches | Trainees JetFit — a highly customizable Fitness SaaS platform for sport businesses that want to go digital Coaches Trainees Designed for: Sport and fitness clubs Yoga classes Sport entrepreneurs Coach Dashboard See the list of upcoming and complete training sessions of the clients Manage all the clients being trained by the coach Control total income per month in real time Coach Dashboard See the list of upcoming and complete training sessions of the clients Coach Dashboard Instantly message, connect and discuss everything with your trainees. Keep it all in one place! Coach Dashboard Have a detailed reporting on trainees Coach Dashboard Monitor the progress of the trainees Win new clients Add a newrevenue channel with JETFIT you Boost sustainabilityof your business Build yourdigital brand Personalizetrainees experience Platform features: Fully FeaturedCalendar Planning Custom Themes Customizable Dashboards For Key Roles Real-Time Video Training Setup And Tracking Of Metrics And Goals Tracking Earnings And Spend Budgets InstantMessaging Chat Email Notifications And Alerts Data AnalyticsAnd Insights Trainee's Dashboard View the list of upcoming training sessions with the coach Plan and control due dates of homework and training sessions Watch your progress with extensive reporting Trainee's Dashboard Plan training sessions and homeworks Trainee's Dashboard Connect and discuss everything with your coach via instant messaging Trainee's Dashboard Keep track of the homeworks to be done Coaches Trainees Contact follow us    terms & conditions Privacy policy ### Solutions ### Sitemap Sitemap Mainpage Blog ### SOC2 What is SOC2? Service and Organization Controls 2 (SOC2) is an international format accepted for guidelines and reports on cybersecurity risk management. It includes the following components: Security the system is protected against unauthorized access (both physical and logical access). Availability the system is available for operation and usage in accordance with accepted or agreed liabilities. The integrity of processing the data processing inside the system is complete, accurate, timely, and duly authorized. Confidentiality the information marked as confidential is protected in accordance with liabilities or agreements. Privacy personal data is collected, used, stored, disclosed, and destroyed in accordance with the liabilities provided by the organization's privacy notice. SOC2 guidelines do not specify which exactly actions should be taken and are, therefore, open to interpretation.SOC2 describes a basic set of routines and approaches that should be followed by organizations seeking to protect the data and property of their customers. Why choose vendors that comply with security standards? When you work with vendors, it is crucial to rely on those who meet the required level of security and have awareness regarding managing and protecting their infrastructure. Otherwise, malicious attackers will be able to use your vendor as a link in the data chain to gain access to your data and assets. The mere existence of regulations in the company is not enough. Its employees must be clearly aware of them as well as understand the reasons for their existence and what it gives to the client. Let’s review the two cases: B2B field Oftentimes, products start their life with small, inexpensive, outsourced technical teams that develop MVP for you. Over time, this MVP evolves into a big product and business generating profits. This business is able to solve so complex problems that enterprise clients seek its help and conclude a contract with you. At this point, in most cases, as a business owner, you will face the fact that a small team chosen at the beginning is not ready to provide a sufficient level of service for a new level of your customers. Since you and your outsourced team are essential links in the workflow chain, the failure to meet enterprise-level standards will jeopardize the whole deal. B2C field You own a business and a product that stores a great volume of your customers' personal data. Your business also provides a first-inits-kind solution to the problems of these customers. Contact details and codebase are the most critical assets for you. These recourses should be solely accessed by authorized team members and in no case should be damaged or compromised. On a merely physical level, small agencies cannot afford a properly organized access control, standardization, and management of the mechanisms used to protect employees’ equipment and infrastructure. Of course, you can specify financial liabilities on your data protection in the contract, but this will only be a fraction of the damage redeemed in case of a leak. What was done by us to ensure SOC2? At our company, we initiated a process to standardize and ensure that all devices in the organization undergo permanent monitoring. We use OSquery supported and sponsored by key players in the technical solutions and data protection market: The latter ensures compliance of all company systems with the security parameters established by the organization through centralized control and monitoring of their status and settings. Thanks to this approach, our customers have already closed the two deals with major market players, because we, as their vendors, have confirmed and passed an audit procedure verifying our compliance with SOC2 standards. This system does not allow us to access the personal files of employees but allows us to regularly conduct security monitoring. Also, policies and processes were developed within the organization to ensure full control over the availability of passwords and security keys by name. This way, we established the principles and processes that are essential for a stable and safe operation: Control over logical and physical access to data aimed at preventing unauthorized authentification. Management of Change is a controlled process of the organization’s infrastructure and systems attunement aimed at preventing unauthorized changes. Risk management implies the set of approaches and activities to let an organization regularly identify, eliminate and mitigate risks associated with cybersecurity. Systematization of work and processes to control and monitor how the company's systems and processes comply with standards. The elimination and response to any deviations from the organization's regulations are also ensured by this. ### DnD process Home Design and Discoveryprocess Design and Discovery phase lays the foundation for your future project and contributes to creating a product's prototype within the shortest time. Before starting the Design and Discovery process with JetRuby, I had no clue how to get all the ideas in my head and onto paper in an organized manner. The team at Jetruby did an excellent job at guiding me through the process. When we finished, they provided me with everything I needed for my project to become successful. I highly recommend working with the Jetruby team. Chase Tasca Founder of NameUnknown Inc. A SaaS platform for Technicians in the US. Chase Tasca is an ex technician who used to work with many homeowners on behalf of various companies in the past. Due to his extensive experience in the domain, he saw the opportunity to create a digital product with high potential. The main goal Chase wanted to achieve was creating the opportunity for technicians to earn some extra money while solving the pain of homeowners that often demand after-hours services and can’t get it on time. Case description Chase reached out to JetRuby with a very rough idea and needed help in specifying his requirements and discovering the right approach to implementing his concept in a professional manner. After a detailed review of the brief requirements, we realized that the only right approach would be going through the Design and Discovery phase, so that we crystalize the goals, audience, business processes, functional, non functional as well as technical requirements. We have taken 4 weeks of time for a business analysis and held daily meetings with Chase in order to achieve that and after completing the DnD we had a clear understanding of what exactly has to be developed, in what steps and with which technology stack. Eventually, after completing the discovery phase we had all the project documentation in place and were able to estimate the efforts precisely. After looking at the proposed approach and associated costs, Chase made a decision to start with a PoC version of the product. It took us a month to implement it and allowed Chase to have the minimal product in hand to help with further fundraising for full-scale development. As of today, Chase successfully raised the funds for further development of his product and is on his way to launching the product to the market this year. We are confident that the project is doomed to success and looking forward to reading about it in the coming months. The D&D phase was an excellent experience. JetRuby has a lot of experience with building software products based on careful D&D research, and that process helped us figure out what exactly features we needed in our MVP. We conducted daily meetings and just in a few days, we had a clickable prototype and a very detailed plan for development. Founder of a software development company. (The client wished to be anonymous) Case description We hired JetRuby to create a high-quality mobile app MVP and add advanced features to the app after that. We will continue to work with them to enhance this app and potentially other apps in the future. We spoke with multiple development agencies and JetRuby provided a free workshop (Idea Audit) which convinced me that their systems and approach was the right fit. No other agency provided this level of commitment before engaging. After doing this session, it was very clear that they were the right partner. The final deliverable was an iOS app written in Swift. There were 4 stages of the project. Design and Discovery - figuring out the features and user flow of the project UI Design - finalizing the UI design MVP Development - developing the MVP version of the app Post MVP Development - adding more features to the app Before starting the Design and Discovery process with JetRuby, I had no clue how to get all the ideas in my head and onto paper in an organized manner. The team at Jetruby did an excellent job at guiding me through the process. When we finished, they provided me with everything I needed for my project to become successful. I highly recommend working with the Jetruby team. Bishara Tannous Founder of Stealth Mode Startup Case description Bishara reached out to us back in 2020 with a product idea in mind which was not structured enough, yet. He wanted to learn about the approach we usually take to successful software development. He wasn’t in a rush and was doing his research very thoroughly. We had several meetings where we learned about his objectives and high level vision of the product and showcased the DnD technology. The attention to detail and deliverables we were discussing impressed Bishara however he wanted to do his homework first and create a detailed description of the solution he wanted to build. After a few months, when Bishara had his thoughts lined up on a paper we met again and discussed what would be the right approach given that the product he wanted to build was not a regular MVP but rather a core product aiming to disrupt the industry. It took us a while to review all the details and define the next steps for the project. Eventually, we agreed that the regular DnD alone would not be a right fit here and an additional technical sprint is required to avoid very expensive mistakes in the future. In a few weeks we went through all the steps and produced the set of project documentation that allowed us to come up with a prioritized plan of actions. Now Bishara could start with the UX/UI design and we were able to estimate the initial efforts for project implementation. Business results Looking back to the initial stages, we see that even though we spent quite a lot of time and energy figuring out all the unknowns, it allowed us to reduce the risks of project failure dramatically and was a time-and cost-efficient solution for Bishara. The project is now being developed according to the plan we created and given that the idea is backed by the vast experience and strong relevant expertise of the client, the project promises to become a huge success story. Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Logistics management system Logistics Management Platform based on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning For Liquid & Bulk materials Industrial•Gas•Oil•Water•Cement•Sand•Fertilisers•Chemicals•Paint+4 Food•Milk•Flour•Sugar•Salt•Malt+12 Our Solutions are Applicable for Flour production Farming Construction Oil & Gas Healthcare Food Our Logistics Management System is highly customisable AI & ML platform that will be expertly tailored to solve your specific needs. Main Dashboard Main indicators and forecast values. Financial indicatorsComparative clients’ analysis Risk zones’ monitoringCurrent parameters of logistics operations and short term forecastsAssessment of KPIs Inventory Planning & Forecasting Control of goods’ storage and movement parameters in warehouses. Current and forecast KPIsCommercial and financial performanceMonitoring of critical business pointsForecast and comparative analysis Consumption Planning & Forecasting Deep analysis of consumption. Information about orders and assessment of dynamicsDistribution of orders by companiesDelivery time forecastingIdentification of critical deviations Warehouse KPI Warehouse analytics for quick evaluation and efficiency improvement. Key business indicators by storage volumeRecipient satisfaction assessmentFinancial indicators (current and forecast) including items of expenditureAssessment of risks and reserves Talk to an expert Jetruby Logistics Management System Network z15 z22 Let’s talk Recent projects Anova Sortly ANOVA Our software product for Anova represents a universal platform that efficiently leverages a fuel supply. Among the solutions, the project provides the following services: Tank sensors Forecasting and managing fuel supplies Managing production and human resources Read more SORTLY Sortly is the #1 inventory app for the iOS platform that enables you to visually track all your possessions. Among the solutions, the project provides the following services: Developing a web platform to gain greater marketing advantage among other inventory competitors. Visual and functional representation of a web platform. Creating a single page application. Implement a designing style. Read more About Us years on the market​ 0 accomplished Apps in 16 niches 0 annual growth 0 % in-house engineers29% Senior+ level 0 + ISO 30414 Human Capital and ISO 10018 People Engagement standards Consistent 1 st IT company Academy JetRuby Сourses on Ruby on Rails, React.js, iOS, Android, Quality Assurance, Product management Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Farming management system Agriculture & Husbandry Solutions based on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Data-drivenDecisions & Insights BetterPlanning & Forecasting SmartMonitoring & Automation Our Solutions are Applicable for Vegetable farming Viticulture Graincultivation Husbandry Greenhouse Aquaculture Jetruby Farming Management System is a highly customisable AI & ML platform that will be expertly tailored to solve your specific needs. Accurate Planning & Forecasting with AI & ML systems Save on Inputs with Irrigation & Fertilisation precision Improve Yields with optimised Water, Fertiliser, & Soil management Increase Herd Output & Pregnancy Rate with Smart monitoring Save on Labour with Automation & Control Accurate Planning & Forecasting with AI & ML systems Save on inputs with Irrigation & Fertilisation precision Improve yields with optimised Water, Fertiliser, & Soil management Increase herd output & pregnancy rate with Smart monitoring Save on labour with Automation & Control Schedule Jetruby FMS presentation Jetruby Farming Management System Network z15 z22 Open popup triger here platforms system Planning Financial and operational planning Planning the volume of planting materialCrop rotation structurePurchase of young animalsNeed for medicinesConsumption of water, fertilisers, electricity, etc.Costs: labor, material, expenses Operations Tracking and monitoring Operational records of activitiesThe use of equipment and resources consumptionTracking the condition of crops, animals, soil, etc.Expenses tracking Monitoring the quality of workCompliance with the schedule of agricultural work Analytics Identify anomalies, make forecasts, find insights Summary informationFactor analysisSpecialized analytics in specific areasRisk assessment and prioritizationForecasting of various parameters Open popup triger here Yield Prediction Irrigation Automation Water & Energy SafetyPlant Health MonitoringSoil Moisture MonitoringMonitoring the growth of aquacultureLivestock forecastMonitoring the growth of aquacultureOptimization of expenses for the care of animals and plantsOptimization of feeding and care of cows to increase milk yieldAnomaly Prediction & Monitoring Talk to an Expert Cases and Solutions Optimization of logistics Boost Yields of Lucerne Water Management Behavior Analysis Disease Prevention Farming in Natural Waters Optimization of logistics Problem: excessive fuel consumption during exploitation of truck transport in an agricultural company. Solution: we developed an AI system to plan cargo and transport routes. It drastically reduced the waiting time at pick-up points and the empty transportation time. We integrated the relevant module into the company’s ERP system. The planning process became transparent and efficient. Result: fuel costs have dropped by 18 - 22%. Boost yields of lucerne Problem: high consumption of pesticides. Solution: implementing daily monitoring of the plants, soil, and environmental conditions allowed us to identify the key factors impacting the consumption of pesticides. Following that, we’ve created the mathematical model enabling forecasts and applied the elements of precision agriculture technology. Result: the average consumption of pesticides is now reduced by 13 - 15%; the yields have increased by 7 - 10%. Water management in rice cultivation Problem: high water consumption. Solution: the network of detecting devices was set up on fields to evaluate water level and quality, soil moisture level, and meteorological parameters. We configured permanent connection channels along with an AI cloud risk management system. The water supply system was revamped. Result: water consumption has dropped by 15 - 20% (depending on weather); rice ripens faster by 5 - 8%. Analysis of behavior-related impact on health and productivity of livestock animals Problem: early diagnosis of diseases of livestock animals with the least possible use of wearable health trackers. Solution: we developed a system of video analysis based on a neural network. Also, it was necessary to place contactless sensors of physiological parameters and behavior on farms and location areas of animals. Result: severe disease and mortality among animals have been reduced by 25 - 30%. Preventing the spread of plant diseases of green-house tomato and cucumber Problem: early detection of diseases. Solution: to identify sites of diseases, we’ve developed new algorithms based on neural networks and fuzzy logic. A system of permanent video and hardware monitoring was set up. Result: the infection is now localized and neutralized very early, which increases the yields by 12 - 17%. Oyster farming in natural waters Problem: poor forecast of the final production volume. Solution: we’ve teamed up with experts to develop a methodology, identifying key factors impacting the production growth. A network of sensor systems to analyze the physical and biochemical parameters of the environment was built. Algorithms of predictive analytics were created and tested. Result: the forecast precision has grown from 65 - 70% to 85 - 92%. Jetruby FMS Key Segments and Features Planning Financial and operational planning Planning the volume of planting material.Crop rotation structure.Purchase of young animals.Need for medicines.Consumption of water, fertilisers, electricity, etc.Costs: labour, material, expenses. Operational Activities Tracking and monitoring Operational records of activities.The use of equipment and resources consumption.Tracking the condition of crops, animals, soil, etc.Expenses tracking.Monitoring the quality of work.Compliance with the schedule of agricultural work Analytics Identify anomalies, make forecasts, find insights Summary information.Factor analysis.Specialised analytics in specific areas.Risk assessment and prioritisation.Forecasting of various parameters. Key Features Operational Costs planning & tracking Yield Prediction planning & tracking Product maturation forecasting Labour & Equipment planning & tracking Plants health monitoring & management Herd health, Pregnancy rate, Output monitoring & management Irrigation forecasting, management, automation Fertilisation forecasting, management, automation Fertigation forecasting, management, automation Crisis & Anomalies forecasting In-field Weather forecasting, monitoring & factoring in impact Insights discovery IoT Solutions LTE NB-IoT MQTT Connections Satellites & Drones automation Farm maps digital construction, visualisation, analysis Schedule Jetruby FMS presentation Recent Projects OSRAM Urban Farming Created for farmers and for those who love farming. The project Urban Farming Osram is based on IoT technology. It’s a unique project designed to make the farming process as effective and simple as never before. Among the solutions, the project provides the following services: 24/7 visibility into soil and crop health. Machinery performance. Storage conditions. Monitoring energy consumption levels. Read more EVERYPIG First-of-its-kind pig health and production management platform. By processing thousands of relevant images, the application evaluates the health condition of pigs and signals about a possible outbreak of infection. Among the solutions, the project provides the following services: Collecting real-time data for production and veterinary analysis; Veterinary checkups in the digital format and telemedicine tools; Management and communication solutions for pig farms. Read more About Us 0 years on the market 0 accomplished Apps in 16 niches 0 % annual growth 0 + in-house engineers 60% Senior+ level 0 st IT company ISO 30414 Human Capital and ISO 10018 People Engagement standards Consistent JetRuby​ Academy Сourses on Ruby on Rails, React.js, iOS, Android, Quality Assurance, Product management ### ISO Jetruby agency is consistent with the latest internationally recognized HR standardsISO 30414 Human Capital Managementand ISO 10018 People Engagement. Jetruby agency is the first App development company in the world to publish a comprehensive human capital report. Our core business strategy is to help companies create software applicationsthat delight their customers by engaging the world’s top talent in software development. We openly publish this report to transparently demonstrate to all stakeholders the strategies and metrics we use to fulfill our promises. The contents of this human capital report have been verifiedby David Simmonds, CEO of HCM Metrics, a certified ISO 30414 expert. David Simmonds Certified ISO expert, CEO of HCM Metrics We continuously invest in top engineering talent and It's a great contribution to our customers’ success. Our customers enjoy vast workforce availability and get top engineering teams on demand The shortage of skilled engineers is currently a crucial matter for any tech company. But not for us. Our headcount is growing at a rate of 100% per year and we always have a reserve for our clients and new projects. How does it work? How does it work? Fostering future talentWe teach at universities and conduct internal academies since 2016. It allows us to consistently acquire future talent. In combination with continuous internal talent development it covers up to 50% of our staffing needs. Continuous internal developmentWe implement a system of reinforced training programs with individual mentors, it results in 78% of our developersincreasing their grades annually. It allows us to provide our customers with highly skilled and constantly developingmiddle and senior engineers. We hire remotely worldwide We do not have regional or demographic restrictions and acquire top talent internationally. Our competence is highly appreciated by the engineering community. We have been an active member of RubyGems and GitHub since 2017 with about 11 million downloads of our code pieces. This makes us an attractive employer for engineering professionals. Our customers get the best industry-focused solutions. We focus on strong expertise in the business domains of our clients to provide the best industry-focused solutions. This includes significant people training to acquire the top level of industry skills. How does it work? How does it work? We obtain expertise via case studies and dedicate up to 16 hours/month of obligatory training per engineerto deepen their expertise in 10 business domains of our clients, such as: Healthcare|Education|E-Commerce|Logistics|Fitness|Finance|MarketplaceAgriTech|On-demand Delivery|Real Estate Healthcare|EducationE-Commerce|Logistics|FitnessFinance|Marketplace|AgriTech On-demand Delivery|Real Estate We have 10+ years of experience, clients from 24 countries and a significant number of successful cases in targeted business domains. Have a look at our referrals of clients on Clutch and at the case section of our web-site (Namecoach, Move, Anova, Healthcare project under NDA, etc). Our customers obtain a long-term partner focused on their business needs. We measure our success by the happiness of our clients and their customers. We do our best so that they enjoy the full benefits of our product because we’ve thoroughly considered their needs. This is attained through strong company culture focusing on partnerships, client engagement, and client happiness. How does it work? How does it work? 9.1 out of 10 - employees rate how deeply they are engagedand share the company's mission & values. 34% of our people actively use our referral programto recommend their acquaintances to join the company. 42% of clients are with us > 2 years, most of our new sales happen via referrals. Our eNPS is 36% and our NPS = 44.2%, which is considered a great result according to the OfficeVibe approach. Our expertise in HR app development delivers great results to us and our clients. Human Resources application development We are experts. We have over 10 years of experience in developing various mobile and web applications for HR. Our cases: Universum, HelloCecil, ERP.Core, etc. Optimization of internal HR business processes and automation We have automated our HR processes and HR metrics.If you have a similar need, we are ready to help. Let's talk Let’s discuss the latest trendsand share information about HR practices We are ready to share our ISO audit and public reporting experience, as well as our expertise in mastering HR processes and analytics according to the latest internationally recognized standards. ### swift app development company Renowned Swift iOSApp Development Services JetRuby is an international Swift app development company with 11 years of Swift expertise that creates modern and innovative iOS apps. Always on time, to specification, and on budget. Our clients Why choose JetRuby as a Swift app development company? With 11 years of experience, our iOS Swift app developers build innovative and flawless apps that will help you stand out from your competition. 200+ experts 250+ global projects 99% delivery on time 16 domain served 11 years of successful work 6 awards in development Why choose Swift for iOS app development? Swift is a safe, fast, and modern language developed by Apple providing impressive features to make the iOS development process easier and better. Faster and more performant When it comes to business and markets, time is crucial. A minor change in the performance of your app is able to throw it back from 5 stars on App Store. Apple did its best to make Swift as fast and lightweight as possible. In fact, Swift is 2.6 times faster than a not-so-modern Objective-C. Built with security in mind From a business viewpoint, advanced error handling is one of the best features in the Swift iOS development process. Thanks to the bugs-prediction system, it prevents common crashes in production along with the detection of bugs. It's a big advantage for businesses as they can save their budget and time on security testing. Feature-rich apps Swift is the language of choice if you need to build an app with rich functionality. The programming language allows developers to fully utilize hardware features like gyroscope, camera, geolocation, and others much expected by users from a modern iOS app. In addition, Swift's codebase is super concise, which makes adding new developers to the team much easier. Enterprise support Big-name corporations like Apple and IBM stand behind the Swift Language. The entire iOS ecosystem essentially depends on Swift, motivating Apple to invest the best effort in improving this technology for end-users and businesses. IBM actively explores the possibilities of the Swift iOS development as well. This makes Swift a risk-free investment in the future of your mobile business. Recent Swift apps we developed JetRuby Swift development company does its best to develop outstanding Swift apps for clients worldwide. Not only do we help you go mobile and solve your business challenges, but we also ensure high-quality, cost-effective, and stunning app development that you can count on. Sortly Headquarters: USA Number of users: 300,000 Sortly Sortly is a Swift application that provides a super simple inventory and asset tracking system for both regular consumers and businesses of all types and sizes. With its help, users can easily track their items and details including location, price, quantity, condition, and so on. The application is photo-based, which means users can easily visualize all their things using QR codes.The iOS application has been recognized as the best in the industry for over 5 years straight. It has been ranked as #1 on App Store and featured in Forbes, ABC News, FOX, New York Post & Inc. PYRO Music Headquarters: China Number of users: 9, 000,000 PYRO Music Pyro is a Swift-based application that opens doors to endless possibilities and new experiences in electronic music. Built specifically for China, Pyro allows listening, discovering, and sharing favorite music, record labels, or musician talent across the globe. Furthermore, with the help of our Swift app development services, we managed to create a highly scalable and flexible application, which is capable of handling high loads.The application combines the best features from the world's leading music streaming services with rich functionality both for PYRO listeners and DJs. WonderApp Headquarters: USA Number of users: 200,000 WonderApp WonderApp is a single-tap photo editing app that was built for professionals by professionals. With Swift iOS development, we built an app that goes with hundreds of presets and beautiful filters based on smart algorithms and created by professional photographers. Designed as a mobile Lightroom replacement with full offline access, WonderApp allows users to edit their photos anytime and anywhere. With Over 200+ collections of presets for various settings, Wonder App is being actively used by thousands of users around the world. Available on App Store. Our clients Industry Expertise JetRuby is committed to developing products of varying complexities according to the best practices and specifics of multiple industries. Our expertise in various niche markets keeps us up-to-date with the latest trends and developments in the industries. Check out the branches we have perfected our experiences for. applications 0 + industries 0 Healthcare E-Commerce Marketplace Education Social Media Real Estate Food delivery Logistics Finance Taxi booking AgriTech Events Retail Productivity Fitness Travel Healthcare We have extensive first-hand experience developing cutting-edge HIPPA-compliant, EHR, EMR, ERX, HCRM custom solutions. It allows us to save a lot of time and money for our new clients. Read more E-commerce We develop custom, profitable solutions that can easily handle any flow of customers and provide stable business growth. Read more Marketplaces JetRyby’s marketplace solution OzMarkt allows you to build a fully custom marketplace with the features you need, making it a huge budget-saver for startups and small businesses. Read more Education JetRyby’s marketplace solution OzMarkt allows you to build a fully custom marketplace with the features you need, making it a huge budget-saver for startups and small businesses. Read more Social Media •Social media apps•SM Publishing & Scheduling Platforms•Messaging Apps•Video-based Networks•Social Network Analytic Tools•Online Reviews and Polling Read more Real Estate Grow your real estate business with a custom digital solution built by Jetruby experts. Read more Food delivery Now is a good time to lunch your on demand delivery app.We’ve built several apps in this field. So we’ll develop yours faster and cheaper. Read more Logistics •Vehicle Location tracking•Route Optimization•Vehicle Management•Nearest Gas Station•Mechanical Support•Merchants Real-time Notifications Read more Finance •Banking Apps•Investment Apps•Insurance Apps•Digital Wallet Apps Read more Taxi booking •Taxi Business apps•Taxi Business for Corporations•Car Rental apps•Air Taxi apps Read more AgriTech Optimize your farming processes with our industry-specific expertise.•Weather Data•Farm Maps•Satellite & Drones•IoT Solutions Read more Events •Flawless Registration Process•Engagement Features•Listings and Schedules•Event Feed Optimization•Search and Categories•Events Tracking Read more Retail •Multiple purchase options•Quick, problem-free purchasing•Track and show inventory•Personalized customers’ experience•Supply chain management•Customer behavior analysis Read more Productivity •Project planning•Task time tracking•Notifications and reminders•Communication•Analytics Read more Fitness Diet and Nutrition apps, Workout and Personal trainer apps, Meditation and yoga apps, Activity tracking appsWe’ve done it all.  Read more Travel •Travel Itinerary Generator•Geo-Tracking Services•Weather or Climate Forecasting•Location-Based Emergency Services•Currency Converter•In-App Language Translator Read more Our Services Technology Expertise A properly chosen tech stack determines the functionality and success of your product. We leverage the latest technology stacks, various programming languages, and proven platforms to build your product. JetRuby is an acclaimed expert in Ruby & Ruby on Rails and is perfectly fluent in all technologies that you see on the list. Ruby on Rails225 projects React Js42 projects Node.js45 projects Swift21 projects React Native30 projects Elixir15 projects Kubernetes6 projects AWS27 projects Kotlin21 projects Spree commerce15 projects Case study Amazing projects we built All projects Sortly​Sortly is the #1 inventory app for the iOS platform that enables you to visually track all your possessions. 4.7⭐ rating, 6.2k reviews on Apple Store 300,000+ downloads on Google Store Backed by Phase4, Lombardstreet Ventures, Shamrock, Y Media Labs Read moreNamecoachUnique web application that offers a simple yet very effective solution to the ubiquitous and common problem of mispronouncing names. Raised $3 000 000 Seed round Partnership with Stanford University Backed by The MBA Fund, TXV Partners, Authentic Ventures Read moreCronycleCronycle is a powerful web app that takes the noise of mass media and provides users with only the content that matters to them most. Raised $2 600 000 Backed by Andurance Ventures Expert-led curation across 80,000 topics for greater depth and relevance Read more Reviews Unbiased testimonials from credible review platforms Our services are trusted by hundreds of businesses among enterprises, startups, and media corporations, such as Financial Times. Read stories from our satisfied customers and find out how JetRuby’s assistance facilitated their digital transformation.  Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### react native app development company React Native App Development Services JetRuby is the industry’s top React Native app development company that provides result-oriented, custom, and successful mobile solutions for your business worldwide. We are trusted because we are the best at what we do. Our clients’ success proves this. Our clients High-functioning apps for your business with React Native app development services Grow your business and achieve your goals fast and easily with our React Native app development service! React Native app development JetRuby React Native development company can deliver React Native mobile apps from scratch or add the framework to your existing application. React Native consultation Our React Native developers can discuss your product vision, analyze it, and find the best way to develop the React Native framework to fit your business goals. Support & Maintenance Our React development company provides continuous technical support and maintenance services to our clients during and after the app development. We constantly monitor the system to ensure rapid fixing of issues and high app performance. Our success stories: React Native applications Check out these awesome apps we built for our clients to solve real-life and business challenges. Healthcare App Headquarters: USA Number of users: 300,000 Healthcare App In a few weeks, we developed a feature-rich React Native app that provides patients with high-quality healthcare services at a reasonable cost. The application combines super-intuitive navigation for patients and robust analytics to optimize healthcare expenditures for hospitals and patients. Patients can also chat with their doctors in real-time. As a result, a team of two JavaScript developers built a mobile app for Healthcare that was successfully released to the market. Our React Native app development service allowed the client to save time and money for marketing the app. The future has come. With telemedicine, there's no need to go to a doctor. You can talk to a specialist anytime and anywhere. Diamond Trading App Headquarters: India Number of users: 900,000 Diamond Trading App Diamond Trading App is the first diamond and elite jewellery auction house based in South Asia. Our goal was to create a cross-platform mobile application to hold auctions for both houses — from start to finish of an auction. To create a mobile app both for iOS and Android, we used React Native. This helped our client reach a wider audience, attracting more users from the very beginning. We also used Bootstrap and Ruby on Rails for building the web version of the app. Briefly, our team has developed a fast and delay-free app capable of handling 10k+ auctions simultaneously. Our impact: we have developed a full-featured, user-friendly, and smooth React Native application to hold diamond auctions from scratch. Why should you choose React Native? Looking for the best mobile solution for both iOS and Android? Then React Native is the perfect option for you to save both time and money. Reactive development Write the React Native code once, and you can use it on all platforms without any extra tweaks. Add new features or apply changes on the fly without recompiling the code or restarting the application. A true budget-saver One of the best advantages of React development services is its affordability. Saving time on coding + saving time on product updates = a larger budget for marketing. One team for all platforms The entire development process is based on a single programming language - JavaScript. This means you need only one team to build an app for all platforms. The best solution for MVP Cheaper development means you can test your business model without investing many resources in it. What's more, a faster development process will allow you to see the results after a few iterations. Start building your React Native App with us Our React Native team is ready to develop an app from scratch or add the framework to your application! Estimate Your Project React Native vs. Native languages Choosing the right platform may be tough, especially if you're building your first app. Here are the main points to consider. Features React Native Native Reusable code base Cost-effective Better marketing opportunities Cross-platform Full hardware utilization Sophisticated design Can be used offline Result-oriented React Native app development services JetRuby is committed to creating high-quality React Native mobile apps.For that reason, we take a thorough yet personal approach to app development so that every client ends up satisfied. Let's talk Our clients Industry Expertise JetRuby is committed to developing products of varying complexities according to the best practices and specifics of multiple industries. Our expertise in various niche markets keeps us up-to-date with the latest trends and developments in the industries. Check out the branches we have perfected our experiences for. applications 0 + industries 0 Healthcare E-Commerce Marketplace Education Social Media Real Estate Food delivery Logistics Finance Taxi booking AgriTech Events Retail Productivity Fitness Travel Healthcare We have extensive first-hand experience developing cutting-edge HIPPA-compliant, EHR, EMR, ERX, HCRM custom solutions. It allows us to save a lot of time and money for our new clients. Read more E-commerce We develop custom, profitable solutions that can easily handle any flow of customers and provide stable business growth. Read more Marketplaces JetRyby’s marketplace solution OzMarkt allows you to build a fully custom marketplace with the features you need, making it a huge budget-saver for startups and small businesses. Read more Education JetRyby’s marketplace solution OzMarkt allows you to build a fully custom marketplace with the features you need, making it a huge budget-saver for startups and small businesses. Read more Social Media •Social media apps•SM Publishing & Scheduling Platforms•Messaging Apps•Video-based Networks•Social Network Analytic Tools•Online Reviews and Polling Read more Real Estate Grow your real estate business with a custom digital solution built by Jetruby experts. Read more Food delivery Now is a good time to lunch your on demand delivery app.We’ve built several apps in this field. So we’ll develop yours faster and cheaper. Read more Logistics •Vehicle Location tracking•Route Optimization•Vehicle Management•Nearest Gas Station•Mechanical Support•Merchants Real-time Notifications Read more Finance •Banking Apps•Investment Apps•Insurance Apps•Digital Wallet Apps Read more Taxi booking •Taxi Business apps•Taxi Business for Corporations•Car Rental apps•Air Taxi apps Read more AgriTech Optimize your farming processes with our industry-specific expertise.•Weather Data•Farm Maps•Satellite & Drones•IoT Solutions Read more Events •Flawless Registration Process•Engagement Features•Listings and Schedules•Event Feed Optimization•Search and Categories•Events Tracking Read more Retail •Multiple purchase options•Quick, problem-free purchasing•Track and show inventory•Personalized customers’ experience•Supply chain management•Customer behavior analysis Read more Productivity •Project planning•Task time tracking•Notifications and reminders•Communication•Analytics Read more Fitness Diet and Nutrition apps, Workout and Personal trainer apps, Meditation and yoga apps, Activity tracking appsWe’ve done it all.  Read more Travel •Travel Itinerary Generator•Geo-Tracking Services•Weather or Climate Forecasting•Location-Based Emergency Services•Currency Converter•In-App Language Translator Read more Our Services Technology Expertise A properly chosen tech stack determines the functionality and success of your product. We leverage the latest technology stacks, various programming languages, and proven platforms to build your product. JetRuby is an acclaimed expert in Ruby & Ruby on Rails and is perfectly fluent in all technologies that you see on the list. Ruby on Rails225 projects React Js42 projects Node.js45 projects Swift21 projects React Native30 projects Elixir15 projects Kubernetes6 projects AWS27 projects Kotlin21 projects Spree commerce15 projects Case study Amazing projects we built All projects Sortly​Sortly is the #1 inventory app for the iOS platform that enables you to visually track all your possessions. 4.7⭐ rating, 6.2k reviews on Apple Store 300,000+ downloads on Google Store Backed by Phase4, Lombardstreet Ventures, Shamrock, Y Media Labs Read moreNamecoachUnique web application that offers a simple yet very effective solution to the ubiquitous and common problem of mispronouncing names. Raised $3 000 000 Seed round Partnership with Stanford University Backed by The MBA Fund, TXV Partners, Authentic Ventures Read moreCronycleCronycle is a powerful web app that takes the noise of mass media and provides users with only the content that matters to them most. Raised $2 600 000 Backed by Andurance Ventures Expert-led curation across 80,000 topics for greater depth and relevance Read more Reviews Unbiased testimonials from credible review platforms Our services are trusted by hundreds of businesses among enterprises, startups, and media corporations, such as Financial Times. Read stories from our satisfied customers and find out how JetRuby’s assistance facilitated their digital transformation.  Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### NodeJS Development Company Leading NodeJS development company Grow your business and make your project stand out from your competitors by choosing our expert NodeJS development services. We are here to help you build high-performance and scalable web applications with fast product release on time & budget. Our clients NodeJS Development JetRuby NodeJS developers are ready to deliver applications of different sizes, complexity, and preferences. •We put our clients first. No matter how difficult your idea is, JetRuby is ready to implement it. NodeJS Consulting JetRuby NodeJS development agency is familiar with every NodeJS tech stack, so we’re ready to consult you on your project according to your: •demands; •goals; •ideas. Maintenance and Support In addition to NodeJS software development, JetRuby offers a wide range of services throughout the development phase: •maintenance; •emergency fixes; •ongoing support. NodeJS Development Case Studies Check out these awesome apps we built for our clients to solve real-life and business challenges. Headquarters: London Number of users: 13,000 OpenFT OpenFT is a B2B application aimed to support the Financial Times sales team. Basically, it allows users to sell subscriptions and license content through dedicated and easy-to-integrate widgets and watchlists.OpenFT allows the company's employees to stay up to date with field trends without having to leave their Slack channels or company portals. The panel's functionality allows filtering information by regions, brands, organizations, topics, occupations, and so on. With NodeJS development services along with the most cutting-edge technologies, we built a truly innovative solution with lightning-fast performance and smooth content delivery. Headquarters: USA Number of users: 2,000,000 Fundify Fundify is an innovative crowdfunding project designed to find resources and support for creative people to let their dreams come true.Our work was to build MPV from scratch to open the way for investors to find fresh and smart innovations that surprise and delight. Since this project could be potentially used by thousands of people across the world, our NodeJS development goal was to make it as secure as possible. And we successfully made it happen with features like Secrets API, Pod security policies, Role-based Access Control, Kubernetes. Why JetRuby NodeJS development agency JetRuby is the leading NodeJS development company in the US, Europe. We are trusted by both startups and recognized international companies. Our software engineers are familiar with every aspect of NodeJS development, so we’re ready to analyze your business requirements and overcome every challenge to give you the right solution for your project. Let's talk The best NodeJS developers JetRuby offers top-notch NodeJS frontend and backend experts who provide leading web development solutions to help your business gain international recognition and success. Thanks to more than 11 years of experience and constant commitment to the prosperity of our clients, we’re able to offer you a first-of-its-kind NodeJS development service. Cost and time effectiveness Our NodeJS web development company has a strong and experienced in-house developers team ready to deliver you the best pocket-friendly solution on time. JetRuby’s rates are 35% cheaper than other NodeJS solutions. Clear communication in English Clear communication is the key to successful collaboration. At JetRuby NodeJS agency, we put our clients first and ensure the whole communication is as smooth as possible. All our employees have excellent English skills to provide constant follow-ups on your project. Top 4 advantages of using NodeJS Blazingly fast NodeJS is really fast. Like REALLY FAST, and here is why. •First, NodeJS is based on a technology developed specifically for the Chrome browser, which is one of Google's main products. •Second, it enables instant synchronization when using a single language on both client and server-side. •So if you're going to make an online game, chat, video conference tool, or your project somehow relies on frequently updated data, NodeJS is ideal for you. Long-term support Behind NodeJS stands a powerful programming language - JavaScript. Nowadays, JavaScript is at the peak of must-need programming languages with almost 7 million users worldwide. •It's a big advantage for businesses that want to focus on making their product better instead of having a headache over moving from a dying technology and deciding which one to choose next. •Your customers want a stable and reliable product, so give them one by selecting the leading JavaScript development agency! Insane scalability NodeJS is perfect for businesses that are planning to grow. With this programming language, you can build a web app that can easily handle 1m+ customers. •Furthermore, scaling a NodeJS app is cost-efficient, thanks to its modular approach. A great example of this is Walmart. The company decided to use NodeJS to improve the architecture of its website. This allowed Walmart to ensure 100% uptime on Black Friday and achieve a whopping 20% conversion growth in general as well as 98% growth in mobile conversion. Faster time to market NodeJS is an extremely lightweight technology. This makes it not only easy to use but also really fast in development. •In other words, you can put more features into your web application while reducing the overall development time (compared to NodeJS alternatives). Whether you're a startup or an enterprise company, even the slightest delay in a product release can have a devastating effect on the business. NodeJS is a time-efficient technology that can help you solve that challenge. Our clients Industry Expertise JetRuby is committed to developing products of varying complexities according to the best practices and specifics of multiple industries. Our expertise in various niche markets keeps us up-to-date with the latest trends and developments in the industries. Check out the branches we have perfected our experiences for. applications 0 + industries 0 Healthcare E-Commerce Marketplace Education Social Media Real Estate Food delivery Logistics Finance Taxi booking AgriTech Events Retail Productivity Fitness Travel Healthcare We have extensive first-hand experience developing cutting-edge HIPPA-compliant, EHR, EMR, ERX, HCRM custom solutions. It allows us to save a lot of time and money for our new clients. Read more E-commerce We develop custom, profitable solutions that can easily handle any flow of customers and provide stable business growth. Read more Marketplaces JetRyby’s marketplace solution OzMarkt allows you to build a fully custom marketplace with the features you need, making it a huge budget-saver for startups and small businesses. Read more Education JetRyby’s marketplace solution OzMarkt allows you to build a fully custom marketplace with the features you need, making it a huge budget-saver for startups and small businesses. Read more Social Media •Social media apps•SM Publishing & Scheduling Platforms•Messaging Apps•Video-based Networks•Social Network Analytic Tools•Online Reviews and Polling Read more Real Estate Grow your real estate business with a custom digital solution built by Jetruby experts. Read more Food delivery Now is a good time to lunch your on demand delivery app.We’ve built several apps in this field. So we’ll develop yours faster and cheaper. Read more Logistics •Vehicle Location tracking•Route Optimization•Vehicle Management•Nearest Gas Station•Mechanical Support•Merchants Real-time Notifications Read more Finance •Banking Apps•Investment Apps•Insurance Apps•Digital Wallet Apps Read more Taxi booking •Taxi Business apps•Taxi Business for Corporations•Car Rental apps•Air Taxi apps Read more AgriTech Optimize your farming processes with our industry-specific expertise.•Weather Data•Farm Maps•Satellite & Drones•IoT Solutions Read more Events •Flawless Registration Process•Engagement Features•Listings and Schedules•Event Feed Optimization•Search and Categories•Events Tracking Read more Retail •Multiple purchase options•Quick, problem-free purchasing•Track and show inventory•Personalized customers’ experience•Supply chain management•Customer behavior analysis Read more Productivity •Project planning•Task time tracking•Notifications and reminders•Communication•Analytics Read more Fitness Diet and Nutrition apps, Workout and Personal trainer apps, Meditation and yoga apps, Activity tracking appsWe’ve done it all.  Read more Travel •Travel Itinerary Generator•Geo-Tracking Services•Weather or Climate Forecasting•Location-Based Emergency Services•Currency Converter•In-App Language Translator Read more Our Services Technology Expertise A properly chosen tech stack determines the functionality and success of your product. We leverage the latest technology stacks, various programming languages, and proven platforms to build your product. JetRuby is an acclaimed expert in Ruby & Ruby on Rails and is perfectly fluent in all technologies that you see on the list. Ruby on Rails225 projects React Js42 projects Node.js45 projects Swift21 projects React Native30 projects Elixir15 projects Kubernetes6 projects AWS27 projects Kotlin21 projects Spree commerce15 projects Case study Amazing projects we built All projects Sortly​Sortly is the #1 inventory app for the iOS platform that enables you to visually track all your possessions. 4.7⭐ rating, 6.2k reviews on Apple Store 300,000+ downloads on Google Store Backed by Phase4, Lombardstreet Ventures, Shamrock, Y Media Labs Read moreNamecoachUnique web application that offers a simple yet very effective solution to the ubiquitous and common problem of mispronouncing names. Raised $3 000 000 Seed round Partnership with Stanford University Backed by The MBA Fund, TXV Partners, Authentic Ventures Read moreCronycleCronycle is a powerful web app that takes the noise of mass media and provides users with only the content that matters to them most. Raised $2 600 000 Backed by Andurance Ventures Expert-led curation across 80,000 topics for greater depth and relevance Read more Reviews Unbiased testimonials from credible review platforms Our services are trusted by hundreds of businesses among enterprises, startups, and media corporations, such as Financial Times. Read stories from our satisfied customers and find out how JetRuby’s assistance facilitated their digital transformation.  Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Ruby on rails development company Goodfirms / 5.0 rating Clutch / 4.9 rating Empowering Businesses With Ruby on Rails Software Development Excellence Since 2010 we excel in creating and maintaining Ruby on Rails web and mobile applications that enhance efficiency, agility, and success for startups and enterprises alike Contact us We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinion recognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. Top software development companies JetRuby is listed among the top software development companies in the United States for 2024 AI-backed Software Development Process Increasing delivery time up to 8x ISO-powered HR management Improving retention rates The choice for 200+ companies Ruby on Rails Development company We provide expert Ruby On Rails Development services. Always on time, to specification, and on budget. Our clients Trusted by Hundreds of customers have achieved remarkable success with us, a leading Ruby on Rails development company. We specialize in delivering high-quality products tailored to businesses of all sizes across a diverse range of industries. Explore the stories of our satisfied customers and uncover comprehensive information about the innovative Ruby on Rails development services and solutions we've meticulously crafted and delivered. Well, how about adding your brand to that list? Get in touch We are recognized experts in Ruby on Rails development Сreator of Ruby language - Yukihiro Matsumoto shares JetRuby’s opinionrecognizing us as an expert in Ruby on Rails development. TOTAL GEMS We are always developing and upgrading Ruby gems. They are trusted by thousands of Ruby on Rails developers around the world. The total number of our solutions downloads is over 24667349 and counting. apollo_upload_server 2.1 +19,000,000 graphql-rails_logger 1.2 +804,000 et al. JetRuby engineers are constant participants and speakers at leading Ruby conference - Rails Club. Ruby on Rails apps we built JetRuby focuses only on the result, providing outstanding Ruby on Rails software development to our clients. https://jetruby.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/jetruby.com-case.mp4#t=,38 We’re the best at what we do Cost-effective and fast delivery Thanks to a lean code base, Ruby on Rails development services allow saving up to 35% on the development process (compared with other frameworks). Saving time is saving money and gives you the ability to start your business more quickly. Professional development Our top Ruby on Rails developers build high-quality code and provide clients with top-notch services. In addition, our RoR experts sharpen their skills daily in order to ensure every business thrives and prospers in our hands. Scalable in every step Our Ruby on Rails development company operates under a super scalable framework that can work with the raised load and save time on the deployment process. Whether you have a simple static site or a large e-commerce shop, your future Ruby on Rails website will work flawlessly. It’s a reliable technology that won’t waste your time and money. JetRuby approach to your project Elevate your project with JetRuby, a leading Ruby on Rails development company, where we seamlessly integrate any tool, framework, or third-party library to enhance your project's capabilities. In the realm of Ruby on Rails, our seasoned team thrives on overcoming every technical challenge that comes our way. Short-term Dealing with an urgent or minor issue, you may always count on our Ruby on Rails expertise — even with the smallest fix or piece of advice. Professional development Our top Ruby on Rails developers build high-quality code and provide clients with top-notch services. In addition, our RoR experts sharpen their skills daily in order to ensure every business thrives and prospers in our hands Ruby On Rails Development company Dedicated teams Vendor Transition Maintenance & support Ruby on Rails consulting Our technical specialists will help your project, make sure there are no critical problems or help fix them. MVP development Ruby on Rails framework allows for rapid MVP development which in turn will significantly shorten the time of achieving Product-Market Fit. Architecture audit A software architecture audit provides a necessary defect filter during the requirements analysis of your application update. Read more Implementing yourbusiness idea Integrate any tool, framework, or third-party library into your project with JetRuby. In Ruby on Rails, there’s a solution for every technical challenge! Delivering on time Thanks to its lean code base, Ruby on Rails allows saving up to 35% on the development process (compared with other frameworks). Saving time is saving money and the ability to start your business more quickly. Scalable in every step Ruby on Rails is a super scalable framework that can work with the raised load and save time on the deployment process. Whether you have a simple website or a large e-commerce shop, it'll work flawlessly. It's a reliable technology that will save you time and money. Our clients Industry Expertise JetRuby is committed to developing products of varying complexities according to the best practices and specifics of multiple industries. Our expertise in various niche markets keeps us up-to-date with the latest trends and developments in the industries. Check out the branches we have perfected our experiences for. applications 0 + industries 0 Healthcare E-Commerce Marketplace Education Social Media Real Estate Food delivery Logistics Finance Taxi booking AgriTech Events Retail Productivity Fitness Travel Healthcare We have extensive first-hand experience developing cutting-edge HIPPA-compliant, EHR, EMR, ERX, HCRM custom solutions. It allows us to save a lot of time and money for our new clients. Read more E-commerce We develop custom, profitable solutions that can easily handle any flow of customers and provide stable business growth. Read more Marketplaces JetRyby’s marketplace solution OzMarkt allows you to build a fully custom marketplace with the features you need, making it a huge budget-saver for startups and small businesses. Read more Education JetRyby’s marketplace solution OzMarkt allows you to build a fully custom marketplace with the features you need, making it a huge budget-saver for startups and small businesses. Read more Social Media •Social media apps•SM Publishing & Scheduling Platforms•Messaging Apps•Video-based Networks•Social Network Analytic Tools•Online Reviews and Polling Read more Real Estate Grow your real estate business with a custom digital solution built by Jetruby experts. Read more Food delivery Now is a good time to lunch your on demand delivery app.We’ve built several apps in this field. So we’ll develop yours faster and cheaper. Read more Logistics •Vehicle Location tracking•Route Optimization•Vehicle Management•Nearest Gas Station•Mechanical Support•Merchants Real-time Notifications Read more Finance •Banking Apps•Investment Apps•Insurance Apps•Digital Wallet Apps Read more Taxi booking •Taxi Business apps•Taxi Business for Corporations•Car Rental apps•Air Taxi apps Read more AgriTech Optimize your farming processes with our industry-specific expertise.•Weather Data•Farm Maps•Satellite & Drones•IoT Solutions Read more Events •Flawless Registration Process•Engagement Features•Listings and Schedules•Event Feed Optimization•Search and Categories•Events Tracking Read more Retail •Multiple purchase options•Quick, problem-free purchasing•Track and show inventory•Personalized customers’ experience•Supply chain management•Customer behavior analysis Read more Productivity •Project planning•Task time tracking•Notifications and reminders•Communication•Analytics Read more Fitness Diet and Nutrition apps, Workout and Personal trainer apps, Meditation and yoga apps, Activity tracking appsWe’ve done it all.  Read more Travel •Travel Itinerary Generator•Geo-Tracking Services•Weather or Climate Forecasting•Location-Based Emergency Services•Currency Converter•In-App Language Translator Read more Our Services Technology Expertise A properly chosen tech stack determines the functionality and success of your product. We leverage the latest technology stacks, various programming languages, and proven platforms to build your product. JetRuby is an acclaimed expert in Ruby & Ruby on Rails and is perfectly fluent in all technologies that you see on the list. Ruby on Rails225 projects React Js42 projects Node.js45 projects Swift21 projects React Native30 projects Elixir15 projects Kubernetes6 projects AWS27 projects Kotlin21 projects Spree commerce15 projects Case study Amazing projects we built All projects Sortly​Sortly is the #1 inventory app for the iOS platform that enables you to visually track all your possessions. 4.7⭐ rating, 6.2k reviews on Apple Store 300,000+ downloads on Google Store Backed by Phase4, Lombardstreet Ventures, Shamrock, Y Media Labs Read moreNamecoachUnique web application that offers a simple yet very effective solution to the ubiquitous and common problem of mispronouncing names. Raised $3 000 000 Seed round Partnership with Stanford University Backed by The MBA Fund, TXV Partners, Authentic Ventures Read moreCronycleCronycle is a powerful web app that takes the noise of mass media and provides users with only the content that matters to them most. Raised $2 600 000 Backed by Andurance Ventures Expert-led curation across 80,000 topics for greater depth and relevance Read more Reviews Unbiased testimonials from credible review platforms Our services are trusted by hundreds of businesses among enterprises, startups, and media corporations, such as Financial Times. Read stories from our satisfied customers and find out how JetRuby’s assistance facilitated their digital transformation.  Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### reactjs development company Leading React JS Development company since 2010. We are a React JS development company that uses React JS to create beautiful and cross platform online interfaces for modern web applications. Always on time, to specification, and on budget. Our company provides expert services in React JS development: React js consulting App Migration to React JS Maintenance and Support Custom ReactJS Web Development services Why ReactJS? We are a reputable react js agency, trusted by renowned companies in the industry. Here is how you can benefit from react js development with our company Built to delight users React JS uses a unique technology to reduce webpage load time. This allows us to create super-smooth web applications that are SEO-friendly and have a user-centered design. Cost-efficient Save time and money on adding new features to your website! We embed new features without rewriting the existing code. With React js, we can even use your website code to create a mobile app. Future-proof ReactJS is simple, stable, and reliable in use, which helps us to reduce your costs on maintaining and upgrading web applications. Our React JS Development Services Are you tired of React js development companies making big promises but delivering poorly?- Then you have come to the right place. JetRuby app web development agency will free you of all worries and build you the ReactJS application on time, with specification, and on a budget! Our ReactJS development services aim to offer you seamless, flawless, and user-friendly applications for enhancing your business processes. We will keep you updated at every step of the app development process and incorporate your valuable feedback to make the project successful. As a reputable React.js agency, offers a comprehensive range of app development services. Custom ReactJS Web Development Services — We are experienced in developing applications customized as per your requirements and business objectives. Our talented ReactJS developers understand your needs and develop the most innovative solutions to boost your business growth. You will get the dynamic and progressive application via our state-of-the-art services! React JS Migration Services Do you want an outstanding web user interface to keep visitors hooked? Then you need to shift your existing UI to ReactJS to have a more feature-rich and interactive interface. Using ReactJS, you can enjoy eye-catchy designs and web UIs to offer a top-class user experience. Our developers will take care of the migration process without any hassle. Within no time, we’ll shift your front-end framework to ReactJS without affecting its performance. Not only do we seamlessly migrate your applications, but we also integrate the plugins conveniently. Maintenance and Support — Our team at JetRuby develops high-quality applications and also offers complete support to prevent any issues. The maintenance and support team ensures that your website or application runs flawlessly. We understand that migrating to ReactJS needs constant technical support, as this is an advanced framework.That's why our experienced professionals will get in touch with you to provide maximum efficiency for your business applications.  Our offerings include: • Troubleshooting facilities to prevent security and performance issues • We offer frequent upgrades, so you enjoy the latest technical enhancements • Our developers offer complete application data backup • Prompt bug fixes to maintain uninterrupted application performance ReactJS Consulting Over the years, we have worked with numerous brands in boosting their revenue and achieving their business objectives. And, we aim to offer the same service to you too! The ReactJS team at JetRuby will understand your idea or help you with the ideation. We will always be there for you at every stage of the application development life cycle. The professionals will ensure to maintain code quality, performance, functionality, and user-friendliness of your app. JetRuby as your ReactJS development company 13 years on the market 250+ accomplished Apps in 16 niches 58% annual growth Clients from 24 countries 100+ in-house engineers. 29% Senior+ level. ISO 30414 (Human Capital) and ISO 10018 (People Engagement standards) Compliant We are experts in: Jetruby Academy We run quarterly courses on Ruby on Rails, React.js, iOS, Android, Quality Assurance, and Product Management. Our clients Trusted by As a leading React.js development company, we have helped hundreds of customers achieve remarkable success. Our expertise in React.js enables us to create high-quality products tailored to businesses of all sizes, spanning across diverse industries. Explore our impressive portfolio of customers and discover the innovative solutions we have delivered as a trusted React.js development company. Well, how about adding your brand to that list? Get in touch Examples of our web solutions in React JS OSRAM Urban Farming Created for farmers and for those who love farming. The project Urban Farming Osram is based on IoT technology and React JS. It's a unique project designed to make farming as practical and straightforward as ever. Open case EVERYPIG First-of-its-kind pig health and production management platform. Processing thousands of live images, the React JS application evaluates the health of pigs and signals a possible outbreak of infection. Open case ### Healthcare CONTACT US Tailor-made medical software development from scratchOur team can take on the full cycle development of your new digital health care product or additional functional modulesHealth care software reengineeringWe analyze your existing software, identify areas for improvement, and make any necessary adjustmentsHIPAA certified development teamWe understand the unique health care ecosystem and know how to safely integrate digital solutions into your business processes Tailor-made medical software development from scratchOur team can take on the full cycle development of your new digital health care product or additional functional modules Healthcare software analysis and reengineering We analyze your existing software, identify areas for improvement, and make any necessary adjustmentsHIPAA certified development team and DevOps supportWe understand the unique health care ecosystem and know how to safely integrate digital solutions into your business processes LET'S TALK Tailor-made medical software development from scratchOur team can take on the full cycle development of your new digital health care product or additional functional modulesHealthcare software analysis and reengineeringWe analyze your existing software, identify areas for improvement, and make any necessary adjustmentsHIPAA certified development team and DevOps supportWe understand the unique health care ecosystem and know how to safely integrate digital solutions into your business processes Tailor-made medical software development from scratchOur team can take on the full cycle development of your new digital health care product or additional functional modulesHealth care software reengineeringWe analyze your existing software, identify areas for improvement, and make any necessary adjustmentsHIPAA certified development teamWe understand the unique health care ecosystem and know how to safely integrate digital solutions into your business processes LET'S TALK Tailor-made medical software development from scratchOur team can take on the full cycle development of your new digital health care product or additional functional modulesHealth care software reengineeringWe analyze your existing software, identify areas for improvement, and make any necessary adjustmentsHIPAA certified development teamWe understand the unique health care ecosystem and know how to safely integrate digital solutions into your business processes LET'S TALK WHAT WE OFFER Telemedicine solutions Use our expertise to build a remote clinician-and-patient interaction process to save time and minimize the need for personal contact in these tough COVID-19 times. EHR/EMR solutions Enable effective patient data management, flexible workflows, and interaction efficiency through electronic health record (EHR) and electronic medical record (EMR) systems. Patient Portals Provide an exceptional customer care experience, maintain patient records up to date, and manage patient flow seamlessly, including with health tracking devices. Practice Management Focus on efficiency optimization and automate operational, clinical, and financial activities to make clinicians’ job as pleasant as possible, using our best practices. 24/7 HIPAA Devops Support Perform your technical operations with confidence. Meet the business compliance and HIPAA compliance standard needs without interrupting your workflow. Mobile apps Smartphones allow heath care institutions to upgrade customer care, address any urgent issues, collect additional information, and offer personalized services to customers. Machine learning AI allows heath care institutions to consolidate and optimize the administrative workflow of a hospital. This saves time and enhances the process and equipment control. Ready to share your idea with us? Get in touch now! LET'S TALK We create modern unique products and solutions for: Healthcare Providers Hospitals Biotech Companies Pharmacies Medical Device Companies Private Physician Practices Insurance Companies Home Care Businesses Pharmaceutical Companies Other Healthcare Businesses OUR CASES We have built a portfolio of multifunctional, highly integrated end-to-end systems aimed at dealing with specific tasks of each individual client. All our products and solutions comply with applicable regulations and ensure protection of personal data. Creating a secure health app startup A comprehensive solution that facilitates the search of the medical staff and optimizes employee health plans. This is an impressive example of how simple digital products help manage a business properly. Health care practice management A comprehensive health care management platform. The solution streamlines and automates all business processes allowing for better cost management, staff optimization, and enhanced patient care. Healthy lifestyle ecosystem MOVE Shanghai is your efficient personal assistant and a fitness concierge that helps with booking any type of activities at any fitness club. OUR CLIENTS HIPAA Certified We follow all the rules of working with the healthcare industry. Our employees who work with healthcare projects are HIPAA certified. This is why we are confident in the quality of our services. book your free first meeting Let’s have a chat about your ideas, tasks, and plans, and find a way to bring your idea to life 535 Mission st., San Francisco, CA 94105, United States business@jetruby.com +1 415-508-7706 Linkedin Instagram Youtube Facebook Twitter Behance CONTACTS business@jetruby.com 535 Mission st, San Francisco, CA 94105, United States +1 415-508-7706 © 2021 JetRuby Agency ### elixir web development Elixirwebdevelopment Why is Elixir awesome? Web apps powered by Elixir language can simultaneously handle millions of users without even breaking a sweat. For example, WhatsApp leverages Elixir to provide more than 1 bln of users with flawless performance. Pinterest chose the Elixir language due to its ability to route more than 30K events per second to its in-house rule engine and prevent spam. Goldman Sachs uses Elixir as part of the real-time monitoring solution for its distributed trading system. Best elixir web development Pokerithm We developed a multi-player web application enabling beginner players hone their skills by competing with each other and world-class poker stars. Built with such powerful technologies as Elixir, C++, and AWS Lambda, the application provides lightning-fast user experience and simple interface. QuickSelect Using the Elixir language, we developed a custom CRM for the mortgage industry. Thousands of users from around the globe can create their applications. Additionally, we made an integration with Zoho CRM to provide brokers with an effective solution of leads search. Pokerithm We developed a multi-player web application enabling beginner players to hone their skills by competing with each other and world-class poker stars. Built with such powerful technologies as Elixir, C++, and AWS Lambda, the application provides a lightning-fast user experience and a simple interface. QuickSelect Using Elixir we developed a custom CRM for the mortgage industry. The result anticipated expectations. Thousands of users from around the globe can create their applications. Additionally, we made an integration with Zoho CRM to provide brokers with an effective solution of leads search. Elixir language for your business Choosing a flexible and future-proof technology is crucial for your app's success. Based on our experience, Elixir language has recommended itself as the most fitting option when it comes to building a scalable architecture for web apps. Time-saving Develop high-load web applications for millions of users within the shortest period of time! Moreover, its performance is great and the response time is measured in microseconds. When it comes to business, every second count and everything needs to be ideal. Users need to be assured in the reliability of your product so that your apps must instantly react to all actions. Eventually, good performance allows saving energy and money. Resource-efficient Spend fewer resources on debugging and support, devote more time to your business. The fault tolerance of Elixir is amazing. It never crashes. Even if you have buggy code lying around, the rest of the application continues to work fine. This allows developers to spend less time on debugging and more on development. Consequently, you can direct your resources to your idea development and leave money for extending the functionality. Happy customers Forget about lags and unsatisfied users. Start getting used to flawlessness. Elixir is generally seen as a superior choice for high-traffic systems. Over the last decade, the population of internet users has tripled and this created certain difficulties for the developers. However, the responding time of apps, which were built on Elixir, is counted in microseconds. All this makes Elixir a perfect choice for high-traffic apps. Our Elixir skills As a top-of-the-class digital agency, we strictly choose the most reliable and effective technologies for building high-performance websites. Here are our main Elixir skills that we've completely mastered over nearly 10 years of developing web apps. Architecture design IoT development MVP development App maintenance Why choose us? Our team creates digital products that raise millions of $$$ and get featured at CES in Las Vegas. We focus on the business pains of our clients and the needs of their customers. This set of competitive strengths allows us to build useful web apps with millions of active users. Among our partners, you’ll see: Top-rated B2B software development company with a proven track record We look forward to discussing your ideas and bringing them to life Goodfirms 5.0 rating Clutch 4.9 rating By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### BWTours Interview | Free Product Development Strategy Creating an awesome tourist website for a one-woman tour guide! Breanna Wilson Freelance Travel and Adventure Writer The client Another project worth mentioning is the "BWTours" project that came into our hands quite unexpectedly. Through the cold winter of Mongolia, we were contacted by our client, Brianna. Who had one of her tour travels in Mongolia. We were utterly shocked, but we warmly welcomed her and asked her about the business idea that she wanted to implement. The concept of her business project was utterly simple and easy to understand. The client wanted to construct an E-Commerce website. Her platform for advertising and selling her custom tour packages all around the world. However, it was a slightly different tour guide, unlike the usual ones where they tell you all boring stuff while you stay still. This one included some of the energetic and exciting adventures where no usual guides will go. Her focus was set on the exploration factor. She explained that her business model would be working on tour guiding fees along with the gear commissions. Since the latter one was mandatory for traveling in dense and unexplored places. Especially, if it is the Sahara desert or a mountain Everest. That's how far our client would go! When we heard all of that, we immediately proposed to her an offer during the Product Development Strategy Session and were ready to turn this project on! Fast Facts About JetRuby Integration BEFORE No booking or reservation platform, since the client didn't even know how one works.   Complicated way to attract clients.   Tour Guiding was only a hobby. AFTER A simple Tilda platform, which attracts more than 10,000 new users across the USA annually. And now, the client knows how to properly manage her platform.   The platform attracts and generates more clients each month by 5%.   Tour Guiding has become not only a passion but a dream job that has come true. Any digital product that your startup or company wants to build requires an understanding of how exactly the product development process is organized. You can try and do it your way. The way you think will suit the best for your startup. Unfortunately, however, nearly 70% of all young entrepreneurs who think like that and have no technical knowledge, end up failing their project completely. Or they try to launch and promote it with various tools and tactics, but no one really cares about it, and eventually, they fail. So how exactly can you avoid this scenario and still come out of this tangled scenario as a winner? JetRuby knows the answer, which is hidden in one of the services we prepared for you and that is the Product Development Strategy Session. This is a free business consultation where our experts will analyze your project, look for its potential, and discuss with you how you can advance further on with your current state. All of that absolutely for free. So what are you waiting for? Sign up for a free call with our experts and we will be able to help and assist your startup project right now! Want to get the same fast results as the BWTours did? Let us know what business are you running and we'll tell you how we can assist you! Share your project A foreword about our client Ms. Brianna is a client coming directly from the USA. She is a very active Forbes contributor on various topics. And just so it happens that the most attractive boards that she looks up to are traveling. Almost all of her life she has traveled throughout the entire world. Alaska, Egypt, New Zealand, Russia, or even Antarctica you name it and she has already been there! And just as she has been almost everywhere she wanted to push her passion and hobby to the next level. She thought of an online platform where she could share the same feelings she felt during her travel. And also show some of the hidden places that no one has no one heard or seen. That's how she ventured into her idea and started to actively plan out how she would implement it. Worldwide The Requirements At first, we understood that what the client wanted was a very rapid and fast development of her E-commerce platform. And to do that and be confident in all of the product development steps, we took an initiative to try and offer her a Design and Discovery Phase. That way not only we will understand how we can assist her, but she could also guide us to her desired solution. Since the client required an E-Commerce platform for advertising her services and products, it required a booking platform. However, the reservation dates were custom specified by the client herself. This was because she was the one who would schedule travel. Additionally, the client expressly indicated that she needed an excellent and thorough description of her services along with the travel gear visualization that everyone should have before the departure. Thus, we needed to include our content managers, who would be delighted to be a part of this commercial project. Her budget was a small one (around 20,000$), and the client has passionately asked us to develop a platform for the needs previously mentioned. Thus, a considerate offer proposal has to be produced and presented from our side too. Not only due to the budget constraints but also to suit and construct the best outcome possible. Completely custom platform - - - - - - - It should be worth mentioning that Jessie wanted a completely custom platform since she was presenting herself as a brand image. She already had some design sketches on her hands, and she was the one who represented her entire website. Therefore, she required assistance here too. Start your new digital business product in 3 weeks and avoid the most crucial mistakes many startups make Submit a quiz and get a free e-book about safe start for the startup «Design and Discovery Phase» Share your project Henry Ahadzhanyan Head of sales at JetRuby The Development Process Design and Discovery Phase Once our team received a list of all requirements, we took the initiative and asked to go through the Design and Discovery Phase. We knew how her idea would develop, but at the same time, we needed to correctly estimate her project, the allocated budget, and the put timeline. After hearing how important and essential this step in her project was, she agreed with us. At first our client provided every detail she wanted to see in the app, described how the app should look like, and asked to make a detailed description of her services. The last point was made for the customers to understand that her services were not a typical tour guiding. And that's where the Design and Discovery Phase has started. During it we involved our client in this active development process, where little by little, we started to build her app ground. We laid the foundation with understanding and correcting her business model. We've made a first visualization of the app, which the client liked. And finally, we began to finish up the construction by drawing the entire picture of her future app. That was the budget and the development path plan. Besides we produced a set of essential documents and prototypes during the phase, which significantly impacted the final product launch plan. The results consisted of but were not limited to the Business Canvas Model, UI/UX dynamic prototype, and her E-Commerce platform. We knew that we were not a singular agency that was fighting for our client. However, things took quite a peculiar and unexpected turn. You see, by the time we have produced the list of the essential requirements, we have analyzed them and compared them with the capabilities our JetRuby team can do. As a result, we have decided that our option was not inferior in performance, stability, ease of maintenance. And so we presented the final solution to our client with the Tilda CMS. That could perform all of the necessary tasks and complete them without trouble. Now only we won the trust of our client by offering a much simpler, cheaper, effective and faster solution than any other company could provide. But because we were able to change the development direction 360, successfully analyzed our client's business fast, combined our capabilities with the results, and pivot her idea into a much more optimal solution. She was delighted and happy to hear it. MVP Development After we produce a project plan and set the estimate deadlines, we initiated the MVP stage. Here deployed the Tilda platform and configured her as an E-Commerce project, adding various entities and services inside its system. Meanwhile, our design team has already finished up preparing the UI elements for the website and has integrated them on the website. The booking platform was mostly managed by the Tilda CMS and had many various tour places where one can reserve their trip. For example, one could book a memorable trip down to the Sahara Desert or go through the restricted area of Chernobyl. The dates were not specified, but instead, a customer could choose a month when he wants to travel. And later on, our client will contact him or her individually to decided a concrete date of departure. Also, we have made sure that the landing page of her new E-commerce site would directly reflect her brand image. Now the customers will be able to understand who they are going to contact. Within just a month of constant and dynamic development of Tilda's E-Commerce website, we created a digital product she desired all along. Also, as per her request, our content team wrote extensive and advertising content, along with the quality description of her services and the adventure gear. She was happily using the E-commerce platform, while we gave her various instructions on how things are working in the system. The booking engine, the clear description of her products, the vibrant style of her platform all fo that was attractive and the client was utterly enjoying her new business tool. During the next three months, she spends the remaining budget on marketing and advertising her platform. Since then she gained. Having similar technical or business issues as our client had? Let us know what milestones you've encountered and we'll guide you to the correct development path! Share your project Business Results When we had finished the platform, the client had gracefully thanked us, as she didn't expect that we could manage such a quick and inexpensive solution right to her hands. The platform is actively gaining more and more road trips practically every quarter. Within the first month of a tight development process, when we finished her product, the client had already gained her first 4,000 active users. Right now, our client took a small pause on her platform and slowly awaits when the global pandemic will be brought to a halt. In the meantime, she plans some other interesting and valuable ideas, which she shares with us. We were glad to cooperate with her and await the time when we will be able to nail another impactful project of her own. As a digital product development agency, such as ourselves, we respect every client's requirement while assisting with his business idea. At the same time, we provide various tools and specialists that genuinely know how your business model works and how the app should look like. If you have a deep desire of developing and implementing your product today but are struggling with the IT product development processes, then JetRuby can assist you with that. For the past 10 years, all of our successful startups have passed a Product Development Strategy Session. Where we analyzed their idea, adjusted their vision, and showed how their app should look like. If you got interested, contact us today, leave a short message about your project and we'll get back to you shortly! Schedule a call? We're always waiting to onboard new and passionate projects, be in our next successful story! Share your project Read what's next? There are lots of other projects we have implemented, which most of them have already scaled rapidly. Namecoach Deploying a unique traveling agency to uncover all secrets and hidden places worldwide! StudyClub Pivoting and building a marketplace for your kids to gain new skills! ### Managed IT Services Managed IT Services Whether you are a startup or an enterprise company, the value of your product will be created by people. We provide managed IT service by giving you access to highly-performing professionals, who write code, administer clouds, manage the IT infrastructure, analyze your business & data, work on your product design, and do many other things to improve your business. Get a quote Intro Access to Top IT Talents JetRuby is an ISO-accredited software development company that provides scaled development teams to support your projects. The management option is flexible and depends on your needs: a dedicated, extended team, individuals working under your control, or a combination of those options. We prioritize training and in-house growth opportunities for our talents. It’s suffice to say that 80% of senior developers advanced their career path starting from lower positions in our company. Intro Perks of Managed IT Services in Action Extensive talent pool We provide access to an active base of qualified candidates. Specialists join projects promptly with no time being wasted on the new search. You’ll find many talents, starting with mobile developers and ending with data analysts.  Saving costs An outsourced model is much more cost-efficient than organizing your IT team. You don't have to worry about expenses like office costs, educational training fees, etc.  Deep expertise in various domains We specialize in 16 industrial domains (agritech, fintech, logistics & transports, e-commerce & retail, etc.) Well-trained specialists Only mid to senior-level engineers join commercial projects from our end. We respond to your tech challenges and apply our best practices. Transparent hiring and control of the process  Direct participation in the software development process allows managing your teamwork and setting new priorities for the key goals.  Shape your idea Trusted by We’ve helped many businesses worldwide to extend their teams with our high-performing specialists. Our Services Our dedicated software development team Tech Stack Ruby & Ruby on Rails The best choice for fast development. The creation of Ruby-based projects is swift due to the technical benefits of the framework architecture and the peculiarities of development tools. Node.JS NodeJS is comfortable from a developer's viewpoint as JavaScript language serves both frontend and backend parts. Python Python is valid for both development and testing. Python is a simple language and suites small projects which don't require a large memory capacity. React JS React JS is perfect for websites with a large content volume and supports progressive web applications. Vue JS Vue JS suits adaptable user interfaces and complex one-page apps. Angular JS Angular JS is a good fit for developing interactive web applications. The structure and architecture of this framework make it a viable choice for a big scalable project. Swift Its error-resistance ability significantly speeds development up. A high speed of code execution makes Swift-based apps work in a flying mode. Objective-C A flexible language that allows developers to create smaller programs with richer functionality. X Code The software in which developers write and test code, test and debug applications, and run many other operations. Java The fundamental language for Android application development. It allows developers to write code that works seamlessly across multiple mobile platforms. Kotlin Developers find this language easy to use. Often, Kotlin applications are cheaper for the customer and easier to maintain in the future. React Native An excellent solution for building applications that will run smoothly regardless of the underlying platform or system. Electron This language is suitable for multi-platform desktop applications that do not have strict memory usage requirements and don't require elaborated UX/UI design. Managed IT Services How does our Management IT Service work? Regular reports You receive a detailed time spent report. Compliance with standards Compliance with standards: HIPAA Certified Engineers, Certified in ISO 30414 (Human Capital) and ISO 10018 (People Engagement). User satisfaction monitoring HR support, focused on retention, measuring employee motivation and satisfaction. Rigorous management control Dedicated project coordinator and account manager ensure smooth engagement in all stages. ### custom software development company Custom SoftwareDevelopment company We turn business ideas into valuable and profitable products. Whether you have strict technical requirements or haven't come up with a clear product vision, our custom software development company will guide you all the way through your product implementation. Get ballpark estimate! Why do you think custom software development is worth the investment? Exactly tailored to your business needs Your business is unique and requires a software solution that addresses its exact needs. The custom software product has the potential to not only solve your current challenges and optimize processes but to build the foundation for future growth and success of your company. We'll make sure you have full control over the development process throughout every stage so that the product fully reflects your vision. Benefit from our technical expertise With more than 11 years of successful development of effective digital solutions, our custom software development company will build the product that YOU want. We're here not only to provide you with great quality code but also to guide you through the whole development process from product vision to ready-to-use software. Agile process and responsive developers While long-term goals may excite you the most, current objectives shouldn’t be disregarded too. As a seasoned custom software development company, we believe that an agile and responsive approach to current market needs is now more important than ever. With agile methodologies, we're able to deliver marketable products quicker and align with your business goals. Cost efficiency Custom software development is a serious investment, so it's crucial to have the right technology partner. Choosing proper technologies that suit your needs can save you thousands of dollars. On top of that, you'll be able to start with the most important features and gradually move further based on user feedback and a budget. This way, you ensure that you're building a demanded and profit-generating product. Ongoing online support of your product The software development lifecycle doesn't end with the final release. Our ultimate goal is to create products that people enjoy using. As your company shifts and changes, your software will need to evolve. You can rely on us when it comes to your software support and maintenance whether it's performance optimization or tech upgrades. Cronycle High-Load Content Aggregation Platform with micro-service architecture 7 Backend developers 2 DevOps engineers 3 QA engineers We build a large, complex, and independent content-aggregation platform that helps find and organize relevant content with just little effort. The platform's infrastructure is packed with a full set of services to help users cut through the mass media noise and provide organizations with relevant knowledge. Currently, Cronycle is used by 2308 companies across the globe. 4000+ Hours 2+ Years of cooperation OSRAM Unique farming automation solution based on the IoT technology 3 Backend developers 2 DevOps engineers 2 QA engineers We created a smart farm solution that monitors environmental parameters, such as temperature, light, and water. Data is then collected in the cloud and is beamed on to the farmer's dashboards, from which the farmer can monitor the farm condition as well as remotely adjust parameters like temperature and light. 1500+ Hours 10+ Months of cooperation Estimate your project for free now! Fill out this form and one of our client success managers will contact you within 24 hours. We have notifications set to make sure your message is received. Get ballpark estimate! Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### cross-platform app for healthcare HealthCare App *The project is under a Non-Disclosure Agreement so we're not allowed to fully use project-related information. HIPAA-compliant iOS React Native Android Learn more How does it work? HealthCare App is not just a medical app, it's a smart solution that allows saving time and money for patients. Here are some of it's most notable features. HIPAA-compliant Building a mobile health app it's vital to ensure maximum protection of sensitive data. The healthcare mobile app application we built is fully compliant with HIPAA. Transaction and Code Sets Standards.HealthCare App follows standard mechanisms for electronic data interchange when processing or submitting insurance claims. HIPAA privacy rule. The app fully complies with the national standards for protecting patients' health information. HIPAA Security Rule. The security rule is a set standards that esure data security of the patients who use HealthCare App. Instant help Thanks to the rich functionality and a user-friendly interface of our mobile health app, you can easily find a specialist that will be applied personally to you. Search for doctors by specialty or name if you know exactly what specialist you need. The healthcare mobile app has also a real-time map. Thanks to the integration of mapping and geolocation services, you can easily find doctors that are nearby. A number of useful filters were developed to help you find a specialist even faster. We developed a custom form of communication to make the communication even simpler and effective. Quick access There's no need to spend hours and hours of trying to find a prescription or any kind of other documents. Instead, store everything in your app with a permanent access to it. We also implemented push notifications so that you won't forget about your meeting to a doctor. Result We developed an app that allows finding a necessary specialist without spending extra money. It's reliable, secure and easy to use. No need to go to the hospital to make an appointment. Now you have the Healthcare - your personal assistant that will allow you to get instant health guidance and find a specialist you need. 3.5 years We've been exceeding our client's expectations for more than three years now. 8x growth We've been exceeding our client's expectations for more than three years now. 5 people The mobile app development team consists of three developers, one designer and one project manager. Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### aws consulting companies AWS Consulting and Infrastructure Development company Are you a startup or an enterprise looking to build a cost-efficient AWS infrastructure or maximize the advantage of AWS? We’ll help you achieve the best possible performance on budget and time! Get ballpark estimate! Why AWS? AWS is not just about saving costs on IT, it's about creating the environment that lets your business thrive. AWS is a solution that will help you connect with the customers and deliver new, innovative products and services. Enables business velocity AWS offers a wide range of global compute, storage, database, analytics, application, and deployment services. We designed all of them to help you move your business faster, reduce implementation costs and scale your applications. This is a win-win situation both for your business and your customers. Focused on efficiency In a cloud computing environment, new IT resources are only a click away. Basically, this means that you can reduce the significant amount of time to make the resources available for your dev team from weeks to just minutes. As a result, this improves an Agile approach and allows saving much time and costs for software development. Low infrastructure costs AWS helps customers focus on their main applications and save the resources needed to manage the underlying infrastructure. Using AWS, you can deploy your applications in highly secure environments that require strict regulatory compliance. Infrastructure becomes a continually evolving asset. Secure and reliable AWS provides end-to-end approach, which complies with the highest security standards, protects and advances your infrastructure. Amazon Web Service provides you with the security you need and does it at a lower cost than in an on-premises environment. It's designed to keep your data safe regardless of its size. Our AWS Case Studies Explore our expertise in AWS consulting and infrastructure development that helped our clients solve their business challenges. AWS Autoscale EC2 How we reduced costs on infrastructure maintenance by 781% using AWS Autoscale EC2 on a client's project. Learn more Serverless Computing How we were able to automate the process of document management and save 43% of budget on app maintenance. Learn more POKERithm How we built the first game engine for online poker capable of handling 100k+ players in real time with Elixir and AWS Lambda. Learn more Want a Similar App? Get in touch with our business development department and receive a quick estimate for your AWS infrastructure! Get ballpark estimate! Our AWS Tech Stack AWS means reliability and user experience are essential for the success of your business. Amazon EC2 DynamoDB AWS Lambda Amazon ElastiCache AWS Cloud Formation Amazon RDS AWS API Gateway Amazon S3 AWS CloudFront ### android-app-development-company Android App Development Services Creating Android App Solutions to Enterprises & Startups Get ballpark estimate! Wear OS Android OS Have you got a potential android app idea? We have specialists and necessary experience to bring your idea into a reality. 5.11 billion unique mobile users were recorded this year Find your potential clients — order the development of Android app. We will get involved and implement your project, regardless of its size and budget. 01 Refined Structure 01 Android Consulting 01 Refined Structure 02 Android App UX/UI Design 01 Refined Structure 03 Creating Android App 01 Refined Structure 04 Android App Support 01 Android Consulting At this part, our mission is to make an inclusive vision of the project. This include understanding the product's advantage according to its competitors and determining the end-users' needs. 02 Android App UX/UI Design Our expert designers apply the best design techniques to check the responsive UI designs that enhance the customer experience. 03 Creating Android App We proposal highly-customizable Android app solutions as per your particular requirements to help you control and streamline the business operations effectively. 04 Android App Support From efficiency enhancement, characteristic enrichment, to regular functionality updates, our Android app maintenance services support you make your app practicable to use. Android Development Case Studies Explore these amazing Android apps we built with love for our clients to help them solve business challenges. Moments NFC Moments NFC is a Kotlin-based app that simplifies payments in pubs across the USA. There are two amazing things about this app. First, it allows you to pay for a drink with a mere wave of your hand. Just sync the app with your smartphone or a wristband with an NFC module and you're ready to do magic! No more waiting to get your credit card payment approved. The second amazing thing is that our team built the entire app in just 12 days. We didn't even have to create a new interface from scratch. We simply took the iOS app design and used it "as is" to build the Kotlin app. Doing this saved our client a considerable amount of budget. Ultimately, we helped the client create a unique mobile application for the Android platform that allows pub customers save their time and make their night outs stress-free. I want a similar app! Learn more... LOOP Messenger OOP Messenger is a Kotlin application that allows you to make new friends by creating and sharing your "suggestions" with other people or choose from available activities, deals, offers, events, or just random cool stuff. Sharing is based on either a specific location or a group of previously selected people (friends). LOOP Messenger is your ultimate way to always keep abreast of everything that's upcoming regardless of where you are. Our impact: we've designed and built a robust app architecture that allows for quick and drastic functionality changes to meet market trends. We've also implemented a custom and highly-personalized in-app feed that provides users with suggestions based on their interests and preferences, not people followed. Available on App Store and Google Play. I want a similar app! Learn more... MOVE Shanghai MOVE Shanghai advocates as your own fitness concierge for sport fans in China. In a nutshell, it's a mini ecosystem that allows you to book anything from tennis classes to a lounge chair at a 5-star hotel pool for a flat monthly fee. Moreover, personal assistance from the Move Consultant will help you to choose and book new activities. Swimming, boxing, yoga, squash - whatever moves you! SPA that connects the best fitness and activity providers to the user, making it easy to workout whenever and wherever is most convenient. We built a fast and smooth Kotlin app based on the iOS version to enable MOVE Shanghai users access their fitness venues from both platforms. We also integrated the app with AliPay and WeChat since these services are a must for any Chinese application. I want a similar app! Learn more... Looking for Android Development or Consulting? Fill out this form and one of our client success managers will contact you within 24 hours. We have notifications set to make sure your message is received. First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### kotlin development company Kotlin App Development Company Your customers want an awesome Android app with modern features and a beautiful interface. We can build it for you on budget and time. Get ballpark estimate! Why Kotlin? Uber, Trello, Evernote, and others use Kotlin to provide their users with a superior Android app experience and keep their business growing. Faster development On average, building Kotlin apps takes notably less time compared to other native programming languages. This is because Kotlin comes with a dozen of in-built features that - when used properly - can speed up the development process. So, if you need to quickly build a full-featured mobile app for Android with heavy hardware utilization, Kotlin is definitely your choice. Better security Kotlin is more secure than its predecessor (Java). This means you can save time and budget for marketing your application instead of spending resources on doublechecking whether your app is secure enough for market release. Being security-focused by default also makes Kotlin apps more simple from the inside and, thus, less vulnerable to unexpected crashes. Enables business agility Kotlin programming language is completely backward-compatible with Java. Put simply, if you have a Java application, you can reuse its code to build a new app in Kotlin without having to rewrite the entire thing from scratch. Not only is this cost-efficient for both small and large projects, but also enables faster market releases. Easier to maintain Kotlin is extremely concise and easy to understand. As a result, developers are less busy with heads or tails of long code and focus on improving features that are essential to your business. Speaking facts, Kotlin is by 40% more concise as compared to Java, which is a lot even by modern standards. Kotlin Development Case Studies Explore these amazing Kotlin apps we built with love for our clients to help them solve business challenges. Moments NFC Moments NFC is a Kotlin-based app that simplifies payments in pubs across the USA. There are two amazing things about this app. First, it allows you to pay for a drink with a mere wave of your hand. Just sync the app with your smartphone or a wristband with an NFC module and you're ready to do magic! No more waiting to get your credit card payment approved. The second amazing thing is that our team built the entire app in just 12 days. We didn't even have to create a new interface from scratch. We simply took the iOS app design and used it "as is" to build the Kotlin app. Doing this saved our client a considerable amount of budget. Ultimately, we helped the client create a unique mobile application for the Android platform that allows pub customers save their time and make their night outs stress-free. I want a similar app! Learn more... LOOP Messenger LOOP Messenger is a Kotlin application that allows you to make new friends by creating and sharing your "suggestions" with other people or choose from available activities, deals, offers, events, or just random cool stuff. Sharing is based on either a specific location or a group of previously selected people (friends). LOOP Messenger is your ultimate way to always keep abreast of everything that's upcoming regardless of where you are. Our impact: we've designed and built a robust app architecture that allows for quick and drastic functionality changes to meet market trends. We've also implemented a custom and highly-personalized in-app feed that provides users with suggestions based on their interests and preferences, not people followed. Available on App Store and Google Play. I want a similar app! Learn more... MOVE Shanghai MOVE Shanghai advocates as your own fitness concierge for sport fans in China. In a nutshell, it's a mini ecosystem that allows you to book anything from tennis classes to a lounge chair at a 5-star hotel pool for a flat monthly fee. Moreover, personal assistance from the Move Consultant will help you to choose and book new activities. Swimming, boxing, yoga, squash - whatever moves you! SPA that connects the best fitness and activity providers to the user, making it easy to workout whenever and wherever is most convenient. We built a fast and smooth Kotlin app based on the iOS version to enable MOVE Shanghai users access their fitness venues from both platforms. We also integrated the app with AliPay and WeChat since these services are a must for any Chinese application. I want a similar app! Learn more... ### kubernetes company Kubernetes Development for Business Build cost-efficient and easy-to-manage web applications for your businesses with Kubernetes on time & budget. Get ballpark estimate! Why Kubernetes? Using Kubernetes, you can provide the best ways of managing distributed, related components and services across varied infrastructure. Secure infrastructure To give a simple explanation of how Kubernetes work, imagine a container as something, where your app is "packaged." Without this container, it won't be working in the system. However, Kubernetes easily solves this challenge. In case one container dies, a replacement container will be launched immediately so there's no reason to worry about. Resource-efficient Using Kubernetes, you can significantly cut the infrastructure costs. If your business operates at massive scale, the costs may be high. Since Kubernetes container-based architecture is feasible across a great number of large, enterprise apps, it makes possible to pack together apps with minimal resources to get out of cloud and hardware investments. Faster and more agile development If you want your app to be in demand, you need to provide features in the fastest and high-quality way. In other words, you need to use an agile approach. Kubernetes is a synonym to Agile. Using the power of microservices, you can divide your development into small agile teams that will be delivering features seamlessly on a day-to-day basis. Focus on the important thing Human resources are an integral part of a successful business. Kubernetes provides a great number of various tools that automate infrastructure operations. As a result, your specialists can focus on important for your business things, such as developing your product and providing the best customer experience for your clients. Kubernetes Development Case Studies Check out these awesome apps we built for our clients to solve real-life and business challenges. CONTENT AGGREGATION SparksFly SparksFly is a unique web aggregator solution that allows filtering data from various social media to get the most relevant information. Using Kubernetes among other cutting-edge technologies, we built a solution for discovering and retrieving information based on the users' preferences. Since SparksFly is built on the AI engine, it is able to process a huge amount of social media data and deliver more relevant user content. Using the microservice approach, we developed a system that could aggregate different types of data from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube and convert it into a single format. Who said magic doesn't exist? I want a similar app! SAAS APPLICATION Cronycle Cronycle is a SaaS application based on a complex AI engine created to filter and aggregate online content from different sources in the fastest and most efficient manner. With Kubernetes, we were able to build a robust and flexible architecture that powers the entire app. Cronycle is focused on mind mapping. It allows users to add articles, annotate, and highlight specific information within these articles on the board without having to leave the platform. As a result, we built a complex and independent content-aggregation platform with micro-service architecture that helps all kind of users find and organize relevant content with just little effort. Learn more... I want a similar app! CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ScreenHub ScreenHub is a powerful content management system that provides unbounded possibilities for managing thousands of different digital signage platforms from any possible device that has an Internet connection. ScreenHub has no boundaries. It's compatible with any synchronous digital display, including LCD, plasma screens, LCD panels and so on. It provides the possibility to edit the content of a sign from any possible device or operating system. Users can easily access and monitor their screens no matter where they or their screens are and control all the content from a single Internet enabled-device. I want a similar app! ### mobile app development company Mobile App development company We Build Useful Android Apps Hybrid Apps iOS Apps that rank #1 on App Store and get featured in Forbes I want one! Sortly App Sortly is one of the best picture-driven asset managment apps for iOS, according to Forbes. In 2017, it has been recognized as the #1 inventory app on the App Store. Available on iOS and Web, the application allows its users to effortlessly categorize and keep track of their possessions. Organizing things from your pocket is light and breezy thanks to a simple an intuitive app UI design. Forget about hand-written lists and stickers! With the help of Sortly App, you can basically manage almost any kind of activity – from regular movings to art installations – using only your iPhone. Sortly App provides functionality both for users and delivery teams. Read case study Healthcare Healthcare is a cross-platform mobile application that opens the doors into the world of modern and efficient healthcare experience. The app allows building personalized and comprehensive treatment plans with all the necessary information for optimizing your care right from your smartphone. Being HIPAA compliant, Healthcare ensure full data integrity and protection. We developed both the web and mobile applications for iOS and Android that combine all the healthcare tools in one place. In the past year, more than 15 organizations trusted the Healthcare app to solve their healthcare navigation and logistical challenges. Read case study Anova Gone are the days of manual inventory checks and usage guesstimates. Anova wirelessly delivers critical data – such as inventory level, pressure, and temperature – via connected industrial sensors and our cloud data platform. We've integrated data from unmonitored tanks and from tanks monitored by 3rd party solutions. Our assessment revealed that while there was precise evidence tank monitoring eliminated run-outs, there were significant opportunities to improve delivery efficiency, leveraging tank monitoring data. Finally, we've developed the multiplatform mobile application, which was able to perform GPS trip tracking and geofencing with Google Maps & Baidu Maps. It can monitor and alert on multiple operational parameters, on various tanks, in a simultaneous way. Read case study Leepse Leepse is an app comparable to your college social club, where you meet people who study in the same city. It was created with a purpose to have a ton of extraordinary and unforgettable moments, experience new things, and play the party games. The application connects college students most authentically and effortlessly: through the casual group chatting of friends. You can connect with like-minded people through exciting group conversations, just like in college! Within just a month of constant and diligent development, Leepse was released and has gained a massive amount of popularity and feedback from youngsters. Annually, the application is hitting nearly 10,000 installations and is widely being used on the iPhone platform. We managed to reach the balance of being flexible in our planning processes while also offering expert guidance. Our company was happy to assist Leepse during all stages of application development and finally launch it into the live product. Read case study Our happy clients. Our mobile app development company helped more than 100 clients from the US, Europe, China, and Australia build mobile applications for their businesses. How we do it. We understand how important early market launch is and so we focus on an efficient mobile app development process. 1 Agile Development Using Agile methodologies allows us to build full-featured mobile apps in just a couple of weeks! 2 A-class Management We leverage our extensive experience to reduce costs and deliver projects within deadlines and budget! 3 Individual Approach We strongly believe every mobile app is unique and so we use only tailored software solutions. 4 More than coding Struggling with how to monetize or grow your business? Worry not! We've got you covered. 5 App Maintenance We provide our clients with full post-release app support to help them solidify their position on the market. Mobile app development company uses such technologies. What we use to build award winning mobile apps. Swift Elegant and reliable, Swift is our go-to programming language for iOS app development. Perfect for native iOS experience. Java The good old Java has been the industry standard in the world of Android app development for many years now. GraphQL One database to rule them all! Used by such market giants as Twitter, Yelp, and others, GrapQL is a great tool to manage app data. React Native Not sure which platform to choose? With React Native, we can build apps for Android and iOS that look and feel the same. Kotlin The Kotlin language is one of the most fun languages that we've ever used! It allowed us to build an Android app in two weeks! Flutter Flutter allows you to build native apps on both iOS and Android using a single codebase. A good choice for cross-platform app development. Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### privacy-policy JETRUBY AGENCY Privacy Policy This Privacy Policy applies to the website https://jetruby.com, served by JetRuby Agency Ltd., and governs the privacy of visitors who choose to use the site. We created this privacy policy to explain how we treat your personal information collected on this website. Additionally, this Privacy Policy explains how you can control the information we collect, how this information will be used, as well as how to contact us. This document determines how we protect your personal data. Cookies Our website uses cookies to better the user experience of its visitors. Additionally, our website uses a cookie control system that allows users to allow or disallow the use of cookies on a computer/device on the first visit to the website. This complies with recent legislative requirements for websites for obtaining explicit consent from users before leaving behind or reading files such as cookies on a user's computer/device. A cookie is just one or more pieces of information stored as a text string on your machine. A web-server sends out your cookie and browser stores it. Hereafter, the browser returns the cookie to the web-server next time the page is referenced. There are several kinds of cookies: "persistent" or "session" cookies. A persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until it sets an expiry date. It is also may be deleted by the user before the expiry date. 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Your personal information may be used for the following purposes: We'll use your email address, phone number, and other contact information you provided us for establishing a business relationship, such as sending you information about our services and providing you with the updates that are relevant for you; We'll use your phone number, email address or any other contact information in order to provide you the relevant information you request; To improve your website experience we'll store the data about your behavior on our website. This allows us to understand your preferences and improve our services for you; Having subscribed to our blog, we'll collect your email address and provide you with subscription preferences. Third Parties To secure your sensitive information, we carefully select the third-party services that we use. We use services that claim they are compliant with GDPR and other data protection regulations. The data may be transferred to the third party services including such services as Google Analytics, MailChimp and others that are compliant with GDPR and other regulations. Personal Information Disclosure We may disclose your personal information to: comply with a legal obligation; protect and defend the rights or property of JetRuby Agency Ltd.; prevent investigating possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service; protect the personal safety of users of the Service or the public; protect against legal ability. Children's Privacy Our Service doesn't address anyone under the age of 18 ("Children"). We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 18. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with the Personal Data, please contact us. If we collected Personal Data from minors without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our services. How long is your data stored for? All the data is stored until the users withdraw their consent or the business relationship is broken off. You have the right to instruct us at any time not to use your personal information for marketing purposes. The Processing Restriction You have the right to restrict us from processing your data if: we doubt the accuracy of your personal data, we'll need to verify the accuracy of the personal data; the processing is unlawful and you oppose the erasure of your personal data and request the restriction of its use instead; Withdrawing consent for collecting, processing, and using the data If you want to withdraw the consent for collecting, processing, and using the data, write to us on privacy@jetruby.com or call the number . If you would like to unsubscribe from the mailing list, by clicking the Unsubscribe button. Updating the information You can notify us if the personal information we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated. How to Raise a Complaint Raise a complaint by sending an email to privacy@jetruby.com or by calling the following number +1 415-670-9085. ### project management services Project management services Here, at JetRuby Agency, we provide high-quality project management services to produce consistent results, reduce costs, improve process efficiency, and deliver customer satisfaction. Get ballpark estimate! Benefits of outsourced IT project management We set goals for ourselves to meet your business' goals through open communication and strategic expertise. For more than 10 years we have been implementing complicated projects for large corporations and small startups and have perfect knowledge about the process along the way. Our project manager's strategy is focused on business goals and achieving high-quality results. Always in-touch We take into account the time zone differences and adapt our working schedule according to your needs. Our project managers are always in touch ready to provide you with the reports and any relevant information for your project. Stable delivery By starting the development process, including backend, frontend, and QA simultaneously, we save both time and costs. The development process is flawlessly smooth, the releases are launched according to the schedule. The result is a high-quality product within the preset deadlines. Risk prevention As a long-standing practice, we've worked with various types of projects and saw various mistakes that could be done. As time passed, we formed a habit of foreseeing and preventing them. User-friendly reporting We are strong fans of transparency. That is why we build communication in a way to present the actual state of the project in the most convenient way from text reports to live demos. Marketer Project manager SEO specialist Project manager Marketer SEO specialist Designer QA specialist Developer Designer Account manager QA specialist Developer Account manager Business analyst Business analyst Methodologies we use We don't base our project management services on a particular methodology. We adapt the methodology according to the project peculiarities, your business needs and what workflow you're more comfortable with. Waterfall Agile Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### qa-project-management QA project management We provide reliable QA project management services and rigorously test your product to ensure flawless code quality. Get a quote QA project management What does our QA test include? Our tests check every single software component and guarantee impeccable quality. Mobile Frontend Backend Interface QA project management We implement the following software tests Functional During the functional testing, we verify that each function of the software application operates according to the corresponding functional requirements. In other words, we test the business logic to ensure the products work as they should. Non-functional The goal of non-functional testing is to check such non-functional aspects as reliability, usability, and performance. For example, non-functional testing determines how many people can log in to the software simultaneously. Unit and Integration Testing Unit testing involves small code units representing individual functions. The purpose is to validate that every single unit of the software performs as designed.  During the integrated testing, we test the combined individual units. As a result, we can see how various components of the software interact with each other. Smoke Testing Smoke testing is testing that allows verifying the stability of the essential features of the software. The result of this testing decides whether a product build is stable enough to proceed with further testing. QA project management Our QA management process Step 1 Requirements Validation and Test Planning Our QA engineers team analyzes the project requirements during the first step of the software testing. We need to get a comprehensive idea of what should be tested and figure out the testable requirements Step 2 Creating the Test Plan At the test planning stage, we determine the effort and cost estimates for the entire project. We select several criteria, including what aspects of testing need to be completed, the test methodology, the volume of resources for the testing phase, the amount of time, and the deadlines for the result delivery. Step 3 Testing the Software This stage is the testing process when our QA teams evaluate the functionality implemented during each sprint. This stage aims to cover all the bugs, report bugs to the developers, and ensure all the features work correctly. QA project management Tools we use Postman Firebase fabric Charles Proxy Browser's Developer Tools IntelliJ IDEA Java Gradle Charles Proxy Charles Proxy Selenoid GitHub CircleCI ### spree commerce development Why Spree Commerce? Spree Commerce is a robust platform and cost efficient solution that perfectly suits the business needs. Built with Ruby on Rails Spree Commerce is built with Ruby on Rails, which is known for its mind-boggling development speed and stability. Combined with Ruby on Rails, Spree Commerce enables developers to create beautiful e-commerce apps that are user-friendly both for businesses and their customers. Scalability Spree Commerce is a cutting-edge framework that was built with scalability in mind. Since it's open-source, the traffic will be continuously growing along with the shop itself. Spree Commerce is capable of supporting tens of thousands of products with impeccable website performance and insignificant increase in the response time. Powerful extensions for growth As a store owner, you'll probably want your store to have some extra features that differ from the standard ones provided by the default settings of the theme. Spree has plenty of various extensions that will allow you to make your shop unique. Ultimate mobile experience Having a mobile-friendly website is a must-have feature. Since smartphones have limited processing power, the websites based on Spree are better in terms of performance and battery consumption. Spree Commerce Development Case Studies Take a look at some of the online shops that we built using Spree Commerce. trèStiQue trèStiQue is a unique solution in the world of beauty. Using cutting-edge technologies along with Spree, we successfully improved the product. Among the improvements were the following: Abandoned Cart integration.Integrating Granify for attracting more customers and providing a better buying experience.Improving the checkout procedure by enhancing User Experience for one-page checkout.Reducing ownership costs by moving from third-party services to free custom solutions. Additionally, we refactored the back-end of the project in order to avoid any issues with implementing new functionality in the future. Altogether, these steps led to positive changes in the technological and financial status of the project. I want a similar app! People Power Created by an IoT manufacturer, MyPlace is an online store for distributors to sell handpicked, secure IoT tech for smart homes. To end up with a successful project, we combined a complex project management approach with the cutting-edge tech stack. All types of payments were smoothly integrated by us. Every debiting from an account launches respective algorithms to calculate taxes. Additionally, we’ve integrated Braintree payment gateway, as well as MyPlace's database along with the database of People Power. I want a similar app! Deep Monitor Deep Monitor is a unique web application aimed to protect users privacy online. The system allows finding out whether users personal data is compromised and exposed on the Dark Web. Based on the Spree Commerce, Deep Monitor is great in terms of scalability, ease of customization, maintenance, and security. It uses complex algorithms and surfs the Dark Web in search of any mentions of the sensitive data such as phone number, credit card accounts, etc. and notifies if any matches are found. If so, the application conveniently outputs the results in a user-friendly admin panel. I want a similar app! Saffron Cooks Saffron Cooks is a premium food delivery service with a restaurant-like dining experience. The website offers a plethora of chef-made meals that can be delivered right to the door. We kicked off with a one-page checkout procedure and the integration of Braintree's API into the website. Credit cards are now automatically saved into the payment processing system. We also introduced a loyalty program and developed a new "gift-card" feature as well as email and SMS notification features and implemented the long-anticipated "delivery on-demand" feature. I want a similar app! ### ui ux design agency Best UI UX Design Agency Jetruby Create a usable product that solves people's problems and attain your goals with the help of the professional UX UI design agency. Get ballpark estimate! Why are successful businesses partnering with a UI/UX design agency? A product with an impressive UX will not only satisfy your users' needs but will also motivate them to use it more actively. With more than 11 years of development experience, our team has the expertise to provide your users with useful and intuitive applications. At JetRuby, we focus on building applications that people will enjoy using. We commit to making sure your application reaches its full potential and improves your customers' quality of life. 01 Refined Structure 01 Boost Revenue 01 Refined Structure 02 Increase in Revenue 01 Refined Structure 03 Cut development costs 01 Refined Structure 04 Engagement and Brand Loyalty An intuitive, easy-to-navigate design is the key for a successful user story. That’s having a great design is one of the best ways to have your ROI improved. First of all, the design is about how a product works. Knowing how customers interact with your product, what features are the most important and what actions you want users to make is crucial to building a successful application. With a thoroughly designed app, there are fewer chances that bugs and goofs will mess things up. As a result, you save effort on fixing bugs. Effective design makes your brand stand out, attract more users and increase their satisfaction. They will be happy to hang up a little longer with your app and associate your brand with pleasant experience. Work process UI UX design agency. Understand Design always starts with research and analysis. We combine your objectives and requirements with competitors' analysis and users' needs. Create Using the insights gained, our team gathers the ideas, create clickable wireframes and turns them into beautiful UI layouts. Validate We validate the product in terms of user flow and experience and provide you with an accurate cost estimation for project development. Let's build great things together! Fill out the form and we’ll get in touch with you soon.  First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Chose one option I want to talk about a project I want to hire tech talents I want to apply for a job I have another question or feedback What is your budget? Tell us about Choose a file Receive company news I agree to receive company news. Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### web development company Web Development company We are dedicated to delivering innovative and effective web solutions that help our clients succeed in the digital world. Whether you need a simple website, a complex e-commerce platform, or a custom web application, we have the skills and the expertise to make it happen. Our working process is divided into steps, so that it's transparent and logical. Get a quote Steps The web development process in the company Step 1 The Product Vision Business analyst interviews future product owners, gathers requirements, and shapes the product vision. We will draft a project requirements document and roadmap to guide further development. Step 2 Proof of Concept We’ll prepare the proof of concept to demonstrate the feasibility of the major idea or hypothesis. We already see the marketable solution in the sales context at this stage. Proof of concept provides us with a viable business case ready for adoption that fulfills clients' requirements. step 3 Prototyping Our designers draft a wireframe — a basic page structure without the content and a final visual design. The wireframe will demonstrate to you an overall working model of the product. step 4 Development Our development process is iteration-like, so we deliver an increment at the end of each sprint cycle. We build AI and ML enabled software solutions. websites and mobile applications that provide tangible competitive advantage. step 5 QA We conduct rigorous QA testing using functional and non-functional methods, running tests in automatic or manual mode or combining those methods. All the sprint reports are shared with you to make the sprint progress completely transparent. step 5 Maintenance Once we've finished the product development phase, we ensure the postrelease support with all issues you might have. The process includes bug fixing, adding new features or improving existing ones, adapting the software for new platforms, and re-engineering. Stack Our web development technical stack Ruby & Ruby on Rails The best choice for fast development. The creation of Ruby-based projects is swift due to the technical benefits of the framework architecture and the peculiarities of development tools. Node.JS NodeJS is comfortable from a developer's viewpoint as JavaScript language serves both frontend and backend parts. Python Python is valid for both development and testing. Python is a simple language and suites small projects which don't require a large memory capacity. React JS React JS is perfect for websites with a large content volume and supports progressive web applications. Vue JS Vue JS suits adaptable user interfaces and complex one-page apps. Angular JS Angular JS is a good fit for developing interactive web applications. The structure and architecture of this framework make it a viable choice for a big scalable project. Swift Its error-resistance ability significantly speeds development up. A high speed of code execution makes Swift-based apps work in a flying mode. Objective-C A flexible language that allows developers to create smaller programs with richer functionality. X Code The software in which developers write and test code, test and debug applications, and run many other operations. Java The fundamental language for Android application development. It allows developers to write code that works seamlessly across multiple mobile platforms. Kotlin Developers find this language easy to use. Often, Kotlin applications are cheaper for the customer and easier to maintain in the future. React Native An excellent solution for building applications that will run smoothly regardless of the underlying platform or system. Electron This language is suitable for multi-platform desktop applications that do not have strict memory usage requirements and don't require elaborated UX/UI design. Why us Our expertise in web development Let figures and facts speak for themselves. We have over 90 web development projects with more than 700.000+ users worldwide. Our products are easy-to-navigate and serve to deliver practical business value. We're doing the web world better, so do it with us! ## Posts ### Future-Proofing Your Business Model with AI & Automatio Today, in this fast-moving, competitive market, companies face a tricky question: how can they stay relevant, resilient, and profitable while keeping up with constant technological change? Traditional strategies and business models that relied heavily on manual processes and reactive decision-making are increasingly insufficient. The solution lies in artificial intelligence (AI) and automation — technologies that not only optimize existing operations but also redefine the way organizations operate and grow. AI and automation are strategic enablers that allow businesses to streamline operations, make smarter decisions, scale efficiently, and innovate continuously. Companies that adopt these technologies early build sustainable competitive advantages and future-proof their business models.  Streamlining Operations: Efficiency at Scale One of the most tangible benefits of AI and automation is operational efficiency. Manual workflows are prone to errors, slowdowns, and bottlenecks. AI-driven systems can take over repetitive and time-consuming tasks, freeing human talent to focus on creative and strategic initiatives. Examples from JetRuby: JetRuby uses AI to automate back-office tasks, including data classification, compliance checks, and meeting‑transcript analysis. We adopt tools like ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, and Cursor IDE, integrating them with their own Model Context Protocol (MCP) so that AI has context about JetRuby’s standards before generating code or queries. In one striking case, JetRuby generated a complex SQL query using ChatGPT in 30 minutes, a task that previously required hours. These practices reflect a responsible approach to automation — we use AI to build a reputation of trust and data integrity.  Benefits of operational automation: Faster workflows and process acceleration Reduced human error and increased accuracy 24/7 customer support without extra headcount Lower operational costs and improved resource allocation Empowering Smarter, Data-Driven Decisions Data is often called the “new oil,” but raw data is only valuable when analyzed and acted upon. AI platforms process massive datasets, uncover hidden patterns, and provide actionable insights that humans cannot detect on their own. JetRuby case in FinTech: On the FinTech services page, we explain how Jetruby creates AI‑driven systems for fraud detection, real-time anomaly detection, and risk scoring.  Jetruby builds automated credit-scoring engines that combine traditional financial data with alternative data sources (such as open banking) to enable real-time lending decisions. We also implement AI-powered KYC/AML workflows, using OCR and face matching to verify identities in seconds, significantly speeding up onboarding. These AI‑driven financial tools help clients make faster and more accurate decisions, prevent fraud, and streamline compliance — all while reducing manual overhead. Benefits of AI-driven decision-making: Predict trends and anticipate customer behavior Identify risks and mitigate potential issues proactively Optimize strategies across operations, marketing, and supply chains Respond in real time to market changes Scaling Without Sacrificing Quality As businesses grow, manual processes often become bottlenecks. Automation enables companies to scale efficiently without compromising quality or performance. AI ensures consistency, allowing organizations to handle higher volumes while maintaining service or product excellence. Key advantages of scalable AI systems: Consistent quality and performance across all operations Faster market expansion and growth without bottlenecks Accelerated innovation through rapid prototyping and testing Flexible infrastructure that evolves alongside the business Unlocking New Revenue Streams AI not only improves existing processes but also creates opportunities for entirely new business models and revenue streams. Companies can leverage AI insights to develop personalized products, predictive services, and innovative digital offerings. Examples: Personalized client services: Using AI, companies help FinTech clients provide hyper-personalized recommendations and financial planning. Robo-advisors: AI-powered portfolio management tools automatically rebalance assets and provide investment suggestions, creating entirely new digital service offerings. Predictive analytics platforms: Clients can anticipate customer needs, optimize offers, and launch targeted campaigns that were impossible to manage manually. Responsible and Secure AI Integration Future-proofing a business with AI requires more than adopting new tools; it demands responsible implementation. All AI outputs should be verified by human experts and supported by automated validation, ensuring accuracy and reliability. Handling data safely is equally critical, with strict protocols to protect client information and maintain compliance. Teams must be trained to use AI effectively, embedding it into workflows without compromising quality or security. Key principles for safe and scalable AI adoption: Human oversight: verify AI outputs and decisions Data protection: follow strict confidentiality and compliance standards Team training: ensure employees understand safe and effective AI use Integrated workflows: embed AI responsibly without disrupting operations This approach shows that future-proofing isn’t just about speed or automation — it’s about building trustworthy, resilient, and scalable systems. Building a Future-Ready Organization To truly future-proof your business, AI and automation must be embedded in both strategy and culture. Key steps include: Identify high-impact areas: Focus AI on functions that deliver measurable ROI (analytics, operations, sales, marketing). Automate repetitive tasks: Free employees for creative, strategic, and high-value work. Invest in adaptive infrastructure: Build flexible systems that evolve as business needs change. Cultivate a data-driven culture: Empower employees to make decisions based on insights rather than intuition. Encourage innovation: Foster experimentation with AI to develop new products, services, or operational methods. Conclusion In rapidly changing times, companies that fail to embrace AI and automation risk falling behind. Future-proof businesses are those that integrate intelligence into every aspect of operations, harness data to make better decisions, scale without limits, and continuously innovate. JetRuby is a living example of how AI and automation can transform both internal processes and client solutions. By applying AI responsibly and strategically, businesses can not only survive but thrive — building resilient, scalable, and sustainable models for the future. Future-proof your business with JetRuby. Harness AI and automation responsibly to scale faster, make smarter decisions, and build resilient, sustainable operations. Talk to our team today. ### Kotlin Multiplatform vs React Native: How to Choose the Right Strategy Cross-platform development has come a long way since the early “write once, run anywhere” promises. In 2025, companies are looking for a balance between speed, performance, and maintainability, and two leading technologies stand out: Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) and React Native. At Jetruby, we’ve helped startups and enterprises build production apps using both approaches. Each has distinct strengths, trade-offs, and ideal use-cases. Here’s how they truly compare, and how global brands are leveraging them today. The Real Question Behind the Choice Most teams don’t ask, “Which is better?”. They ask, “Which one will deliver the most value with the least friction?” React Native and Kotlin Multiplatform tackle that question from opposite sides: React Native shares both UI and business logic, enabling rapid delivery from a single JavaScript/TypeScript codebase. Kotlin Multiplatform focuses on sharing core logic: networking, data, and domain layers, while keeping UI native or partially shared via Compose Multiplatform. Both are powerful, but they serve different strategies. Cost Comparison: How Much Does Development Actually Cost? Before we go deeper, here’s what most founders and CTOs really want to understand: the financial impact. While exact numbers vary by region and app complexity, global averages look like this: React Native Cost Ranges MVP / simple consumer app: $35,000–$80,000 Mid-level product (market-ready app): $80,000–$180,000 Complex app with custom UI, animations, or multiple integrations: $150,000–$300,000 Enterprise-grade systems: $250,000+ Why is it generally cheaper? React Native lets teams reuse 70-90% of their codebase, including UI, significantly reducing development hours. Kotlin Multiplatform Cost Ranges MVP sharing only core logic: $50,000-$110,000 Full production app: $120,000-$250,000 Enterprise products with domain-heavy logic: $200,000-$400,000+ Why is it usually higher? KMP shares logic but preserves native UI. This often requires two UI teams, although the shared architecture significantly reduces long-term costs. However, KMP can reduce backend/core logic duplication by 40-60%, which saves substantial money over the project’s lifecycle (1-3 years). Core Differences that Matter Performance and Overhead React Native offers smooth performance for most consumer apps. However, because it relies on a JavaScript-to-native bridge, very complex animations or computationally intensive tasks can run into limits.  It also sometimes struggles to integrate with specific native visual components fully and has limited access to some system-level modules, which can cause issues for products that depend on advanced navigation features or built-in operating system security mechanisms. Kotlin Multiplatform runs closer to the metal. Shared logic compiles directly to native binaries, eliminating the JS bridge and achieving near-native performance, especially for data-intensive or real-time features. Case in point: When Baidu built its Wonder app using Kotlin Multiplatform, it unified data and domain logic across Android and iOS while keeping native UIs. The result was: consistent behavior, faster maintenance, and native-level responsiveness. Startup Time and Memory React Native initializes a JS engine at startup, which can slightly delay app launch. Kotlin Multiplatform apps, especially on Android, compile ahead of time, making them lighter and faster to start. This difference may seem small, but when scaled to millions of daily sessions, it results in a noticeable improvement in user experience. Developer Experience and Hot Reload React Native shines here. Its hot reload and fast refresh features let developers tweak the UI in real time, massively accelerating iteration cycles. However, development is often carried out by teams familiar primarily with React Native - many of whom come from a web or frontend background rather than native mobile development. This can lead to challenges when native code needs to be written (which is occasionally necessary) or during the app store submission process, as each platform has its own intricate requirements and quirks. KMP, while powerful under the hood, doesn’t yet offer this instant feedback for the UI. Developers still rebuild per platform when adjusting visuals. The trade-off? Type safety, compile-time guarantees, and more predictable performance in production. Code Sharing and Architecture React Native’s “one codebase for everything” approach simplifies smaller projects and MVPs. Kontlin Multiplatform. By contrast, shares logic but preserves platform-specific UIs. But MVPs either die or become working applications in the blink of an eye, and early users provide feedback immediately. Hence, the developments made in the MVP form the foundation of the entire application. This means that if the hypothesis is proven and there is market fit, Kotlin Multiplatform is the right choice if you don't want to rewrite everything from scratch. Example: Cash App used Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile to share business logic across Android and iOS while maintaining native UIs, reducing code duplication, and improving consistency between platforms. Ecosystem and Community Support React Native has a massive ecosystem that includes countless open-source packages, active forums, and enterprise adoption from Meta, Shopify, and others. However, the growth of this ecosystem has significantly slowed in recent years, mainly due to challenges with deep integration into operating system functionality. Despite its size, not all popular libraries are actively maintained — updates and vulnerability fixes are inconsistent across the ecosystem. Kotlin Multiplatform’s ecosystem is newer but rapidly growing. JetBrains’ investment in tooling and Compose Multiplatform is accelerating adoption fast. For teams already fluent in Kotlin or Android development, the transition is now smoother than ever. Type Safety and Maintainability TypeScript improves React Native’s developer experience, but it still can’t match Kotlin’s compile-time rigor. KMP offers strict type safety, null handling, and early error detection, making it especially appealing for large, long-term projects. Enterprises that value predictability and stability often gravitate toward this model. Real-World Case Studies Let’s look at how organizations have put these technologies to work. Kotlin Multiplatform in Action Baidu (Wonder App): Unified data, caching, and API logic across platforms with KMP. Maintained native UIs while reducing code duplication by 30-40%. Cash App: Shared business logic across Android and iOS using KMM while keeping native UIs. This reduced code duplication and improved consistency between platforms. React Native in Action Global Lifestyle Brand: Rebuilt their e-commerce app in React Native, improving app speed and user flow. Cart abandonment dropped from 85% to 42%, conversions doubled, and app store rating rose from 2.1 ★ to 4.8 ★. Callstack Enterprise Clients: Used React Native to deploy a single codebase across 5 TV platforms (Tizen, FireTV, tvOS, etc.). Startup time improved 5%, re-renders cut by one-third, and maintenance costs decreased. These examples highlight a clear pattern: React Native accelerates UI-centric consumer apps and MVPs. KMP excels in logic-heavy or enterprise contexts demanding reliability and performance. The Decision Framework So, how do you actually decide between Kotlin Multiplatform and React Native? It comes down to your team’s strengths, project goals, and long-term priorities. Here’s a quick guide to help you frame the decision. If your goal is to: Get to market fast and reuse both UI and logic across platforms — go with React Native. It’s well-suited for quick concept prototypes and small showcase apps aimed at investors, but even for MVPs, it’s often better to consider more modern approaches. Achieve native-level performance and benefit from strict typing, compile-time checks, and predictable behavior — choose Kotlin Multiplatform. Leverage existing JavaScript or web talent — stick with React Native, since it’s built on familiar web technologies, but be ready to bring in native developers for app publishing and for writing modules that require native code. Capitalize on existing Kotlin or Android expertise — opt for Kotlin Multiplatform, which extends Kotlin’s strengths to iOS and other platforms. Plan for long-term scalability and full code ownership — Kotlin Multiplatform offers a stronger architectural foundation and better maintainability over time. Validate ideas quickly or build an MVP — React Native is still the fastest way to ship and test a cross-platform concept. In short: React Native is about speed and reach. Kotlin Multiplatform is about stability and scalability. The best choice depends on your team’s DNA: what skills you already have, how fast you need to move, and how much you value long-term maintainability over short-term velocity. How Jetruby Helps Companies Choose the Right Stack At Jetruby, we don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. We evaluate your product goals, team composition, and scalability needs before recommending a tech stack. Our approach: Audit your existing mobile or web setup Prototype with both React Native and Kotlin Multiplatform if needed Validate performance, maintainability, and ROI before full investment Whether you’re building your first MVP or scaling a cross-platform enterprise app, we’ll help you pick the right stack, based on data, not hype.   Why is Jetruby the Right Partner for This Decision? We're not just developers. We are architects who build solutions to last for years to come. Our process includes: Deep analysis of your existing codebase and team structure. We assess how easily your developers can adapt to the chosen technology. Prototyping and benchmarking. We can build two prototypes of a key screen so you can visually compare performance and development speed. Creating a migration roadmap. If you already have an existing application, we'll show you how to gradually implement KMP or RN without disrupting ongoing development. Ready to Make the Right Choice? If you’re evaluating cross-platform options or planning to modernize your mobile architecture, reach out to Jetruby’s product strategy team. We’ll help you find the balance between speed, performance, and maintainability, so you can deliver the experience your users deserve. Get a free technical audit from Jetruby. ### Ruby on Rails 8.1.0 — What’s New and Why It Matters Rails 8.1 is here, and while it’s not a revolutionary update, it brings several improvements that make building and maintaining Rails apps smoother, faster, and more reliable. Let’s take a look at what’s new and why these updates matter for real-world development. A Smarter Way to Handle Long Jobs One of the biggest changes in Rails 8.1 is the introduction of continuable jobs. If your app runs background tasks like importing data, processing large files, or syncing records, you’ll love this feature. With the new ActiveJob::Continuable, you can split a long-running job into smaller steps and resume exactly where it left off if something goes wrong or the server restarts. No more starting from zero after a failure. This means faster recovery, less wasted time, and more reliable job processing, especially in production environments where interruptions are common. Structured Events: A Better Way to Log and Monitor Rails now includes a new API for structured event logging called Rails.event. nstead of scattered log messages, you can emit clear, structured events like this: Rails.event.notify("user.signup", user_id: 123, email: "user@example.com") You can even add context or tags to group related events. This change might sound small, but it’s a big win for observability. Structured logs make it much easier to track user actions, monitor app behavior, and integrate with tools like Datadog or Honeybadger. It’s the foundation for better insights and debugging. Native Markdown Support Rails 8.1 now supports rendering Markdown directly in your views. If your app includes blogs, docs, or any kind of content written in Markdown, you no longer need external gems like Redcarpet or Kramdown. This reduces dependencies and simplifies your stack. Built-in CI Configuration Another cool addition is the new CI DSL. You can now define your Continuous Integration workflow directly in config/ci.rb: CI.run do   step "Setup", "bin/setup"   step "Tests", "bin/rails test"   step "Lint", "bin/rubocop" end Then just run everything with bin/ci. This makes your build pipeline more transparent and keeps CI steps consistent across different Rails apps. No more messy shell scripts or guesswork—everything lives right in your repo. Deprecating Old Associations, Gracefully If you’ve ever tried to remove an old Active Record association and broke something unexpectedly, this one’s for you. Rails 8.1 lets you mark associations as deprecated: has_many :posts, deprecated: true When someone uses it, Rails warns you. That means you can phase out old relationships step by step, without breaking the app. It’s a small but very practical change for large or long-lived projects. Upgrade Notes If you’re upgrading from Rails 8.0, the transition should be smooth, but there are a few things to check: Rails 8.1 requires Ruby 3.2 or newer. Some older APIs and constants have been removed or deprecated. A few Active Record options (like some MySQL and SQLite behaviors) are gone. As always—run your test suite, watch for deprecation warnings, and make sure your gems are updated. Why It Matters for Teams At JetRuby, we build and maintain complex Rails systems, so these updates hit close to home. Continuable jobs mean more reliable background processing—critical for data-heavy apps. Structured events make monitoring and debugging easier across distributed systems. Built-in CI reduces friction between teams and keeps processes consistent. Deprecation tools make gradual refactoring safer and easier. All together, Rails 8.1 helps developers focus less on plumbing and more on building value. Final Thoughts Rails 8.1 is about refinement. It makes your jobs more resilient, your logs more structured, your content easier to render, and your pipelines simpler to manage. If you haven’t yet, start testing the upgrade on a staging environment. Fix deprecations early, explore the new APIs, and you’ll be well prepared to enjoy everything Rails 8.1 offers. Rails keeps evolving in the best possible way—by making developers’ lives easier without breaking what already works. What This Means for JetRuby and Our Clients Each of these improvements directly supports how JetRuby delivers software: Faster development cycles — thanks to built-in CI workflows and simplified configuration. Higher reliability — through resumable jobs and better error recovery. Improved visibility — via structured logs and richer observability. Easier maintenance — with native Markdown rendering and deprecation tracking. Lower operational risk — because we can safely upgrade and refactor large systems step by step.  Ultimately, Rails 8.1 helps us write cleaner, more maintainable code — and that translates into shorter delivery times, fewer regressions, and stronger performance for every client project. Looking Ahead At JetRuby, we’ve already started integrating Rails 8.1 features into our new applications and selectively backporting improvements to existing ones. Our internal CI pipelines, observability stack, and job systems are evolving alongside this release. Rails continues to prove why it’s the backbone of modern web development — it grows with the ecosystem without losing its elegance and productivity. And with Rails 8.1, we’re better equipped than ever to build stable, high-performing systems for startups and enterprises alike. ### Why You Shouldn’t Start a Project with a Large Team Just to Force the Timeline Many founders believe that putting more people on a project will help them reach the finish line faster. It sounds logical — more developers, more output. But in practice, that assumption rarely works. At Jetruby, we’ve repeatedly seen that starting with a large team often means higher costs, slower results, and lower quality. This case study explores why small, focused teams consistently outperform larger ones, how rushing the timeline can lead to wasted budgets, and what happens when companies chase promises instead of processes. 1. The Myth of Speed Through Size It’s one of the oldest misconceptions in software development — the belief that adding more people speeds things up. In reality, as Steve McConnell famously noted in Rapid Development, every new team member adds communication overhead, decision friction, and management complexity. The team spends more time talking than building. We’ve seen this play out countless times. A project starts with urgency — “we must launch fast!” — and a large team is assembled to meet the deadline. But soon, the coordination effort grows, priorities blur, and rework begins to consume the budget. The project doesn’t accelerate; it stalls. At early stages, requirements are still fluid. A small, senior team can adapt quickly and make decisions on the fly. A large one struggles to stay aligned. The result? High costs, missed milestones, and diluted ownership. When we’re brought in to audit or rescue such projects, the pattern is always the same: Communication chaos outweighs coding time Technical debt piles up Founders lose visibility into what’s actually being built That’s when clients realize that adding more people was never the answer — they needed clarity, not headcount. As Fred Brooks wrote in The Mythical Man-Month: “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.” At JetRuby, we’ve seen this truth confirmed in real life across hundreds of projects — from startups to complex enterprise systems. Speed comes from focus, not from force. 2. Common Objections — and How to Handle Them Q: “We have a strict deadline — we need more people!” A: Deadlines require clarity and prioritization, not headcount. A small, synchronized team can move faster by focusing on what truly matters for launch. Q: “We can afford a large team now — why not scale early?” A: Because early-stage projects are fluid. More people before clarity means more waste. Build a foundation first, then scale deliberately. Q: “Our investors expect to see growth in team size.” A: Growth in metrics, not in payroll, is what impresses investors. Efficiency and traction prove maturity more than inflated teams. 3. Reality Beats Fairy Tales You can’t “buy” speed with more developers. True progress comes from well-structured, disciplined teams that understand your goals, adapt quickly, and stay aligned. At Jetruby, we believe that the right-sized team — small, experienced, and deeply engaged — delivers faster, cleaner, and more predictably than any inflated setup. Start small. Move fast. Scale wisely. Real Stories: When “More” Didn’t Mean “Better” Below are three anonymized real-world cases that illustrate what happens when clients chase headcount or low-cost promises — and why they ultimately return to a focused, small-team approach. Case 1: Celebrity App Rebuild A well-known public figure approached us after another outsourcing firm failed to deliver a functional mobile app. The initial team was large and fragmented — multiple sub-teams, unclear ownership, and no single vision. When we audited the product, it was clear that most of the codebase had to be rewritten. Result: We rebuilt the app from scratch with a small, senior-focused team. The client eventually paid double — once to the previous vendor, and once for the real solution — but this time got a working, maintainable product. Lesson: Bigger doesn’t mean better — it just multiplies mistakes faster. Case 2: Digital Publishing Platform Overload A well-known educational publisher was drawn in by promises of “enterprise-level scaling” from an offshore provider — the result: a bulky, underperforming platform that couldn’t handle real traffic. When the company came to us, we restructured the system with a small, expert team focused on performance and reliability. Within weeks, the platform met its load requirements and ran smoothly under production stress. Lesson: Small, specialized teams solve core performance problems faster than large, fragmented ones chasing features. Case 3: The Low-Cost Detour Another client — a hardware-connected app startup — worked with Jetruby for months before switching to a “budget-friendly” vendor. Within a short time, the project stalled completely. Delivery slowed, quality dropped, and deadlines evaporated. They returned before the product hit an epic fail. Our compact, high-context team restored the project and stabilized the release process within weeks. Lesson: Chasing the lowest bid or the largest team often costs more in the end — both in money and in lost time. Final Thought In all three cases, the pattern was the same: a large or low-cost team created chaos, while a small, engaged team delivered clarity and success. At Jetruby, we don’t sell team size — we sell outcomes. Because the right team isn’t the biggest one, it’s the one who truly understands your goals. ### JetRuby vs India & LatAm: A Smarter Offshore Choice When companies think of outsourcing, cheaper and more numerous contractors are often sought-after, and for a good reason.  They offer competitive rates and large developer pools. But what seems like a cost-saving decision often leads to hidden challenges: communication breakdowns, inconsistent quality, and a lack of real business thinking. JetRuby was built to be different — and better. We combine high-quality engineering with product thinking, clear communication, and true ownership of your business goals. Here’s how we stack up. Business-Driven Development Many offshore teams take a “just tell us what to build” approach, focusing solely on writing code. While that might be enough for simple, isolated tasks, it quickly falls apart when you’re building real products that need to serve real users.  At JetRuby, we take a different approach — we focus on the why, not only the what. Every technical decision we make is aligned with your business goals. We go beyond the specs to help you build smarter: we ask the right questions, challenge assumptions, prioritize features that actually drive value, and always think in terms of ROI, user outcomes, and time-to-market. Our edge: You get strategic input, not only technical execution. Clear, Proactive Communication Communication is often the biggest frustration when working with offshore teams where language barriers, time zone gaps, and passive communication styles often lead to delays, confusion, and extra overhead. At JetRuby, we turn communication from a liability into a core strength.  Our development teams  fluent English and operate in time zones that overlap with both U.S. and European working hours, ensuring smooth, real-time collaboration. You’ll receive daily updates, fast responses, and a proactive attitude from people who not only understand your words, but also your business context and goals.   Our edge: You don’t need to repeat yourself — we understand you the first time. Higher Talent Quality, Not Only Quantity Large pools of developers often lead to inconsistent quality, unforeseen rotations and a loss of direction.  Vetting takes time you don’t have. Many teams rely heavily on junior talent with limited experience in real product delivery. At JetRuby, we focus on quality over quantity. JetRuby’s engineering excellence: experienced developers, rigorous hiring, and stable teams built for startup success. Our developers are mid-to-senior level, with proven product experience  Every hire goes through technical and soft skill evaluation  We build stable teams that stay with your project long-term  We know how to work in startup and scale-up environments  Our edge: You get a team that knows what they’re doing — from day one. Structured Process & Predictable Results Many offshore teams struggle with process — missed deadlines, scope creep, and vague status updates are common complaints we hear from clients who’ve “been there, done that.” At JetRuby, our operations run like a well-oiled machine. We apply Agile the way it’s meant to be used: with structured sprints, clear demos, regular retrospectives, and full transparency throughout.  Tools like Jira, Notion, Slack, and ClickUp keep everything visible and organized, while velocity tracking and real-time progress metrics ensure you're always in the loop. With dedicated project managers and tech leads overseeing every detail, nothing falls through the cracks — and delivery stays on track. Our edge: You always know where things stand — and what’s next. Cultural Fit & Real Ownership It’s not only about skills. Cultural misalignment can derail even technically solid teams. Many offshore developers avoid pushing back, won’t question unclear specs, and stick to "yes" even when it’s the wrong call. At JetRuby, our teams act like true partners — not passive vendors waiting for instructions. We’re not afraid to speak up when there’s a better way to do something. We proactively flag risks, suggest smarter alternatives, and constantly look for ways to improve both the product and the process.  We think and operate as an extension of your in-house team, not as outsiders. Our culture is built around ownership, initiative, and accountability — so you can count on us to care about outcomes just as much as you do. Our edge: You get a team that challenges, improves, and truly cares. Why JetRuby Outperforms Traditional Offshore Teams What you gain with JetRuby: a proactive, senior-level team that thinks strategically and delivers reliably. In short, here’s what you gain by working with us: Strategic product thinking, not just development Fluent English and seamless communication Senior-level talent you don’t need to micromanage Transparent process and reliable delivery A team that acts like owners, not vendors  Our edge: You don’t just get code — you get a real partner who helps you build the right product, faster and better. Conclusion Choosing the right development partner isn’t just about saving money — it’s about accelerating your product, avoiding costly mistakes, and building something that actually works. JetRuby focuses on what truly matters — strategy, expertise, communication, reliability, and alignment with your goals. While some offer  volume and low rates, JetRuby delivers what truly matters:   strategic thinking, senior-level talent, clear communication, reliable delivery, and full alignment with your business goals. We don’t just build what you ask for. We help you build what your product actually needs — faster, smarter, and with fewer headaches. JetRuby is the partner you wish you'd hired first. ### The Ultimate Guide to Building MVPs That Scale In the fast-moving world of startups, launching quickly is essential — but scaling effectively is what defines long-term success. At JetRuby, we’ve helped dozens of startups move from initial idea to scalable product, and one thing is clear: building an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is just the beginning. In this guide, we’ll walk you through building an MVP that validates your idea and lays a strong foundation for future growth. What Is a Scalable MVP? An MVP is a simplified version of your product that includes only the core features necessary to solve a specific problem for early adopters. However, a scalable MVP takes it a step further — it considers long-term growth from the start. Key Traits of a Scalable MVP: Modular architecture that allows easy addition of new features  An efficient codebase that doesn’t require a complete rewrite later Data structure designed to grow with user demand Design a clean and flexible UI/UX that you can easily extend Step 1: Validate the Core Idea Before writing a single line of code, ensure there is a real problem worth solving. How to validate: Conduct interviews with your target audience Use surveys or landing pages to gauge interest Launch no-code prototypes or simple landing pages Focus on solving real problems, not just building solutions. Tip: Avoid falling in love with your solution. Fall in love with the problem you’re solving. Step 2: Define Your Success Metrics A successful MVP should prove one thing: that people are willing to use (and eventually pay for) your product. Questions to ask: What metric indicates genuine user interest? (e.g., sign-ups, daily active users) What’s the minimum traction needed to justify further development? How will you gather and measure user feedback? Step 3: Prioritize Features Ruthlessly Every startup wants to launch with a polished, feature-rich product. But that’s not the MVP mindset. Use the MoSCoW method to prioritize your product features. Use the MoSCoW method: Must-Have: Core functionality that solves the problem Should-Have: Features that add value but aren’t essential Could-Have: Nice-to-haves that can wait Won’t-Have (Yet): For future versions Step 4: Choose the Right Tech Stack Selecting a tech stack with scalability in mind is crucial. At JetRuby, we often recommend technologies like: Choose the right tech stack for your MVP. Backend: Node.js, Ruby on Rails, or Django (based on project needs) Frontend: React.js or Vue.js for dynamic interfaces Databases: PostgreSQL or MongoDB, depending on data complexity Cloud Platforms: AWS, Google Cloud, or Heroku for easy scaling Keep it simple: proven tools work best. Tip: Don’t over-engineer. Choose proven tools that your team can iterate with quickly. Step 5: Build for Change While the MVP should be simple, it shouldn’t be a dead end. Make sure the product architecture is ready for the following stages. Use modular code that can be reused or replaced Implement API-first design for future integrations Consider microservices if your product expects high traffic or complexity  Step 6: Test Early, Test Often Don’t wait until launch day to find bugs or UX issues. Make sure to include unit and integration tests to ensure your code works as expected. Combine that with manual testing involving real users to catch usability issues. Most importantly, build in feedback loops so you can quickly iterate and improve based on what you learn. Step 7: Launch & Learn Once your MVP is live, your real job begins. Use analytics, interviews, and behavior tracking tools like Mixpanel or Hotjar to understand how users interact with your product. Key mindset: Launch, learn, iterate, repeat. Step 8: Plan for Scaling You’ve validated the idea, and users are responding. What now? To scale: Optimize performance (code, database, infrastructure) Automate repetitive tasks (e.g., user onboarding, support) Strengthen security and compliance (especially in fintech, healthtech, etc.) Prepare for investment by documenting KPIs and growth metrics Final Thoughts An MVP isn’t just a stepping stone — it’s the foundation of your future product. When built strategically, it does more than test assumptions: it enables rapid iteration, attracts early users and investors, supports scaling, and avoids technical debt. A smart MVP isn’t about doing less — it’s about learning more, faster, and building in a way that supports long-term growth. At JetRuby, we combine technical expertise, lean startup thinking, and a deep focus on product-market fit to help founders move from idea to launch — fast. Whether you're just starting or preparing for a major launch, we’ll help you identify the core of your product, choose the right tech, and build an MVP that grows with your business.  Let’s talk — and turn your vision into a scalable reality. ### Vibe Coding: Fast, Cheap, and Dangerous? In today’s AI-positive world, it feels like we’re one step away from declaring: “Developers are obsolete, AI will just code everything!” And while AI tools are incredible copilots, let’s be honest: code is still written by humans. AI is not responsible for product quality, scalability, or compliance. It only helps developers avoid drowning in tedious boilerplate. But lately, we’ve seen a trend called “Vibe Coding” (VC) — throwing together AI-generated snippets or low-code components without testing, documentation, or architecture. It’s fast, cheap, and looks good in a demo. But as the saying goes, “buy cheap, pay twice.” Why Vibe Coding Looks Attractive “The promises of vibe coding: fast MVPs, lower costs, and greater accessibility for non-technical founders.” Speed: AI-assisted scaffolding can spin up an MVP in days. Cost: Offers can be 5–10 times cheaper than traditional development. Accessibility: Non-technical founders can get a working prototype without hiring a full dev team. No wonder Vibe Coding has its memes: “It compiles, ship it!” and “Future-us will refactor it” (spoiler: they won’t). The Hidden Costs of Vibe Coding According to Artem Gavrilov, Head of CSM at JetRuby, real-world data shows that cheap code is often the most expensive code over its lifetime.  Developers spend nearly 42% of their time dealing with technical debt instead of creating new features, according to BlueOptima (2023). The Code Red study (2022) found that poor-quality code carries 15 times more defects and takes 124% longer to fix compared to higher-quality code. Meanwhile. The costs pile up quickly. Sonar (2023) estimates that cleaning up technical debt in a modest one-million-line codebase costs approximately $1.5 million over five years. Multiple surveys confirm that engineers lose between 20% and 40% of their time untangling shortcuts, skipped tests, and missing documentation. That’s time not spent on innovation, but on cleaning up after “fast” decisions. Artem Gavrilov puts it simply: “Paying more for higher-grade resources reduces total cost of ownership”.  The extra upfront expense is offset by fewer defects, faster delivery, and less wasted developer time — often saving more than half of the total project cost across the lifecycle”. A Client Story: 10 times Cheaper Isn’t Always Better JetRuby’s Sales Manager, Andrey Volgin, recalls a client who received two proposals for the same platform. Ours was a full commercial-grade MVP with scalable architecture, automated testing, and compliance baked in. The competitor’s was ten times cheaper. Their trick? A mix of no-code tooling and vibe-coded AI snippets. We explained what that really meant. Low-code/no-code works well for prototypes but often fails under scaling pressure. Vibe coding typically covers only the “happy path,” ignoring real-world complexity until the system breaks. Junior-heavy teams without QA, DevOps, or architecture expertise may deliver something that looks like a product, but it rarely survives growth, compliance, or an investor audit. The risks were clear: missing features, fragile deployments, deferred security, rebuild costs when growth forces a restart, and near-certain failure in due diligence.  We’ve taken over multiple such projects after clients learned this the hard. By then, the “cheap” option had cost them twice: once for the throwaway build, and again for the complete rebuild. The Meme and the Math On Twitter and Reddit, vibe coding gets roasted with classics like: “Future-me will fix it.” → Future-you is broke and angry. “It worked on my machine,” → But your machine isn’t production. “MVP = Mostly Very Problematic.” Behind the jokes lies serious math. For a ten-person engineering team with an annual payroll of $1.5 million, Vibe coding can quietly burn more than a million dollars each year in lost productivity, defect rework, onboarding delays, and outage risks. One study estimated that startups skipping testing — the hallmark of vibe coding — accumulate crippling debt faster than they realize. Over time, it’s not “fast progress” but a drag anchor. So, Is Vibe Coding Always Bad? Not entirely. Vibe coding is fine for hackathons, prototypes, or validating a pitch deck. You don’t need bulletproof architecture for a weekend demo. But if you’re building a real product meant for users, investors, or regulators, you need proper foundations: “Good development practices—often missing in quick ‘vibe coding’ approaches—are key to long-term stability.” Solid architecture Automated testing CI/CD pipelines Proper environments Documentation and compliance baked in Otherwise, the “fast” code slows you down, and the “cheap” code becomes very expensive.  The Bottom Line AI is an incredible accelerator, but not a substitute for professional engineering discipline. Vibe coding is fun, fast, and meme-worthy — but if you’re serious about building something that lasts, you can’t run a business on vibes alone. Or as one engineer put it: “Vibe coding is like building a startup on Red Bull and ramen. It works for a week, but eventually, you’ll need real food.” ### From Long-Term Planning to Rapid Scaling — How Companies Make It Happen Transitioning from meticulous long-term planning to executing aggressive, scalable growth strategies is one of the most pivotal challenges for businesses. Jetruby’s case study explores how visionary leadership, robust frameworks, and prudent execution allow companies to convert strategic foresight into tangible, fast-paced expansion. 1. Laying the Foundation: Strategic Long-Term Planning Successful scaling begins with a long-term vision and strategic architecture. Companies like Snowflake deliberately designed their system architecture to support horizontal scaling from day one. By decoupling storage and compute and implementing a multi-cluster shared data architecture, Snowflake enabled seamless growth from gigabytes to petabytes without major redesigns. Successful scaling starts with a long-term vision and strategic architecture. JetRuby exemplifies this with a modular, future-proof design — see their blog on integrating Webpack with Rails for SPA to support maintainability and loading efficiency. 2. Building Organizational and Cultural Infrastructure Planning ahead means creating scalable structures that stimulate agility. GitLab's remote-first model relied on a 12,000-page handbook, asynchronous processes, full transparency, and structured onboarding — ensuring cohesion and efficiency with a distributed team of 1,500+ across 65+ countries Institute of Enduring Growth. When Airbnb began expanding globally, one of its biggest challenges was keeping the user experience consistent while dozens of product teams shipped new features simultaneously. Without clear standards, design elements could easily become fragmented — different button styles, inconsistent typography, or uneven layouts — creating friction for both users and developers. To solve this, Airbnb invested early in a Design Language System (DLS) — a centralized framework of reusable UI components, typography rules, spacing guidelines, and interaction patterns. The DLS wasn’t just a visual style guide; it was a living system tightly integrated into the company’s development workflow.  Zalando implemented process automation and data-driven inventory management to sustain its cross-Europe logistics operations as it scaled, transitioning from nimble product innovation to full-scale e-commerce maturity Medium. Scalability depends on structures that support clarity and collaboration. JetRuby stimulates growth through accessible knowledge-sharing, including technical storytelling — like in “Rise of the Machines: Building an iOS App to Control a Balancing Robot”—which democratizes learning and scales team capabilities. 3. Adopting Lean and Agile Scaling Practices Efficient scaling requires responsive methodologies: Dropbox embraced the Lean Startup model: building an MVP, iterating via direct user feedback. In just 15 months, registrations surged from 100,000 to over 4 million users Medium. Ericsson, amid a transition to large-scale agile, used an experimental, step-by-step transformation strategy—piloting agile teams, then gradually unifying processes and introducing automation, rather than a disruptive “big bang” overhaul SpringerLink. JetRuby emphasizes clean, maintainable codebases to enable agile iteration. Our “Refactor Like A PRO” guide outlines structured refactoring practices using tools like RuboCop and Flay—a great blueprint for sustainable code evolution.  4. Scaling with Product and Market Dynamics Turning long-term strategy into rapid scaling often hinges on product-market alignment: Figma leveraged product-led growth with a freemium model, network effects, and strong community support. These strategies drove adoption, retention, and ultimately led to its $20 billion acquisition by Adobe. Zoom built a reliable, user-friendly product, deployed a freemium model with viral sharing mechanics, and emphasized operational excellence. This enabled rapid user adoption and growth while maintaining profitability. Enterprise integrations can hinder agility — unless executed cleanly. JetRuby’s SAP Business One + Rails integration breakdown illustrates how to manage forward/backward sync, use DI‑API, and support mobile clients with efficient data flows, making complex enterprise setups accessible and scalable. 5. Optimizing Through Financial and Operational Discipline Managing growth sustainably requires financial foresight: UiPath tracked detailed unit economics, implemented advanced financial planning tools early, monitored capital efficiency metrics, and raised funds proactively. This allowed it to scale from $1M to $100M in ARR in under 21 months, culminating in a successful IPO and valuation of over $35 billion. 6. Step-by-Step Synthesis: The Jetruby Blueprint Here’s how a company like Jetruby might turn strategic long-term planning into actionable, scalable success: Architect for Scale from Inception Create software and systems built for future demand—think decoupled architecture or modular, automated processes. Document & Democratize Knowledge Build internal documentation (like GitLab’s handbook) and transparent onboarding to maintain productivity during rapid team growth. Implement Lean, Iterative Development Use MVPs, fast feedback loops, and experimental pilots to validate assumptions before expanding. Leverage Product-Led Growth Offer freemium trials, community engagement, and virality features to ignite organic adoption. Maintain Financial Discipline Monitor unit economics and ensure diligent capital planning to support aggressive scaling responsibly. Scale Culture and Leadership Thoughtfully Embed values in hiring (Multipliers, Culture-Add), maintain transparent communication, and prioritize knowledge sharing. How JetRuby Makes It Happen JetRuby combines strategic foresight with agile execution to support rapid, sustainable growth. By designing modular systems with tools like Webpack and ActionCable, the team builds architectures that scale effortlessly. Knowledge-sharing is central — from robotics experiments turned BLE-powered apps to refactoring guides that boost code clarity.  JetRuby simplifies complex integrations, such as connecting SAP with Rails, and adapts to global markets through smart localization strategies. With DevOps tools like PagerDuty and NewRelic, operational resilience is built in. The result: a repeatable blueprint for scaling teams, systems, and success. Conclusion The journey from long-term strategic planning to rapid, scalable growth is rarely linear. The companies highlighted prove that success lies at the intersection of foresight, structural discipline, and iterative agility. Snowflake scaled effortlessly by architecting for the future before the first petabyte of data ever arrived. GitLab showed how remote culture and radical transparency can align thousands of employees across continents. Airbnb demonstrated how investing early in design systems maintains product quality at scale. UiPath used financial precision to support hypergrowth without sacrificing profitability. Zoom and Figma leaned on product-led growth to turn virality into sustainable adoption. At the core of all these stories lies a common truth: systems, culture, and strategy must evolve together. JetRuby embodies this philosophy. By combining modular architectures, agile development practices, transparent knowledge-sharing, and operational resilience, JetRuby delivers a repeatable blueprint for scaling — one that balances speed with stability, vision with execution, and ambition with sustainability. For any organization looking to move from deliberate planning to exponential growth, the message is clear: scale isn’t an accident — it’s engineered. Ready to Turn Vision into Scalable Growth? JetRuby helps companies architect systems, streamline processes, and scale with confidence. [Book a Free Consultation]   ### AI-Positive: How JetRuby Transformed Its Marketing Culture At the start of 2025, JetRuby faced the same challenge as many tech companies: competition is rising, budgets are under pressure, and the market expects faster results . We asked ourselves: how do we keep our marketing sharp, efficient, and impactful — without adding more overhead? The answer wasn’t more effort. It was a mindset shift toward AI-positivity: treating AI not as hype or threat, but as a practical ally that strengthens our marketing engine. Step 1: From Skepticism to Curiosity Like many teams, we had doubts. Could AI write well enough? Would it dilute our voice? Would it replace human creativity? The turning point came when we realized: AI doesn’t replace us — it frees us. It handles routine drafts and data-heavy tasks, so our marketers can focus on strategy, creativity, and storytelling. “I used to spend half a day polishing a draft. Now with AI, I get to a clean first version in an hour — and spend my energy on making it truly JetRuby.” – JetRuby Marketing Manager Step 2: Experimenting with Tools We didn’t overhaul everything overnight. Instead, we tested in a sandbox: ChatGPT & Claude → first drafts and content structuring NeuronWriter → SEO keyword refinement MidJourney → campaign visuals Clay → automated lead research Together, these tools formed what we now call JetRuby’s AI Marketing Stack: Content → SEO → Visuals → Outreach. Each step in the stack reinforced the next, creating a streamlined flow from idea to execution. What once took days could now be delivered in hours — with higher quality and consistency. Step 3: Scaling AI into Daily Practice By Q1 2025, AI wasn’t an experiment anymore — it was embedded into nearly every marketing workflow: Content creation: Blog drafting time cut by 45%, doubling output. SEO optimization: Organic traffic up 32% in three months. Visual storytelling: 60% of visuals are AI-assisted, reducing design bottlenecks. Lead nurturing: Outreach response rates lifted from 9% → 19%. Inbound pipeline: AI-supported campaigns drove a 27% increase in staff augmentation leads compared to Q4 2024. To make the impact clear, we visualized the change in a simple before/after snapshot: Before/After AI Adoption Traffic Growth: flat → +32% in 3 months Response Rates: 9% → 19% Lead Pipeline: +27% uplift vs. previous quarter This wasn’t about replacing people. It was about scaling impact without scaling headcount—a challenge our clients face as well. Step 4: Shifting the Culture The most significant transformation wasn’t technical — it was cultural. We encouraged experimentation. Marketers openly shared “AI wins,” even the small ones. Over time, the fear faded, curiosity grew, and creativity flourished. AI-positivity became part of our DNA: not fear, not hype, but practical optimism. Step 5: Lessons from Our Journey Looking back, we see five clear wins: Speed – Content cycles are cut nearly in half. Visibility – SEO-driven growth accelerated. Creativity – Fresh, custom visuals at scale. Precision – Higher response rates through personalization. Impact – A stronger inbound pipeline fuels core business growth. And the external world agrees: Deloitte reports that 79% of global executives now see AI adoption in business processes as “critical to competitiveness.” In other words, the mindset shift matters as much as the tools. Why This Matters Beyond Marketing For JetRuby, AI-positivity isn’t a marketing gimmick. It’s a test case for how we approach transformation company-wide: experiment fast, adapt quickly, and scale what works. Unlike agencies dabbling in AI, we operationalize AI across every discipline — marketing, engineering, sales, HR, and finance. That gives us an edge: when clients look for a partner in software development or staff augmentation, they know JetRuby already lives AI as a daily practice. Final Takeaway AI didn’t replace our marketing team. It amplified them. By embracing AI-positivity, we built a marketing engine that’s faster, smarter, and more creative — without losing the human voice that makes JetRuby unique. For us, AI-positivity isn’t a trend. It’s the culture shaping our future — and the same culture we bring to every project we deliver. Curious how AI-positivity could transform your business? Let’s talk. ### Guide: Questions to Ask Before Starting Any Digital Project Launching a digital project — a mobile app, web platform, or complex enterprise system — is exciting. But without the right questions upfront, even the most promising idea can stall, go over budget, or miss the mark entirely. At JetRuby, we’ve seen firsthand that clarity before coding is the fastest path to success. Asking the right questions at the planning stage ensures your product is aligned with your business goals, user needs, and technical realities. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the key questions every business should ask before starting any digital project — and why each one matters. 1. What Problem Are We Solving — and for Whom? Every successful digital product starts with a clearly defined problem. Without it, you risk building “features” instead of solutions. Ask yourself: Who is the primary audience for this project? What pain points or inefficiencies are they experiencing? How do they currently solve this problem? Why would they switch to our solution? 2. What Does Success Look Like? Your definition of success will guide every decision — from design choices to technology stack. Consider: Are we aiming for increased revenue, reduced operational costs, higher engagement, or brand awareness? Which KPIs will we measure? (e.g., user retention, conversion rate, time-on-task) What’s the timeline for achieving these goals? Without measurable targets, it’s impossible to know whether your project is on track. 3. What’s Our Budget and Timeline? Budget and timeline are not only constraints — they’re tools to prioritize scope and set realistic expectations. Ask: How much are we prepared to invest initially? What’s our “must-have” feature set for launch (MVP)? What can be postponed for later phases? Are there seasonal or market deadlines to meet? Tip: A well-planned MVP often costs less and validates your idea faster. 4. Who Are Our Stakeholders — and Decision-Makers? Misaligned stakeholders can delay projects more than technical challenges. Define who has authority and who provides input. Ask: Who approves designs, budgets, and scope changes? Who represents end-users in the decision-making process? How often will we review progress? Having a clear governance model speeds up approvals and avoids costly rework. 5. What Are the Technical Requirements and Constraints? A strong technical foundation prevents scalability issues down the road. Consider: Will this be a mobile app, web app, or cross-platform solution? What integrations are needed with existing systems? Are there performance or security requirements? Should we prepare for rapid scaling? At JetRuby, we often recommend starting with an architecture review to ensure the project is future-proof. 6. What Are the Risks — and How Will We Mitigate Them? No project is risk-free. The key is to identify threats early. Ask: What could cause delays or budget overruns? Are there compliance or regulatory hurdles? Do we rely on third-party APIs or vendors? What’s our backup plan if something fails? Documenting risks — and assigning ownership — keeps surprises to a minimum. 7. How Will We Test, Launch, and Maintain the Product? A launch isn’t the end — it’s the beginning of your product’s lifecycle. Consider: What’s our QA and user testing plan? How will we collect feedback post-launch? Who will handle ongoing maintenance, bug fixes, and updates? Do we have a roadmap for future iterations? Planning beyond launch ensures your investment continues to deliver value. Final Thoughts Starting a digital project is a significant investment of time, money, and energy. Without the proper preparation, it’s easy to get caught in endless iterations, scope creep, or unexpected technical challenges that derail momentum. That’s why asking these foundational questions before writing a single line of code is not just a “best practice” — it’s a necessity. When you clearly understand the problem you’re solving, your success metrics, and the resources available, you can make informed trade-offs that keep your project on track. Defining stakeholders and governance processes ensures decisions are made efficiently, while addressing technical requirements early helps you avoid costly re-architecture later. Risk assessment, testing plans, and maintenance strategies protect your investment long after the launch day excitement fades. At JetRuby, successful digital products are born from strategic vision and technical excellence. We don’t just build software — we partner with you to align business goals, user needs, and technology from the ground up. This means your product isn’t just functional at launch — it’s scalable, secure, and positioned to evolve with your business. Whether you’re a startup validating an MVP or an established company modernizing legacy systems, our team guides you through the right questions, processes, and technologies to bring your idea to life — faster, smarter, and with measurable impact. Don't leave success to chance if you’re about to start your next digital project. Let’s discuss your vision, challenges, and how we can build something extraordinary together. Thinking about your next digital project? Let’s talk. We’ll help you answer these questions and set you up for success from day one. ### GPT-5: The Best Ever Model, or Main 2025 Failure? The release of GPT-5 in mid-2025 marked one of the most anticipated moments in the AI world. After months of speculation and sky-high expectations, OpenAI finally unveiled its new flagship model — promising major leaps in reasoning, memory, creativity, and multimodal performance. Some called it a revolution. Others, a disappointment wrapped in better packaging. So which is it? A breakthrough in human-machine interaction — or just another overhyped release? To start, there's no denying GPT-5 is a major technical leap forward. Its ability to follow complex instructions, hold multi-turn conversations without losing context, and adapt its tone or style with almost eerie precision is unmatched. Whether you want it to write a marketing campaign, analyze code, generate ideas, critique design, or simulate a historical figure — it does so with unprecedented fluency. And with access to multimodal inputs — including images, audio, and even video — GPT-5 feels less like a chatbot and more like a universal interface for interacting with digital information. What Makes GPT-5 Stand Out Here are some of the key upgrades that set GPT-5 apart: Key advancements in GPT-5: expanded context, persistent memory, multimodal capabilities, stylistic flexibility, and improved reasoning over GPT-4. Expanded context window: capable of processing hundreds of pages of content at once. Persistent memory: in some tiers, it remembers users’ preferences, tone, and prior conversations. Multimodal input/output: seamless handling of text, image, audio, and even video in a single prompt. Stylistic adaptability: writes in any tone, from academic to casual, from Shakespearean to Gen Z slang. Improved reasoning: better at logic, step-by-step explanations, and decision trees than GPT-4. But despite all this, not everyone is convinced. Under the surface, GPT-5 still struggles with one of the oldest and most dangerous problems in large language models: hallucination. It still occasionally fabricates facts, cites nonexistent sources, and confidently presents misinformation. In high-stakes fields like medicine, law, and science, that’s a nonstarter — no matter how sophisticated the interface looks. Powerful, But Not for Everyone Another sore spot is access. While OpenAI touts GPT-5’s capabilities, most of its most powerful features — like long context, memory, and full multimodal abilities — were locked behind expensive enterprise tiers. Individual users and small businesses get a scaled-down experience, prompting some to ask: Is cutting-edge AI becoming a product only the wealthy can truly leverage? And then there are the bigger questions — regulators, ethicists, and everyday users are starting to ask more loudly. With a model this powerful, who’s responsible when it’s misused? Deepfakes, copyright violations, and AI-generated propaganda are no longer hypotheticals. They’re here. And with GPT-5’s capabilities, the line between what’s real and what’s generated is blurrier than ever. GPT-5: Main Issues to Know Among the most common criticisms of GPT-5 are: Core criticisms of GPT-5: hallucinations, limited access to full features, ethical concerns, lack of true understanding, and a closed AI ecosystem. Persistent hallucinations: It still invents data, especially in niche or factual domains. Limited access to full features: many innovations were gated behind expensive plans. Ethical and legal uncertainty: the use of this technology in misinformation, content theft, and privacy violations is rising. No proper understanding: despite the hype, GPT-5 still lacks actual cognition or self-awareness. Closed ecosystem: limited transparency and community oversight compared to open-source alternatives. For many, perhaps the biggest letdown is that GPT-5 isn’t AGI — not even close. It doesn’t “understand” in any meaningful sense. It predicts, mimics, and imitates with stunning precision, but there's still no self-awareness, proper reasoning, or goal-oriented thinking. It’s smarter than GPT-4, yes. But it’s still very much a tool — not a mind. So where does that leave us? GPT-5 is both impressive and imperfect. It’s a huge step forward, but not the final step many hoped for. It unlocks unprecedented efficiency and creative potential for developers, creators, and some industries. For skeptics, it’s a reminder that scale doesn’t automatically equal intelligence — or trustworthiness. And for the average user, it may be both exciting and unsettling to watch AI inch closer to human capabilities while remaining firmly under corporate control. Ultimately, whether GPT-5 is the best model ever or a major failure depends entirely on what you expected it to be. If you saw it as a powerful assistant, it delivers. If you expected a digital mind, it falls short. But one thing is sure: it has changed the conversation again — and the race toward AGI is far from over. ### How We Use AI in HR: JetRuby’s Approach Artificial Intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept — it's a present-day reality transforming how businesses operate. One of the key areas where AI is making a real impact is Human Resources. At JetRuby, we don’t only follow trends — we build innovative, AI-powered solutions that make HR processes more accurate, efficient, and people-focused. This article’ll show you how we use AI in HR — not in theory, but in real-world applications. Smarter Hiring: From Quantity to Quality Hiring is time-consuming. There can be hundreds of applications for every job opening — but only a handful are truly relevant. AI helps to streamline and improve this process through several key innovations: Automated resume screening uses modern algorithms to analyze resumes quickly, matching candidates’ skills, experience, and keywords to job requirements—dramatically reducing manual review time and allowing recruiters to focus on top talent faster.  Soft skills analysis leverages natural language processing (NLP) and video analytics to evaluate recorded interviews, assessing communication style, tone, and behavioral cues for a more comprehensive view of each applicant.  Meanwhile, predictive hiring models analyze historical data—such as performance during probation and employee retention—to rank candidates based on their likelihood of long-term success. Head of HR at Jetruby Elena Shekhina says:  “For role profiling and vacancy descriptions, we use Claude and ChatGPT — they help us generate competency-based profiles and structured job posts much faster, while keeping quality consistent. AI assists our recruiters in research: by generating Boolean search strings for LinkedIn, job boards, and even some messengers, we can expand reach and target candidates more effectively”. AI-Driven Onboarding & Retention HR isn’t only about hiring — it’s about creating a great experience for employees. Here’s how AI helps after the contract is signed: Automated onboarding assistants, powered by large language models like GPT, serve as personal guides for new hires—answering questions, sharing company policies, and supporting them through their first weeks to ensure a smooth transition. At the same time, engagement and sentiment monitoring uses AI to analyze anonymous surveys, internal communications, and feedback, helping organizations track employee morale, identify early signs of burnout, and proactively address potential retention risks. “Exit interviews are also analyzed with AI — we aggregate logs across all cases to identify hidden trends and systemic reasons for attrition.” - Elena Shekhina, Head of HR at JetRuby Personalized Learning & Development AI enables companies to offer tailored growth paths instead of one-size-fits-all training: Smart learning recommendation systems analyze each employee’s goals, skills, and current responsibilities to suggest relevant courses, mentorship opportunities, and internal programs tailored to their growth. Simultaneously, AI-powered progress tracking utilizes machine learning to monitor learning journeys, identify obstacles, and dynamically adjust development plans — ensuring continuous and effective skill development. Elena Shekhina noted that for soft skills assessments, Jetruby company uses AI to generate tailored questions based on required competencies, which makes the process more objective and scalable. Assessment logs are fed into AI, which then generates personalized development plans (PDPs). This ensures that every employee receives clear, data-driven growth recommendations. Data-Driven HR Decisions AI turns HR from a gut-feeling-driven function into a strategic decision-making tool: Turnover prediction models analyze patterns in salary data, employee feedback, team dynamics, and engagement levels to identify which employees are at risk of leaving—and uncover the underlying reasons.  In parallel, team structure optimization utilizes AI to recommend ways to reorganize teams, eliminate redundancy, enhance collaboration, and balance workloads more effectively, resulting in stronger performance and improved employee satisfaction. To sum up At JetRuby, we view AI not as a replacement for human decision-making, but as a powerful partner that enhances every stage of the HR lifecycle — from hiring and onboarding to engagement, learning, and retention. By leveraging data-driven insights and automation, we reduce manual overhead, improve candidate and employee experiences, and enable HR teams to focus on what matters most: people. Our AI-driven HR strategy helps us: Hire faster and smarter with predictive screening tools. Support employee growth through personalized learning paths. Maintain high engagement and prevent burnout with proactive monitoring. Build resilient, optimized teams using organizational data. As the future of work continues to evolve, AI is no longer a nice-to-have — it's a strategic advantage. At JetRuby, we’re committed to continuously refining our approach, combining the best of technology and human empathy to create a workplace where both individuals and teams thrive. Interested in building AI-powered HR solutions? Let’s talk — and we’ll help you find the right path forward. ### JetRuby is Heading to Web Summit — Let’s Connect! We’re excited to announce that JetRuby will attend Web Summit 2025, one of the world’s largest and most influential tech conferences. This event will bring together leaders from the global startup and enterprise scene. This year, we're not just attending — we're coming ready to meet, connect, and collaborate. Web Summit: Where the Tech World Meets Web Summit is one of the world’s largest and most influential technology conferences, held annually in Lisbon, Portugal. Founded in 2009 in Dublin, it has grown from a local meetup into a global stage for the most exciting names in tech, business, and innovation. Retrospective Web Summit growth: attendees, investors, and key themes. 2022: The Web Summit in Lisbon gathered over 70,000 attendees from more than 160 countries. Key themes included AI, sustainability, and digital transformation. 2023: Again, more than 70,000 people attended, with over 900 investors present. Startups from 150+ countries showed up; AI, the future of work, privacy, and security were big topics. 2024: The Lisbon event drew about 71,500 attendees and 3,000 exhibiting companies. AI grew in representation (~16% increase), diversity made strides (women founders, inclusion), and sustainability featured heavily. Over these years, this global event has evolved from a large gathering of tech enthusiasts to a powerhouse platform that shapes discussions around ethical AI, green tech, inclusion, investment, and policy. The conference is known for its high-caliber speakers, including CEOs of global tech giants, rising startup leaders, and influential voices in AI, sustainability, digital transformation, and cybersecurity. In addition to its massive scale, Web Summit is a launchpad for emerging technologies, disruptive products, and early-stage startups seeking visibility, funding, or partners. With dedicated tracks for different sectors — from SaaS and enterprise tech to health, fintech, and climate — Web Summit offers deep insights into how technology shapes every industry's future. The event also features over 900 investors, making it a top destination for startups ready to scale. Its global reach extends through its sister events: Collision (North America), RISE (Asia), and Web Summit Rio and Doha, expanding its influence beyond Europe. Let’s Meet in Person Whether you're a startup founder, product owner, investor, or just exploring new tech partnerships — we’d love to meet you!  JetRuby is always open to new alliances, exciting ideas, and meaningful conversations. We believe that great products start with great relationships, and Web Summit is the perfect place to spark them. Meet Our CEO Our CEO Ivan Linko, along with the Head of CSM Artem Gavrilov and Head of Product Digital Winery Dima Kovalchuk will be attending in person, and this is a unique opportunity to connect directly with the leadership behind JetRuby. Ivan founded JetRuby as a startup, which has since evolved into a leading BPO company with over 200 highly skilled professionals.  This year, we’re also introducing two new brands: Digital Future Group — focused on Enterprise-grade solutions and custom software development for complex, large-scale digital initiatives. Digital Winery — an end-to-end ERP system for winemaking, streamlining everything from vineyard to bottle. If you're looking to: Validate a product idea Explore collaboration on a digital solution Discuss custom software development, AI integration, or team scaling Or want to talk tech and innovation over a coffee Let’s schedule a meeting! Who We Are JetRuby is a global tech company with over a decade of experience delivering custom software solutions, AI-powered platforms, and scalable development teams for startups, SMBs, and enterprises. With 8 R&D centers worldwide and 300+ in-house experts, we help our clients turn complex challenges into efficient, high-impact digital products. ### Budget Stretching Strategies: How to Maximize ROI Before Your Next Project Kickoff Launching a new project is exciting — but it’s also one of the most important financial decisions a company can make. Every dollar you commit before development starts sets the stage for either high-impact growth or costly setbacks. The way you plan your budget now will determine how quickly you see returns, how well you can adapt to market changes, and whether your technology can grow with you. At JetRuby, after launching over 250 products for startups and enterprises, we’ve seen that maximizing ROI before your next project kickoff is less about spending less and more about spending strategically. The goal is to ensure that every dollar you put in works to build a scalable, profitable, and resilient business. Below are actionable strategies that will help you stretch your budget without cutting corners on quality or innovation. 1. Validate Before You Build One of the most common reasons projects fail is because they’re built on assumptions rather than evidence. You can save hundreds of thousands of dollars by validating your idea before committing to full-scale development. We recommend using MVP validation and user testing to answer two critical questions: Is there a real demand? Will people pay for it? In AI Adoption 2025: Stats, Market Growth & Insights, we highlight that companies achieving long-term growth start small — they test hypotheses and iterate quickly. This process helps avoid building “nice-to-have” features that drain budget without driving ROI. Practical steps: Use clickable prototypes to test core features. Run A/B tests on landing pages to measure sign-ups or pre-orders. Gather feedback from at least 30–50 potential users before scaling. A $5,000 MVP that proves your market is a far better investment than a $200,000 product built on guesswork. 2. Audit and Optimize Existing Assets Before you start coding, look at what you already have. Many businesses overlook the value of legacy software modernization or reusing existing components. In many cases, you can avoid building from scratch. Our guide Revive Legacy Software with Ruby on Rails Now! explains how modernizing existing systems can improve performance, reduce downtime, and speed up time-to-market — often at a fraction of the cost of new development. Steps to take: Audit existing integrations, APIs, and data sources. Identify reusable code libraries and frameworks. Automate repetitive workflows to save engineering hours. 3. Adopt Growth Hacking for Early Traction Marketing can easily consume a large share of your budget, but you don’t need a huge ad spend to get noticed. Growth hacking focuses on rapid, cost-efficient experiments to drive adoption. In What Is Growth Hacking?, we break down how early-stage companies can use creative, low-cost tactics to compete with industry leaders. Budget-friendly growth tactics: Launch a referral program to turn existing users into brand advocates. Create niche, high-value content that ranks in search engines. Partner with micro-influencers instead of big-budget campaigns. The key is to measure results quickly — double down on what works, and stop what doesn’t. 4. Plan for Scalability from Day One A product that can’t scale will eventually eat up resources. Scalability isn’t only a tech concern — it’s a budget concern. Retrofitting scalability later is almost always more expensive than planning for it from the start.   Cost-conscious scalability strategies: Use cloud infrastructure that scales with demand, such as AWS or Google Cloud. Build modular architectures so you can replace or upgrade parts without rewriting the entire system. Implement automated monitoring and logging with tools like Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, or the ELK stack. Include compliance and security checks from day one to avoid costly legal issues. For a full roadmap, see How to Prepare for Scalable Tech Growth  5. Track ROI Continuously ROI measurement should be an ongoing process, not a post-launch afterthought. By tracking key financial and performance metrics throughout development, you can adjust your approach before small inefficiencies grow into budget drains. Track these metrics regularly: Cost per acquisition (CPA) Customer lifetime value (LTV) Conversion rates per feature release Downtime and performance-related costs Regular ROI reviews should be part of every sprint planning and retrospective. 6. Align the Whole Team with Budget Goals Your budget strategy will only succeed if the entire organization is on board. Scaling costs can creep in when teams work in silos or lack visibility into budget constraints. Ways to keep teams aligned: Set clear ownership for services and infrastructure. Document all major technical and financial decisions. Foster collaboration between Dev, QA, Ops, and Product. Build onboarding processes that help new hires contribute efficiently. When culture and budget discipline go hand in hand, every decision is made with ROI in mind. Beyond traditional budget optimization methods, it’s crucial to maintain transparency and control over expenses at every stage of the project. Regular financial reviews and reporting help identify areas of overspending early, enabling swift decisions to reallocate resources effectively. Engaging all key stakeholders—from project managers to developers—creates a shared understanding and fosters a culture of budget accountability. This proactive approach reduces the risk of unexpected costs and enhances overall financial efficiency. Another important factor is flexibility in choosing technologies and tools. Companies often rush to implement the latest, most complex solutions, which can increase development time and expenses. Instead, it’s wiser to rely on proven, well-integrated platforms that allow for quick adaptation to changing requirements without costly overhauls. This approach also accelerates time-to-market and facilitates gathering valuable user feedback for iterative improvements. Don’t overlook the power of automating repetitive processes such as testing, deployment, and monitoring. Key benefits of automation include: Saving time and effort for your development team Minimizing human errors Accelerating release cycles Reducing ongoing support costs Improving end-user satisfaction, which directly impacts ROI Lastly, forming a strategic partnership with an experienced development team that understands your business and offers tailored solutions is key to effective budget management. Instead of spending resources on guesswork and trial-and-error, collaborating with a reliable partner helps avoid costly mistakes and keeps the focus on meeting business goals. This approach ensures you stretch your budget wisely and maximize ROI well before your next project kickoff. Final Thoughts Stretching your budget is about being intentional, not restrictive. With the right validation, optimization, growth tactics, scalability planning, continuous ROI tracking, and team alignment, you can deliver projects that grow sustainably and profitably. At JetRuby, we’ve seen these strategies work across industries — from healthcare startups to global logistics platforms. The takeaway is simple: the smartest time to think about ROI is before your project even begins.  Contact us today for a free consultation and start stretching your budget before your next project kickoff! ### How to Prepare for Scalable Tech Growth When a business grows, the pressure on its technology stack grows exponentially. More users, more data, more transactions — all of it tests the limits of your systems. Companies risk system outages, slow performance, mounting technical debt, and rising infrastructure costs without a proactive approach to scalability. That’s why scalability is necessary for any digital product aiming for long-term success. This guide will explore preparing for scalable tech growth through innovative planning, architectural choices, team alignment, and automation. Scalability Starts with Vision, Not Code Too many companies treat scalability as a technical issue that needs to be fixed later. But real scalability begins with business strategy. Before you refactor code or migrate to a new platform, step back and define what growth means for your company. Consider: Will you scale horizontally (more users, new regions) or vertically (more services, features)? Are you expecting steady growth or rapid spikes (e.g., seasonal traffic)? What does “breaking point” look like in your current setup? Define success metrics — response time, availability, cost per user, system throughput — and ensure your teams agree on what must stay consistent as you scale. Architect for Growth — Not Just for Speed Choosing the exemplary architecture is one of the most critical early decisions. Many startups prioritize fast time-to-market and opt for monolithic structures. While this helps in the MVP stage, it can become a serious roadblock when user load and feature complexity increase. Instead, architect your systems for modularity and elasticity: Microservices: Decouple services so they can scale, deploy, and fail independently. For example, you can scale your payment service without touching your user service. Event-driven architecture: Use message brokers like Kafka or RabbitMQ to decouple producers and consumers, improving responsiveness under load. Serverless and containerization: Use tools like AWS Lambda or Docker/Kubernetes to manage computing resources based on demand dynamically. Multi-region deployment: Distribute services across different geographic regions for global reach and redundancy. Scalability Tip – Modular Monolith Approach for Startups and SMBs Tip: For startups or SMBs, a hybrid approach like a “modular monolith” can be a practical first step before going full microservices. Design with Data Growth in Mind Data is both an asset and a liability at scale. Many systems slow down or become unstable as databases grow, leading to downtime or user frustration. Building with future data volume in mind is key. Strategies to scale data effectively: Partition large datasets: Sharding by user ID, region, or tenant can help distribute load. Implement read replicas: Offload analytics and heavy queries from the primary database. Use NoSQL where appropriate: Document stores like MongoDB can offer more flexibility for unstructured or semi-structured data. Archive cold data: Move infrequently accessed data to cheaper storage solutions like Amazon S3 Glacier. Also, establish data governance early — define what data to collect, how long to store it, and who has access. This reduces compliance risks and improves performance. Invest in Automation and DevOps Culture Scalability isn’t only about infrastructure — it’s about how fast and reliably your team can release new features, fix issues, and scale systems. That’s where DevOps plays a crucial role. Key components of a scalable DevOps setup: CI/CD pipelines: Automate testing, building, and deployment to reduce manual errors and increase speed. Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Tools like Terraform or Pulumi allow you to provision infrastructure consistently across environments. Container orchestration: Kubernetes lets you manage containers efficiently, autoscale services, and handle self-healing of crashed pods. Automated monitoring and logging: Automated monitoring and logging should be built into your system from day one, giving you real-time visibility into performance and overall health. Tools like Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, or the ELK stack make it possible to track key metrics continuously, while well-configured alerts for latency spikes, rising error rates, and resource exhaustion ensure you can react to issues before they escalate into outages. DevOps practices also enforce a culture of continuous improvement and shared ownership, essential for long-term scalability. Built-in Security and Compliance from the Ground Up Scalable systems must be secure by design. As you grow, your attack surface expands — with more endpoints, users, and integrations. Security shouldn’t slow down your growth; it should enable it. Scalability-minded security includes: Authentication and Authorization: Use centralized identity management (e.g., OAuth2, OpenID Connect). Implement Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Audit logging: Track changes, data access, and critical events for accountability. Secrets management: Use tools like HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager. Regulatory compliance: Ensure your stack supports compliance frameworks (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, PCI-DSS) with minimal friction. Security and compliance shouldn’t be an afterthought. Waiting for a breach or legal issue to act is costly — instead, build a compliance-ready foundation from day one. But strong foundations also require systems that remain reliable and performant as they scale. Even the most well-architected platform will lose users if it slows under load; high latency directly affects both satisfaction and conversions. To maintain reliability during growth, focus on: Intelligent load balancing — NGINX, HAProxy, or AWS ALB to distribute traffic efficiently. Caching layers — Redis or Memcached for frequently accessed data. CDN integration — Cloudflare or Akamai for global, fast content delivery. Graceful degradation — Keep partial functionality during failures. Rate limiting & throttling — Protect resources and ensure fair usage. SLOs & Error Budgets — Balance reliability with release speed. Performance alone isn’t enough — you also need to know exactly how your system behaves under stress. Don’t assume it will “just work” during traffic spikes. Testing is a critical part of preparing for scalability — it’s about knowing exactly where the weak points are before they cause real problems. That means running load tests to validate performance under expected demand, stress tests to push systems beyond their limits and expose breaking points, and applying chaos engineering techniques — like Netflix’s Chaos Monkey — to simulate controlled failures and confirm resilience. Regular disaster recovery drills ensure backups, failovers, and region switchovers actually meet your Recovery Time and Recovery Point Objectives (RTO/RPO), so you can recover quickly when the unexpected happens. To keep everyone moving in the same direction, establish clear ownership for each service and piece of infrastructure, maintain thorough documentation to avoid reliance on tribal knowledge, encourage cross-functional collaboration between Development, QA, Operations, and Product teams, and invest in structured onboarding so new hires can contribute quickly and safely. In the end, the way your people work together is just as important as the way your systems are built. Final Thoughts Scalability is a mindset, a discipline, and an evolving process. The most successful tech companies plan for growth before they need it, choosing flexible architectures, automating operations, and building resilient systems that adapt alongside the business. At JetRuby, we help companies of all sizes future-proof their digital platforms. From product architecture to DevOps pipelines and secure infrastructure, our team delivers solutions ready to scale — with you and for you. Ready to grow with confidence? Let’s talk about how JetRuby can support your next stage of scalable tech growth. Need a scalability audit? JetRuby offers consulting and implementation services to evaluate your current stack and prepare it for the next level of growth. Contact us → ### Map-Based Fence Planner & Estimator: Plans into Purchases  If you sell fencing online, your buyers ask two things first: what exactly do I need and how much will it cost. When answers are slow, intent fades and carts stay empty. Our client, a nationwide agricultural fencing supplier, asked us to replace a manual, consult-heavy quote flow with a map-based planner, real-time estimator, and one-click checkout. The goal was simple: let your customer go from idea to purchase without waiting on a sales call. The Challenge: Manual Quotes Blocked Online Sales Leads came in through a form. A manager called back. Engineers drew a plan. Only then did a quote go out. Good service, but slow and expensive. Two pressures raised the bar. A rival teased a similar tool, and an industry expo set a hard deadline. Their new planner had to draw on a real map, calculate materials with precision, and hand off to e-commerce in one clean motion. The Mission  Our clients set a clear offer for their buyers: Draw fence lines on a live map that matches the property. See an instant bill of materials and cost by fence type and length. Push everything to the cart in your store with one click. For the team: The same platform keeps projects, notifications, profiles, and admin tools in one place. Delivery: Ruby on Rails + React, Built for Spatial Work We built the planner in small steps with Ruby on Rails and React, shared regular demos, and kept everything simple and reliable from day one. Zero Sprint & Discovery We began with a focused Discovery & Design to capture user flows, pricing rules, and the MVP scope. After that review, the client engaged an external backend vendor. We ran a zero-sprint to realign APIs, refresh specs, and set up CI/CD with smoke tests so both teams shipped in step. Fence Planner MVP: Draw, Estimate, Buy The first delivery targeted your buyers: Interactive map designer (React + Mapbox GL JS) to trace fence lines on real parcels. Live materials and cost based on length, segments, and fence type. One-click cart push into the existing e-commerce store, no re-entry. The stack centers on Ruby on Rails and React, with PostgreSQL and Redis for reliability and speed. Expanding the Vision: Cadastral Data & Smart Suggestions Phase 2 is underway: Auto-draw from cadastral data to snap designs to property boundaries. Context-aware suggestions that pick materials based on terrain and project intent. Team & Process A cross-functional squad drove delivery: PM, BA, frontend and backend engineers, UI/UX, QA, Delivery Manager. We worked in short sprints with regular demos, clear hand-offs to the backend vendor, and a roadmap tuned to the client’s expo deadline. Results: Less Friction, More Confidence Your buyer now sees a plan, an itemized list, and a price at the moment of intent. Live counts cut guesswork. A pre-filled cart removes re-entry. Sales reps can focus on complex cases instead of basic estimates. The expo-ready kiosk shows the full funnel in minutes. That positions your brand as the practical innovator in a crowded niche. The Rails + React architecture gives you room to grow. Phase 2 features drop in without a rewrite, so you can advance accuracy and automation on your timeline. ### Top 10 Tech Trends for Business Success — The Ultimate Guide to 2026 Technology is evolving faster than ever, and businesses that fail to adapt risk being left behind. By 2026, the most competitive companies will be those that don’t just adopt new technologies — they integrate them strategically to drive growth, efficiency, and innovation. At JetRuby, we help businesses future-proof their digital products and operations. In this Ultimate Guide to 2026, we break down the Top 10 Tech Trends every business leader should track — and how you can leverage them for long-term success. 1. AI Everywhere: From Assistants to Autonomous Systems AI is no longer just a support tool; it’s becoming the engine of business operations. By 2026, expect companies to move from simple chatbots to AI-driven decision-making, predictive analytics, and even autonomous systems. Use case: Retailers using AI to forecast demand and optimize supply chains in real time. Why it matters: Businesses gain speed, precision, and cost savings by automating complex processes. 2. Hyper-Personalization Through Data Customer expectations are at an all-time high. Businesses will rely on AI and advanced analytics to deliver hyper-personalized experiences. Example: Financial apps offering tailored investment strategies based on behavioral data. Takeaway: Personalization increases engagement, loyalty, and conversion rates. 3. Sustainable Tech as a Business Imperative Sustainability is no longer optional — it’s a differentiator. From green cloud computing to energy-efficient infrastructure, companies are expected to prove their eco-responsibility. Trend: More businesses adopt carbon-tracking software and energy-optimized data centers. Benefit: Meeting regulatory standards while attracting environmentally conscious customers. 4. Cybersecurity by Design With more data and more connectivity comes greater risk. By 2026, cybersecurity will be integrated into every stage of development. Approach: Zero Trust architectures, multi-factor authentication, and AI-powered threat detection. Impact: Secure systems aren’t just protective — they build customer trust and ensure compliance. 5. Rise of Industry-Specific Clouds The one-size-fits-all cloud era is ending. Companies will increasingly adopt industry-specific cloud solutions optimized for healthcare, finance, logistics, and beyond. Advantage: Faster compliance, better performance, and tailored features. JetRuby insight: Businesses that migrate to specialized cloud platforms gain both scalability and industry agility. 6. Web3 and Decentralization Blockchain is maturing into practical applications beyond crypto. In 2026, expect decentralized finance (DeFi), smart contracts, and digital identity platforms to become mainstream. Use case: Secure, transparent supply chain tracking. Why it matters: Decentralization enables trust without intermediaries, lowering costs and increasing transparency. 7. Edge Computing Takes Center Stage As data volumes explode, businesses are moving closer to the source with edge computing. Example: Smart factories processing data on-site to improve efficiency. Outcome: Faster insights, reduced latency, and improved performance for IoT-heavy industries. 8. Automation + Human Collaboration By 2026, the workplace won’t be “humans vs. machines” — it will be humans and machines working together. Trend: Automation handles repetitive tasks while employees focus on strategy and creativity. Result: Higher productivity and better employee satisfaction. 9. Extended Reality (XR) in Business AR, VR, and mixed reality are no longer just for gaming. They are transforming industries from retail to healthcare. Example: Virtual training environments for employees or AR-powered product demos for customers. Why it matters: XR creates immersive experiences that boost engagement and learning. 10. The Next Level of Connectivity: 6G on the Horizon While 5G is still expanding, the groundwork for 6G networks is underway. By 2026, expect early adoption in leading markets. Impact: Faster speeds, ultra-low latency, and enabling technologies like autonomous vehicles and smart cities. Business edge: Connectivity becomes the backbone of real-time innovation. Final Thoughts: Preparing Your Business for 2026 The decade’s midpoint is a turning point for digital innovation. By 2026, the companies that succeed won’t necessarily be the biggest or the fastest adopters of new technologies — they’ll be the ones that adopt with purpose, strategy, and adaptability. The Top 10 trends outlined — from AI and automation to sustainable tech, industry-specific clouds, and next-generation connectivity — aren’t isolated innovations. They’re interconnected forces, each amplifying the other. For example, AI becomes even more powerful when paired with edge computing. Sustainability gains traction when built on energy-efficient infrastructure. Cybersecurity becomes a growth enabler when embedded in design, not patched on later. But here’s the real takeaway: technology alone isn’t a strategy. The most successful businesses in 2026 will align these tools with their core mission, their customers’ evolving needs, and their long-term vision. It’s not about chasing every trend — it’s about identifying the ones that matter most to your industry, market, and growth trajectory. At JetRuby, we believe in building digital products and ecosystems that aren’t just modern, but future-ready. That means architecting for scalability, embedding security and compliance from day one, and creating experiences that customers love. With our expertise in AI solutions, cloud engineering, DevOps, and digital strategy, we help organizations transform trends into tangible business outcomes. As you look toward 2026, ask yourself: Which of these trends could reshape how you serve your customers? Where are the gaps in your current tech stack that could block growth? How can you ensure your digital investments deliver ROI not just today, but years into the future? The future isn’t waiting — it’s already here. Businesses that prepare today will be the ones leading markets tomorrow. Ready to make 2026 your most successful year yet? Let’s talk about how JetRuby can turn these trends into your competitive advantage. ### Mobile App Development With AI vs. Traditional Approach Mobile app development keeps moving at break-neck speed. The classic life cycle — discovery, design, coding, QA, deployment — still delivers, but anyone who has shipped even a modest feature set knows how slow, rigid, and expensive that sequence can become. Because every stage happens in order and by human hand, deadlines slide, requirements morph, specialists wait on one another, and costs mount. Overruns feel inevitable, and product teams often reach the finish line with something the market has already out-grown. Over the past two years, generative AI has shifted the conversation. What began as clever demos that could tweak a screen mock-up or write a few lines of code has matured into a practical toolkit that transforms not only the apps we hold on our phones but the way we build them in the first place. Modern tools sketch wireframes, estimate effort, write boilerplate, predict bugs, and surface real-time usage insights — sometimes before a human even asks. Schedules that once spanned quarters can now compress into a handful of sprints without cutting corners on quality. Consider the typical scenario inside an SMB that has just raised a round or secured a strategic budget line. Product leadership drafts an ambitious roadmap; marketing wants something flashy before the next trade show; finance expects iron-clad projections. Everyone agrees on the vision, yet three months later the first clickable build is still a Figma prototype, backend schemas are half-drafted, and the burn rate begins to bite. Seasoned founders recognize the pattern: the requirements treadmill keeps spinning while value to users remains out of reach. AI changes that math by handing repetitive chores to machines and letting humans focus on decisions that matter. In this article, we put AI-powered mobile app development side by side with the traditional approach. Our aim is simple: give SMB decision-makers a clear, experience-backed view of what changes, what stays the same, and where the biggest wins lie. Along the way we’ll show how JetRuby weaves AI into our proven engineering practices to deliver faster, smarter, and more adaptable digital products. Traditional Mobile App Development: A Quick Recap Most mobile projects still open with a familiar, step-by-step routine: That linear flow feels orderly, yet hides several pain points. Feedback loops grow long; a decision made in discovery may not meet a user until QA, months later. Because estimates rely on expert judgment and historical analogy, uncertainty balloons. Studies show two-thirds of large software projects still overshoot budgets or miss deadlines, and SMB initiatives fare only marginally better. So why does this waterfall-shaped conveyor belt survive? First, it feels safe: managers can track progress as a march of completed phases, even if user value appears only at the end. Second, legacy procurement models pay vendors per milestone, encouraging chunky deliveries rather than continuous flow. Third, many teams lack test-automation infrastructure and therefore avoid incremental releases. The cumulative tax is a rigid culture where change equals risk, and risk means delay. Hand-offs exacerbate the drag. Every transfer — designer to developer, developer to tester — invites miscommunication and erodes accountability. Even agile rituals cannot fully erase the latency because any significant change requires repeating manual steps. In short, traditional mobile development sacrifices speed and flexibility for the comfort of a well-charted but rigid map. Mobile App Development With AI: What Changes Modern AI tools are reshaping each phase of app development, injecting automation and intelligence into the pipeline. In practice, this looks like an AI-augmented workflow from day one. AI-Assisted Prototyping Instead of beginning with blank artboards, teams feed a natural-language prompt — “Create a dark-mode login screen with email, password, and social sign-on buttons” — into a design generator. Within minutes they get clickable layouts that respect platform guidelines. Early testers poke holes, and designers refine details rather than redraw from scratch. An internal benchmark cut a two-hour manual concept to twenty-five minutes of guided prompting and polish. AI in Planning & Estimation Machine-learning models trained on past sprints, team velocities, and complexity scores forecast effort with surprising accuracy. They highlight risk hot spots long before blockers appear on a burndown chart. As real progress data streams in, estimates adjust automatically, letting project leads shift resources days — not weeks — before a deadline wobbles. AI Code Generation Large language models now speak fluent Swift, Kotlin, React Native, and Flutter. Ask for a token-based authentication module, and an assistant scaffolds networking calls, local storage, error states, and unit tests in seconds. Engineers still review and refine, but their time goes to architecture and edge cases instead of boilerplate. McKinsey pegs the time savings at roughly forty percent, and our own logs echo that range. Intelligent QA & Testing Test creation moves left. AI spiders through the repository, maps dependencies, and proposes unit, integration, and UI tests — complete with assertions and mock data. During CI runs, anomaly-detection models flag flaky tests and rare crashes that manual smoke passes miss. Self-healing scripts keep tests from breaking when element IDs shift, so QA focuses on exploratory work instead of babysitting automation. AI-Powered Analytics Launch no longer marks the end of development; it starts a feedback fly-wheel. Embedded ML watches usage patterns, predicts churn, clusters behavior, and suggests A/B variants almost in real time. Product owners answer “What should we build next?” with evidence, not instinct. Roadmaps compress from six-month epics into fortnightly increments guided by live data. Cultural Lift, Not Just Tooling Adopting AI reshapes team culture. Designers think in high-frequency loops because prompts yield assets in minutes. Developers treat AI suggestions like pair-programming sessions, creating a steady hum of peer learning. Product managers spend less time chasing status updates and more time turning analytics into roadmap pivots. The entire team moves from phase gate to flow. Real Life Case A regional retail chain asked JetRuby to rebuild its loyalty app on a tight twelve-week deadline. By plugging AI prototyping into sprint one, we produced three design directions in a single afternoon workshop and validated them with thirty beta customers by week two. AI code generators built the onboarding flow and coupon-engine stubs while engineers implemented business rules. Automated tests caught an edge-case pricing bug during CI, saving a likely two-day hotfix cycle. The client launched four weeks early and has since doubled monthly active users. These enhancements — rapid prototyping, smarter estimation, generated code, automated QA, and always-on analytics — represent the practical benefits of AI in app development. They trim cycle time, pare back cost, and let teams follow user needs rather than paper plans. Head-to-Head Comparison: AI vs Traditional When comparing AI mobile app development vs traditional approaches, the contrasts in speed, adaptability, and budget discipline are impossible to ignore. When comparing AI mobile app development vs traditional approaches, the contrasts in speed, adaptability, and budget discipline are impossible to ignore. Time to MVP – Classic cycles often need four to six months for a usable build; AI-accelerated teams pare that to two or three. Flexibility – Traditional projects lock scope early because change is expensive. In an AI workflow a prompt refreshes screens or data models, so mid-course corrections land in days. QA & Testing – Manual plans run late and shallow; AI embeds test generation at commit time and watches logs for anomalies, lowering change-failure rates. Cost of Changes – Late tweaks once triggered redraws, rewrites, and full regressions. AI slashes that overhead — analysts report up to thirty-percent lower development costs. Innovation Velocity – Freed from boilerplate, teams experiment with AR try-ons, predictive search, or voice commands without derailing the roadmap. Security & Compliance – Traditional teams manually audit each change for GDPR, PCI-DSS, or HIPAA. AI-driven analyzers now scan commits against rulesets instantly, cutting review cycles from days to hours. Where JetRuby Fits In JetRuby balances two commitments: uphold the engineering rigor clients expect and harness AI speed gains wherever they pay off. Prototyping in Hours, Not Days – AI design generators absorb your brand guidelines, color palettes, and user-story maps, then output clickable wireframes before the first sprint planning session wraps. Because layouts arrive so early, stakeholders can walk through the flow, flag friction points, and request tweaks the same day. That feedback loops straight into the generator, producing revised screens in minutes instead of the multi-day redraw cycle typical of manual tools. Code Generation With Oversight – Copilot-style assistants scaffold data models, API endpoints, and UI widgets as soon as tickets are groomed, sparing engineers from boilerplate work. Senior developers then audit the output line by line, refactor for performance and security, and weave the pieces into a coherent, maintainable architecture. The result is production-grade code that arrives faster without sacrificing craftsmanship or long-term stability. AI-Backed Quality Gates – Every pull request triggers an ML-driven test creator that maps code paths, generates unit and integration tests, and runs static analysis for security vulnerabilities. Issues surface while authors still have the context fresh in mind, slashing the time it takes to patch defects. Over successive sprints, this gate keeps technical debt low and bolsters release confidence. Live Analytics Loop – Post-launch dashboards stream real-time cohort, funnel, and performance metrics to the product team. When a feature underperforms, a simple prompt spins up experiment variants — new copy, flow tweaks, or UI changes — ready for A/B testing within hours. Data-backed insights replace guesswork, letting teams refine the app continuously instead of waiting for quarterly retros. Guided Adoption Workshops – In one-day intensives, JetRuby specialists sit side-by-side with your engineers to teach prompt engineering, model guardrails, and CI/CD pipeline integration. Participants leave with working code snippets, a reference prompt library, and a clear roadmap for embedding AI practices into their own workflows. This hands-on transfer accelerates internal adoption and builds lasting capability. Ethics & Governance Checks – Every model we deploy undergoes bias audits, privacy impact assessments, and compliance reviews against standards like GDPR and PCI-DSS. Automated scanners monitor data flows for policy violations, while human reviewers validate edge cases. These safeguards ensure AI acceleration never introduces hidden liabilities or reputational risk. Continuous Learning Loop – We log every prompt-and-result pair, along with performance outcomes, into a shared knowledge base. Over time, this repository highlights which prompts yield the best code quality, test coverage, or design fidelity. New projects start with proven recipes, steadily compounding the speed and accuracy gains across the entire portfolio. This hybrid model trims weeks off MVP launches without sacrificing stability. AI is not a gimmick for us — it multiplies more than fifteen years of mobile engineering craft. Summary Bringing AI into mobile development changes the cadence of the craft. Traditional, hand-off-heavy cycles often stumble over budgets and timelines. AI-assisted workflows automate design, coding, testing, and insight gathering, trimming schedules by roughly a third and boosting quality. For SMB leaders deciding whether to pivot, the message is clear: faster releases, tighter cost control, and data-driven innovation are now within reach. JetRuby’s AI-enhanced approach delivers those gains today — faster builds, fewer surprises, and products that fit the market better. The upshot is control. When tools accelerate drudge work, budgets stretch further and creative bandwidth grows. Teams test more hypotheses per sprint, spot failures sooner, and double-down on what works. That is a strategic advantage, not just an operational one. ### AI in Customer Support: Scalable Solutions for Startups Early-stage companies live with a contradiction: users demand enterprise-grade service, but you only have a handful of agents — and maybe they’re also writing code or running sales calls. A 2025 Zendesk study found that 64% of CX leaders intend to increase AI budgets this year. Why? Because ai customer support lets a tiny team deliver 24/7 coverage, multilingual replies, and sub-minute first-response times without hiring a night shift. Yet hype can be dangerous. The smartest founders treat AI in customer service as a scalable partner, not a magic wand. This guide shows how to pick the right AI chatbot for startups, plug it in quickly, measure ROI, and expand only when the data says so. What AI in Customer Support Can Do Today Modern AI in customer support doesn’t just handle routine work 24/7, it’s the fastest way to automate customer support for your startup. In summary, it can provide faster responses, assist across languages, and do basic ticket triage — all of which help a small team stretch its reach. Major advances in generative AI (like OpenAI’s ChatGPT) have supercharged these capabilities. For example, tools powered by generative AI can offer 24/7 assistance without burning out your team, meaning customers get answers any time of day or night. Unlike human agents who must sleep or take breaks, an AI chatbot is always on. This non-stop availability is especially valuable for startups serving global users in different time zones. In practice, AI support tools can: Respond instantly to common queries: AI chatbots can generate accurate answers in seconds, dramatically reducing wait times. As one blog notes, “customers can gain instant answers from ChatGPT which are certainly faster than those that could be obtained from a human agent”. This helps cut down queues and keeps users happy. The result is a much quicker average response time even with a tiny staff. Serve multilingual customers: Modern LLMs understand dozens of languages. ChatGPT, for example, “is not just limited to the English language – it can provide multilingual support to customers around the globe”. For startups expanding internationally, this means offering support in multiple languages out of the box, without hiring native speakers for every region. A customer can chat in Spanish, German or Chinese and still get a helpful response, which expands your effective support coverage. Classify and route tickets: AI can act like a smart assistant that reads incoming requests and decides what to do with them. It can filter out simple questions and escalate complex ones for humans. For example, generative AI systems can identify which questions can or cannot be answered by the AI itself, and send the toughest issues directly to human agents. This “question triage” ensures the team only spends time on tickets that really need human insight. AI can also prioritize urgent issues: if a query seems critical (e.g. a billing error or VIP request), AI can flag it and route it immediately to a senior agent. In practice, ChatGPT-based bots can automatically “prioritize tickets based on level of urgency,” ensuring no critical problem falls through the cracks. This smart routing means your few agents work more efficiently. Assist human agents: AI is not just for talking to customers – it can also help your team behind the scenes. For instance, if one agent is absent, an AI can recap a conversation so another agent can jump in easily. According to Intercom’s industry report, about 28% of support teams use AI to summarize customer conversations for other agents. AI can also suggest full replies or draft responses: an agent might write a quick bullet list, and the AI expands it into a polished answer. It can even help generate new help center articles or improve knowledge-base content based on common questions. All this cuts down the manual work of writing and research. Many practical tools embody these capabilities today: OpenAI’s ChatGPT (and GPT API): You can use ChatGPT directly (via the web or API) to generate responses to customer questions, draft emails, translate inquiries, and more. Developers often integrate ChatGPT’s API into their systems: for example, by training a GPT model on the company’s own knowledge base to build a custom chatbot. This makes ChatGPT a very flexible building block. Zendesk’s AI bots: Zendesk offers an “Answer Bot” that uses machine learning to pull answers from your help center and FAQ pages. It can resolve straightforward tickets “in a matter of seconds” before a human ever sees them. In one early trial, Answer Bot resolved around 4,500 tickets per month and deflected 10% of total ticket volume for a fast-growing startup. Zendesk has also partnered with OpenAI: it uses GPT-4 behind the scenes to power features like automated response generation, conversation summarization, and sentiment-aware tone-shifting. In short, Zendesk’s platform now has built-in AI features to reduce agent effort. Intercom’s AI: Intercom (a popular support/CRM platform) offers AI agents like Fin and Copilot that can answer questions, summarize chats, and suggest replies. According to Intercom, its AI agent “Resolves 59% of queries” for many customers (Intercom’s own marketing claims a 59% resolution rate). Even without a special agent like Fin, many startups use Intercom’s chat interface with ChatGPT or other LLMs integrated via plugins. Intercom’s research also shows that 69% of support leaders plan to increase AI investment in customer service, reflecting how common these tools have become. Other AI chatbots: Besides the big names, there are many specialized AI support tools (Ada, Weave, Freshworks, etc.) that promise 24/7 automated support. The core idea is the same: an AI chatbot powered by NLP can handle FAQs and routine issues, handing off to humans for complex cases. Over time, they use the logged interactions to learn what customers need. In practice, the real benefit of all these tools is consistency and scalability. AI chatbots never get tired or forget to greet customers warmly. As one guide observes, customers today “don’t care whether it is a human or chatbot dealing with their issue as long as it is resolved”. That means a friendly, accurate bot can boost satisfaction by giving consistent, immediate help at any hour. Why Startups Should Approach AI Differently While AI offers many benefits, startups must be careful how they implement it. The biggest temptation is to treat AI as a silver bullet. In reality, it’s usually smarter to start small and focus on ROI. Here are a few key considerations: Build vs. Buy: You might wonder, “Should we build our own AI system or just use an existing solution?” For most startups, buying (or integrating) is usually better. Building a production-grade AI agent in-house is surprisingly costly and slow. Analysts note that development timelines for AI systems can range from 2 months to over 24 months depending on complexity. During that time, a startup could be losing market momentum. Also, hiring top AI engineers is expensive: in the U.S., salaries for ML engineers can easily exceed $150,000/year, not to mention the costs of cloud GPU resources and data infrastructure. In contrast, existing platforms let you start right away. For example, integrating a chatbot with ChatGPT’s API or enabling Zendesk’s Answer Bot can be done in days or weeks, not months. Outsourced tools also come with built-in scalability, so you don’t have to figure out infrastructure on your own. In short, if AI support isn’t your core product, “why stretch your resources thin” building it yourself?. Lightweight integrations and fast pivots: Startups need to move fast. Choose AI tools that are easy to plug into your existing workflows. Instead of a massive IT project, implement a lightweight chatbot or help widget. For example, you might first add an AI chat assistant on your help center page or integrate ChatGPT into your live chat. Once it’s live, measure how it performs: is it answering 70% of FAQs? Are customers happy? Then iterate. This agile, incremental approach lets you pivot if needed. Don’t invest in every feature under the sun – focus only on what moves the needle. Focus on ROI, not feature overload: It’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting all the AI bells and whistles. But each extra feature adds complexity and cost. Instead, identify the highest-value use case. For many startups, that’s handling repetitive questions (account issues, basic troubleshooting, FAQs). Automating those tasks can yield quick wins. In fact, one analysis notes that some fast-growing startups have automated up to 60% of their support using LLMs, drastically cutting support costs and helping them reach profitability faster. Put another way, even modest automation of routine tickets can free your team to focus on big problems. Always measure the impact in terms of saved hours or improved satisfaction, and only expand the scope when the ROI is clear. In summary, approach AI in customer support like any other startup project: be lean, data-driven, and ROI-focused. Use proven tools rather than reinventing the wheel. Start small, prove the value, then expand. When done smartly, AI can transform a tiny support team into a 24/7 service operation with minimal overhead. JetRuby’s AI-Backed Delivery Philosophy At JetRuby, we live and breathe this lean, results-driven approach. We help early-stage teams add AI to their support workflows in a way that fits their size and budget. For example, we might start by integrating a ChatGPT-based bot into your Intercom or Zendesk chat. This prototype can quickly answer common questions using your existing knowledge base, without a huge upfront investment. We then monitor performance and refine the bot’s training so that it steadily handles more queries on its own. Because we focus on right-sized solutions, we avoid overkill. We won’t build you a full AI lab overnight; instead, we’ll iteratively add automation where it matters. This agility means your startup isn’t locked into a costly, bulky system. Instead, you get fast feedback and quick wins – whether it’s a new smart routing rule, an AI-generated email response tool, or a multilingual chat assistant. Throughout the process, we keep a close eye on the budget and ROI. Every step is designed to save your team time and cost, not add unnecessary features. In practice, partnering with JetRuby can save you months of development. As industry experts note, every month spent building your own AI is a month not spent improving your core product. By contrast, we can plug into off-the-shelf AI models and customize them for you in weeks. Our engineers act as innovation partners: we guide you through the trade-offs of each approach, build lightweight integrations, and make sure the final solution truly meets your support goals. The result is an AI-powered support system that feels tailor-made for your startup – providing scale, speed, and affordability all at once. Summary and Next Steps AI in customer support isn’t fantasy — it’s a practical way for startups to automate customer support and deliver 24/7 service, instant answers, and multilingual help while smoothly handing off complex issues to humans. By starting small — focusing on high-impact tasks and integrating proven platforms or APIs — you can prove ROI in weeks, not months, and avoid the cost and delay of a full in-house build. Many startups automate 30–60 % of their inquiries within months, cutting support costs and boosting efficiency. Let’s talk about how AI chatbots and assistants can help your startup support customers like a scale-up. At JetRuby, we’ll tailor a lean, results-driven solution that multiplies your team’s power without breaking the bank. ### JetRuby Expertise in Logistics: How AI, IoT, and Computer Vision Are Reshaping Logistics for SMBs Logistics today is no longer just about moving goods — it’s about pushing them smarter. In a world where same-day delivery is becoming standard and customer expectations are sky-high, efficiency, automation, and data-driven decision-making are not luxuries — they’re requirements. According to McKinsey, companies that embrace advanced analytics and automation in logistics can reduce costs by up to 15–20% and improve service levels by over 30%. For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), these gains can be the difference between scaling and stalling. Yet many small and mid-sized logistics players remain stuck with outdated systems — spreadsheets for planning, manual inventory tracking, no real-time visibility, and disconnected software. This results in delivery delays, overstocked or understocked warehouses, and rising operational costs. JetRuby helps SMBs overcome these barriers with custom logistics solutions powered by AI, IoT, and computer vision. Real-World Logistics Challenges and JetRuby’s Practical Approach Take inventory management, for example. One of our clients, Sortly, a regional inventory and asset tracking platform, was losing tens of thousands annually due to inaccurate forecasting and inconsistent stock levels. Using JetRuby’s predictive analytics engine — trained on historical sales data, seasonal trends, and promotional cycles — they reduced stockouts by 37% and cut warehousing costs by over 20% within the first six months. Their staff no longer had to manually adjust inventory levels each week — the AI provided accurate daily recommendations and automatically adjusted reordering thresholds, streamlining the entire stock management process. Another recurring issue for SMBs is routing and delivery. A courier company we partnered with struggled to maintain consistent delivery times in a growing metropolitan area. They relied on static route plans and driver intuition. We introduced an AI-based route optimization system that factors in live traffic, weather conditions, vehicle capacity, and delivery urgency. Within two months, their fuel consumption dropped by 25%, and their average delivery window improved by 18%. Clients noticed the difference — and so did the bottom line. From Reactive to Predictive: How JetRuby Transforms Operations Warehouse operations are another area where JetRuby’s clients see significant returns. One of our actual logistics clients, Anova, a mid-sized logistics operator, faced persistent problems with inconsistent package verification and unseen damage until delivery. JetRuby implemented a computer vision (CV) system using standard mobile cameras paired with JetRuby’s CV pipeline. The system scans parcels in real time, detects damage, verifies barcodes, and instantly alerts staff. As a result, package processing time decreased by 40%, and manual errors were cut by more than half. Thanks to this integrated approach:   Take Sortly, a client focused on warehouse efficiency for small distribution centers. They needed to streamline package verification without investing in expensive scanners or robotics. JetRuby developed a lightweight CV solution that uses mobile phone cameras and a web-based interface to identify incoming goods, match them to the system records, and detect anomalies (e.g., wrong size, damaged labels). Within three months: Inspection time was reduced by 50%, Human error during intake dropped by over 60%, And employees could process 2× more units per shift using the same equipment. These examples highlight how JetRuby’s tailored computer vision systems make advanced logistics automation accessible without enterprise-level budgets or infrastructure.   «One unexpected challenge we solved with computer vision was streamlining package verification in regional warehouses using mobile cameras. This solution reduced inspection time by 50% and decreased human error by over 60%. Looking ahead, robotics integrated with computer vision will continue to revolutionize warehouse operations and last-mile delivery efficiency.» Roman P, Logistics Project Coordinator Human-Centric AI: Empowering Teams, Not Replacing Them One of the biggest misconceptions about AI in logistics is that it eliminates the need for human involvement. At JetRuby, we see AI as a tool to augment human capabilities, not replace them. For example, a client operating a regional warehouse was overwhelmed with the volume of inbound packages and growing customer expectations.  Rather than automating every task, we focused on augmenting their team’s strengths: implementing real-time AI-driven dashboards to prioritize high-risk deliveries, deploying CV tools to improve quality control, and enabling predictive alerts to reduce firefighting. As a result, warehouse throughput increased by 33%, while staff reported reduced stress and clearer daily priorities. Intelligent automation should relieve your team from repetitive tasks and empower them to focus on value-driving operations. Building Scalable, AI-Driven Logistics Systems For SMBs, scalability is key. You may manage 200 daily deliveries now, but what happens when you need to handle 2,000? Traditional systems struggle under pressure. JetRuby builds modular, API-driven logistics platforms that grow with your business. For example, a startup client initially launched with a minimal viable product (MVP) focused only on route optimization. As the company grew, we added modules for CV-based package tracking and warehouse forecasting within the same platform—no need for full rebuilds or system migrations. Our architecture is built for speed and resilience. IoT sensors can track temperatures in cold chain logistics, AI algorithms can predict shipment delays based on customs data, and our CV tools can scan every pallet in the warehouse without requiring new hardware — just cameras and a connection. Strategic Advantages of Smart Logistics By replacing fragmented manual processes with intelligent, connected systems, JetRuby helps clients unlock a wide range of business benefits: Cost Efficiency: Reduced fuel consumption, fewer stock losses, lower labor costs. Customer Experience: More accurate ETAs, fewer errors, proactive communication. Agility: The ability to respond to real-time disruptions with automated rerouting and dynamic resource allocation. Data-Driven Growth: Integrated analytics allow faster, more intelligent decision-making at every level of operations. Our Vision and Ongoing Innovation At JetRuby, we are driven by a forward-thinking vision that places continuous innovation at the heart of digital transformation in logistics. We believe that staying ahead in this fast-evolving industry means not only adopting new technologies but also anticipating future challenges and opportunities. Our approach combines strategic foresight with agile development to seamlessly integrate emerging technologies, enabling smarter, more efficient, and sustainable logistics ecosystems. A Look Ahead: JetRuby’s Vision for Logistics 2030 Looking ahead, JetRuby is actively investing in cutting-edge innovations designed to future-proof logistics and redefine industry standards: Digital twins of logistics networks: These sophisticated virtual replicas simulate real-world disruptions, allowing us to test and optimize new distribution strategies in a risk-free environment, thereby ensuring resilience and agility in operations. Autonomous AI agents: Leveraging advanced machine learning and automation, our AI agents can manage entire supply chain workflows end-to-end — from automated reordering and inventory management to dynamic SLA enforcement — dramatically reducing human error and operational costs. Sustainability optimization engines: In line with our commitment to environmental responsibility, these intelligent systems recommend greener transportation routes, minimize waste throughout the supply chain, and continuously monitor emissions to help companies meet their sustainability goals. Robotics integrated with computer vision: Our cutting-edge robotics solutions employ real-time visual classification, parcel sorting, and anomaly detection to streamline warehouse and last-mile processes, significantly boosting speed and accuracy. By combining these technologies, JetRuby envisions a logistics sphere where digital intelligence, automation, and sustainability work in harmony — delivering unparalleled value to businesses and consumers alike. This vision is not just a distant goal; it’s a continuous journey powered by relentless innovation, strategic partnerships, and a commitment to shaping the future of logistics. Why SMBs Choose JetRuby JetRuby understands the realities of running a logistics-focused SMB: lean teams, tight timelines, and a need for results, not experiments. That’s why we start with discovery and strategy, rapidly build MVPs, and continue with modular scaling based on your evolving needs. We’re more than developers — we’re your innovation partner. Our clients stay with us because we build high-quality software, deliver measurable results, communicate transparently, and have a deep understanding of the logistics domain. Smart Technologies, Smarter Growth AI, IoT, and computer vision are no longer optional — they are essential tools for digital transformation in logistics. From warehouse automation to predictive route planning, these technologies enable real-time decision-making and continuous operational improvement. At JetRuby, we don’t just implement software — we build solutions that help logistics companies scale faster, reduce costly errors, and deliver better experiences to their customers. By integrating advanced, flexible technologies into everyday logistics processes, we help our clients not only keep up but also get ahead of the competition. Final Thoughts: From Complexity to Competitive Advantage AI, IoT, and computer vision are no longer experimental — they’re core components of a successful logistics strategy. Businesses that fail to modernize risk falling behind more innovative, leaner competitors. JetRuby helps you move confidently into the future with tailored, intelligent logistics systems that reduce costs, improve service, and scale effortlessly. ### The Future of Multimodal AI in Product Development: What to Expect in 2025 and Beyond AI is no longer just about crunching numbers or spitting out text. Welcome to the era of multimodal AI, where machines can see, hear, speak, and even imagine. If you're building products in 2025, this isn’t just another tech buzzword. It’s a seismic shift that will reshape how we design, develop, and deliver digital experiences. In this article, we’ll explore how multimodal AI is transforming product development—from lightning-fast prototyping to hyper-personalized customer experiences. We’ll also show you how to capitalize on this trend to keep your product ahead of the curve. Multimodal AI 101: What It Really Means Traditional AI models are specialists — they handle text, images, or audio. Multimodal AI breaks that boundary — it processes multiple data types simultaneously, combining vision, language, sound, and beyond. Imagine ChatGPT that can read diagrams, summarize YouTube videos, analyze customer reviews, and respond to voice commands — all within a single interface. Now imagine what that could unlock in your product pipeline. Why Product Teams Can’t Afford to Ignore This Whether you're developing a SaaS platform, launching an eCommerce app, or iterating on your core product, multimodal AI offers transformative benefits: Turbocharged Prototyping Feed sketches, voice memos, and customer reviews into an AI system — and get a functioning app prototype. Sounds futuristic? It’s already happening with tools like GPT-4o and Gemini. Example: Design teams now generate UI mockups in minutes from hand-drawn wireframes and user feedback. AI-Driven UX Testing Multimodal AI can automatically analyze video recordings, heatmaps, and user feedback to flag usability issues. The result? Faster, smarter iterations — with zero guesswork. Next-Level Personalization By blending voice commands, browsing history, and even facial cues, multimodal systems deliver hyper-personalized experiences at scale. How Leading Teams Are Using Multimodal AI Here’s where it gets practical. These are the hottest use cases right now: Game-Changing Tools & Platforms to Watch in 2025 In 2025, several groundbreaking platforms will lead the charge in the multimodal AI revolution, offering powerful capabilities that are already transforming how teams build and scale products. At the forefront is OpenAI GPT-4o, a next-generation model that seamlessly integrates text, images, and voice within a single interface. This unified approach allows product teams to process complex data inputs — whether analyzing visual content, responding to voice commands, or generating detailed written output — all without switching tools. Another standout is Runway ML, a creative powerhouse that enables AI-driven video generation and editing. With Runway, users can craft high-quality videos simply by providing text prompts and images, making it a go-to platform for marketers, content creators, and product designers aiming to produce captivating media at scale. For design teams, Figma’s AI tools are unlocking new levels of speed and flexibility. These tools can automatically generate user interface designs from spoken instructions or written prompts, dramatically accelerating prototyping and reducing the need for manual design iterations. Another key player in this space is Perplexity AI, a cutting-edge research assistant that combines search, citations, and visual data to deliver highly relevant, nuanced insights. Whether conducting product research or gathering competitive intelligence, Perplexity helps streamline the process by surfacing credible sources and detailed analysis in seconds. Here’s the best part: most of these tools now offer API access, meaning you can integrate multimodal AI functionality directly into your product workflows. This unlocks opportunities for automation, advanced personalization, and next-level innovation without starting from scratch. Ready to leverage these tools? If you’re serious about building AI-powered products, now is the time to act. Explore these platforms, experiment with their APIs, and discover how multimodal AI can supercharge your product development cycle. Need help crafting an AI-first product strategy? Let's connect! No-Code & Low-Code Builders: Multimodal AI for Everyone In 2025, no-code and low-code builders for multimodal AI agents are gaining rapid momentum. These tools make advanced AI capabilities accessible even to teams without deep programming or machine learning expertise. These platforms are "Lego kits" for building multimodal AI agents. Instead of writing complex code, you visually connect modular blocks — each handling a specific task such as text processing, image analysis, speech recognition, or database interaction. How It Works: Choose Your Agent Type Whether it’s a chatbot, research assistant, virtual concierge, or product assistant, you select the kind of AI agent you want to build. Connect Data Sources Upload documents, images, and videos, or connect external databases, cloud storage, and APIs (e.g., Notion, Slack, Airtable, Google Sheets, S3, CRMs). Combine AI Models Mix and match different text, image, audio, or video processing models. For example, your agent can analyze PDF reports, respond to voice commands, and search your knowledge base — all in one place. Set Logic & Workflows Define how the agent handles requests, including voice, visual, or text queries. Deploy Your Agent Launch it via a web app, integrate it into your website, mobile app, or internal system — many platforms let you go live with just a click. Real-World Example: Let’s say you want to build an AI shopping assistant for an e-commerce store: The agent can handle text, voice, and image queries — customers can upload photos, describe items verbally, or type in their preferences. It analyzes product images, searches your catalog, checks previous purchases, and even automatically adds products to the cart. With no coding, you can build such an agent in Flowise within hours by connecting your product database and GPT-powered models. Why This Matters: These platforms save development time and democratize multimodal AI, making it accessible to designers, marketers, product managers, and analysts alike. You can launch experimental agents, test ideas, and integrate them into your product workflows in a single day. Final Takeaway: The Future Belongs to the Bold Let’s be clear — multimodal AI is not another fleeting trend or buzzword. It’s rapidly becoming the new foundation for digital product development. What we’re witnessing today is the beginning of a fundamental shift in how products are imagined, built, and improved. The companies and teams that embrace this technology early will not only stay competitive but also redefine their industries. They will set the benchmarks for speed, personalization, and user experience, leaving slower adopters struggling to keep up. If you’re serious about building AI-powered products, now is the time to act. Explore these platforms, experiment with their APIs, and discover how multimodal AI can supercharge your product development cycle. Start small, but start now: Experiment with multimodal tools. Integrate AI into your existing product workflows. Iterate quickly and learn from every cycle. And most importantly — stay curious. The most innovative breakthroughs often come from unexpected places. The future doesn’t wait for the cautious. It rewards those who move boldly and intentionally toward what’s next. ### AI-Native Agency — What Does It Mean? 78% of organizations already apply AI to at least one core function, up from just 55% the year before.  McKinsey estimates the extra economic value of generative AI to be $2.6-$4.4 trillion annually, roughly equivalent to Germany’s GDP.  With the global Gen-AI market on track to break $34 billion in 2025, waiting for “maturity” is no longer an option.  That surge is rewriting the playbook you follow to build, market, and support digital products. Teams that bolt AI onto yesterday’s workflows still battle long release cycles and ballooning costs. Teams that design processes around AI from day one sidestep those bottlenecks and pull ahead. JetRuby has lived in both realities. We started with isolated pilots, code copilots in dev, smart routing in support, predictive spend in marketing. Lessons from those early wins fueled a company-wide shift: every sprint, every stand-up, and every customer touchpoint now runs with AI assistance. The payoff shows up in shorter feedback loops, leaner budgets, and quicker pivots when your market moves. What Is an AI-Native Agency? An AI-native agency builds every workflow with artificial intelligence at the center. AI isn’t a plug-in, It’s the default toolkit your project uses from the first user interview to post-launch support. Your SaaS team already knows the power of being cloud-native; software that lives in the cloud from day one scales faster than apps that migrate later. The same rule now applies to AI. When your partner is AI-native, you inherit a culture, process, and tech stack that assumes models, copilots, and data pipelines are always on. How an AI-Native Agency Works Research – Language models scrape market chatter and spot gaps your competitors miss. Planning – Generative tools draft specs, risk maps, and story points in hours, not weeks. Development – Code copilots cut boilerplate; AI-driven test suites flag edge cases early. The post AI Test Automation: AI Tools for Unit Tests breaks down the essentials. Support – Smart agents solve tier-one tickets 24/7 while your experts focus on high-value work. Why the Term Appeared Now Exploding model quality. High-grade models surpassed human pass rates on many coding and reasoning benchmarks this year. Cheap, abundant compute. Cloud vendors have dropped GPU prices and rolled out serverless inference, allowing mid-size teams to afford production-grade AI at scale. Together, these shifts made “add-on AI” feel dated. Automation may eliminate manual clicks, but it still relies on humans as the primary engine. An AI-native model flips that script: your people guide strategy while machines handle routine tasks in real time. For your company, partnering with an AI-native agency means you skip the painful transition, tap proven playbooks, and launch products that learn and improve from day one. JetRuby as an AI-Native Agency We moved from small AI pilots to full integration in less than three years. You now find machine-learning models woven into every sprint, stand-up, and support ticket. That shift came from rewriting core workflows instead of tacking AI on the side. Quality assurance led the charge. Automated Quality Assurance (AQA) tools now draft and run test cases around the clock, cutting manual QA seats on large systems by up to 40%.  HR adopted AI next: language models summarize one-on-one meetings, highlight sentiment trends, and flag flight risks before they hurt delivery. Our HR lessons align with key points from the Top 13 Steps to Reduce Employee Turnover. To keep momentum, JetRuby implemented new roles: Decision speed jumped. Real-time dashboards transform raw project data into clear options, allowing product managers to lock in scope in minutes rather than days. Your leadership team reallocates budget on the fly, confident that AI analytics surface the latest risks and opportunities. Cross-functional hand-offs feel friction-free. A designer posts a Figma mock-up; the AI converts it to front-end components; AQA instantly generates matching tests. The chain from design to code to validation happens in one Slack thread, not three separate meetings. JetRuby also turns AI fluency into habit. Every new hire completes a one-week “AI On-Ramp,” daily stand-ups open with a quick prompt showcase, and a shared prompt library grows with each lesson learned.  Pro Tip: Learn how personal growth plans reinforce AI skills, explore JetRuby’s Personalized Development Plans (PDPs). JetRuby Flow: Agile Delivery with AI Flow is the living proof that an AI-native mindset works in practice. The framework combines classic Agile rituals with always-on AI assistants, enabling your project to achieve its targets faster and with fewer surprises. During the Product Discovery Session (PDS), large language models sift through competitor data, user reviews, and industry reports in real-time. You step into day two with a clear problem statement, a ranked backlog, and a risk map — work that once cost weeks of analyst time now lands in hours. Next comes Zero Sprint. Here, generative tools spin up infrastructure-as-code templates, provision cloud resources, and scaffold starter modules from your tech stack in one click. Your team moves straight to feature work instead of wrestling with boilerplate setup. Hint: If you’re evaluating hosting, our guide to the 8 Best Ruby on Rails Hosting Providers can help. In Delivery, the AiQA subsystem handles roughly 80% of regression testing. It writes, runs, and updates test suites as the codebase evolves, allowing developers to focus on new logic while maintaining high coverage without ballooning QA headcount. Once your product is live, AI-based monitoring keeps a watchful eye. Predictive models track error rates, load spikes, and user-behavior anomalies, flagging potential incidents hours before traditional alerts would trigger. You proactively fix issues, protect uptime, and preserve customer trust. Because every phase feeds metrics back into the same dashboards, you and your stakeholders can see budget burn, velocity, and risk in near real-time. JetRuby.Flow turns delivery into a transparent, data-driven loop where AI handles the heavy lifting and your experts steer the strategy. AI-Native vs. Traditional Agencies Before we dive into the details, picture one product idea moving from spark to production. Watch how the path splits when you hand that idea to an AI-native agency versus a traditional one. Structure and roles In a traditional shop, you still see classic silos: business analyst → designer → developer → QA → support. An AI-native team collapses those walls. Prompt engineers and AI ambassadors sit alongside developers and testers. Copilots write boilerplate code, AIQA spins up regression tests, and smart bots triage support tickets. Your people spend more time on architecture, product fit, and user empathy—work that moves the needle. Speed from idea to release A feature that once crawled through two-week steps now flies in days. LLMs refine user stories on the spot, Zero-Sprint wizards scaffold infra in minutes, and AiQA runs overnight test cycles. Code review shrinks to focused edge-case checks, not style nits. You hit production faster, learn faster, and loop back with real usage data. Cost and effort Traditional agencies fight scope creep with head-count. AI-native partners let machines handle the repetitive 80%. You trim QA rosters, shorten planning meetings, and reduce rework. Budget shifts to innovation instead of maintenance. Transparency and client communication Old-school teams bundle metrics into a deck every Friday. AI-native dashboards stream velocity, risk, and burn in real time. You see blockers the moment they appear and adjust course before a sprint derails, no surprises. Culture shift AI-native teams embed AI into everyday routines. Stand-ups include a short prompt-sharing segment, and retrospectives identify the next task to automate. This habit keeps curiosity high and drives continuous improvement. The result: shorter cycles, lower overhead, and clearer insights powered by a workforce that treats AI as a lever, not a threat. If AI anxiety surfaces, send teammates to Why You Shouldn't Fear AI Taking Jobs. Advantages of Being AI-Native When AI works by default rather than by exception, your company gains speed, accuracy, and clarity at once. Faster launches After JetRuby’s shift to AI-native delivery, the average time-to-market on green-field products fell by 28%. Code scaffolds appear in minutes, automated test suites run overnight, and real-time risk heat-maps shorten decision cycles. You release sooner, learn from users earlier, and reinvest that feedback into the next sprint. Lower operating cost Automation now covers most repeatable chores—data entry, test maintenance, L1 support. That cut the direct cost of those tasks by 35% and freed senior staff for strategy, not busywork. Better quality Before the transition, production defects averaged 6.2 per 1000s lines of code. With AiQA guarding every commit, the rate dropped to 4.7 — a 24% improvement — while sustained uptime rose from 99.75% to 99.95%. Your users feel the difference in stability, not just speed. Clearer collaboration AI copilots document every change and stream project metrics in real time. Product owners no longer wait for a Friday slide deck; they spot scope creep the moment it starts and adjust on the fly. Sharper personalization Behavioral analytics models segment users in real time, feeding design, marketing, and support with live insight. Features roll out to the right cohort, messages land at the right moment, and churn risks surface days earlier than before. These gains aren’t theoretical. They come from JetRuby’s day-to-day practice of embedding AI at every layer, so your team inherits proven playbooks instead of chasing a trend. Elevate with CTO Co-Pilot Elevate your development with our CTO Co-Pilot! Get expert support, AI audits, cost analysis, and a detailed implementation plan - or let us handle full implementation. Get in touch AI-Native Approach in Action: GeneWise Health GeneWise Health, a genetics lab with a 20-year-old Ruby on Rails 3.2 platform, had to modernize fast after its acquisition by GenovaCare. The new owners demanded a jump to Rails 7.1, tighter security, and a clear path to SOC 1 and eventually SOC 2 compliance. AI-driven workflow JetRuby applied its AI-native delivery playbook at every step: Quantifiable results 20 years of technical debt cleared. Dead code removed, directory sprawl eliminated, and coding standards enforced with RuboCop. Security hardening has been achieved. Two-factor authentication, new WAF rules, and intrusion-detection systems have satisfied SOC 1 auditors and set the stage for SOC 2. Performance and maintainability improved. A leaner codebase and modern Rails stack now support faster feature releases and easier future audits. Why it matters Traditional teams might have spent a year untangling legacy code before touching security. Our AI-native process compressed that effort into 6 months, delivered compliance on the first audit, and left GeneWise Health with a secure, resilient platform ready for the next decade of precision-health innovation. For more on Rails benefits in SaaS, see 9 Reasons Why Ruby on Rails Is Perfect for SaaS. The Future of AI-Native Agencies Over the next two years, AI will transition from a competitive edge to basic hygiene — much like Agile did a decade ago. Boards already budget for model spend the way they once planned for cloud credits. Your company will soon expect every agency partner to speak fluent AI from kickoff to post-launch. The must-have toolkit is taking shape: multimodal models that handle code, voice, and design files in one pass, retrieval-augmented generation for instant, accurate domain-specific answers, vector databases integrated into every product, and autonomous agents that triage tickets or draft release notes without human intervention. JetRuby plans to stay ahead by improving its AiQA engine, adding a secure retrieval-augmented generation layer that safeguards client data, and teaming up with cloud providers to speed up AI responses while building compliance tools directly into each project. Your stakeholders will ask for real-time insight, not Thursday slide decks. They’ll want predictive churn flags, revenue heat maps, and auto-generated compliance logs. Agencies that still rely on manual QA or static reports will feel as dated as waterfall Gantt charts. In short, AI-native delivery is on track to become the default expectation. JetRuby’s roadmap ensures your business grows with that standard, rather than racing to catch up later. Curious about the evolving executive role? Take a look at What Is a CTO? The CTO Meaning in Business. Ready to see what an AI-native workflow could do for your company? Schedule a quick call or drop a note through our Contact Us form, and we’ll map out a tailored game plan: the right AI tools, the right delivery rhythm, and measurable wins you can show your stakeholders next quarter. Stop bolting AI on the side. Start building with it at the core. Let’s get you there faster, leaner, and with total clarity on budget and timeline. ### Building AI-Powered Control Towers for Real-Time Logistics Visibility Turning supply chain fragility into a competitive edge with integrated AI systems In an era of supply chain disruptions, volatile demand, and global instability, logistics has quickly evolved from a back-office function into a strategic differentiator. Delayed shipments, inventory imbalances, and lack of real-time visibility have become common pain points for companies across sectors — from manufacturing to retail. As a recent Financial Times article highlights, organizations are actively exploring how artificial intelligence can help restore control and predictability to increasingly fragile logistics operations. One particularly impactful approach involves using AI-powered “control towers”: dynamic, integrated platforms that enable real-time monitoring and decision-making across the logistics network. These systems are helping companies transition from reactive firefighting to proactive, insight-driven operations, and at JetRuby, we’ve been assisting mid-sized businesses in doing precisely that through custom-built logistics intelligence platforms. Why logistics teams feel stuck — and how AI helps Many of today’s logistics challenges stem from fragmented systems and a lack of data integration. Traditional workflows weren’t built to support today’s demand volatility, cross-border complexity, or real-time decision-making. When most businesses detect an issue, it disrupts operations, forces reactive rerouting, or increases costs through expedited shipping. AI helps shift this dynamic. Instead of simply tracking delays, it empowers teams to prevent them. Here’s what AI-powered control towers make possible: Unified dashboards that provide real-time visibility into shipments, inventories, and supplier performance Predictive analytics to forecast demand and anticipate disruptions Intelligent recommendations to optimize routing, warehousing, and last-mile delivery Dynamic alerts that trigger early interventions when things go off-track In short, AI adds both visibility and actionability, helping companies make better decisions faster across a connected ecosystem. Real-world transformation: Sortly’s scalable logistics backbone A great example is our partnership with Sortly, a fast-growing inventory management platform. They came to JetRuby seeking a more reliable backend system that could support both mobile and web applications and scale with their growing customer base, which includes enterprise clients such as HP, PepsiCo, and Yale. We helped redesign their entire backend architecture, creating a flexible API infrastructure that made it easier to roll out new features, sync mobile and web platforms, and maintain a smooth user experience. While the term “control tower” wasn’t used explicitly, the goals were to build a digital nervous system for logistics data and enable real-time visibility and control at scale. As a result, Sortly became the №1 inventory app in the App Store, with over 300,000 global installations. Their team gained the speed and flexibility to deliver new features quickly — and the confidence that their platform could handle whatever came next. Why companies trust JetRuby with logistics AI We’re often asked what sets JetRuby apart in the AI space. The answer is simple: we combine engineering depth with product thinking. That means we don’t just build what’s on the spec sheet — we ask the right questions, identify core business goals, and design intelligent systems that create long-term value. When we build logistics AI solutions, we focus on: Tailored architecture that fits your tech stack and workflows Clean, user-friendly dashboards that support real-time insights Modular designs that allow for future scaling and integration Business logic that reflects your actual day-to-day decision-making Whether you’re looking to cut costs, reduce delays, or respond more confidently to global supply chain volatility, we ensure the tools we build support those outcomes. What’s next: Resilient supply chains through more innovative infrastructure As logistics teams look ahead, the emphasis shifts from speed and cost to resilience, flexibility, and intelligence. That means making the right digital investments — not only in automation, but also in the infrastructure that gives visibility across the whole value chain. AI control towers are a foundational piece of that shift. They provide: A single source of truth across operations The ability to simulate “what-if” scenarios before disruptions occur Automated decision support that boosts team performance Real-time collaboration across internal and external logistics partners And importantly, they’re no longer just for billion-dollar enterprises. With JetRuby, mid-sized companies can access the same level of intelligence and agility through custom, cost-efficient solutions that deliver value fast. Let’s build your control tower If you’re struggling with blind spots in your logistics or tired of putting out fires, we’d love to explore how an AI control tower could work for your business. Whether you need demand forecasting, dynamic routing, or unified tracking — or want to start with a discovery workshop — our team is here to help. 👉 Book a quick intro call to discuss your supply chain goals and how JetRuby can support them with AI. ### Unit Rental Platform: How We Helped a Real Estate Firm Go Digital and Launch a Nationwide Storage Business In the U.S., self-storage is a $44 billion industry that continues to grow. Americans rent millions of storage units each year to house personal items, seasonal gear, and everything in between. Yet, for most users, the rental process is clunky, with outdated portals, unclear pricing, and frustrating delays. Our Client, a prominent real estate developer, saw this as an opportunity. With more than 20 properties across the country, they decided to enter the storage market with a digital-first approach, launching a brand-new Unit Rental platform. But there was one problem: they didn’t have an in-house tech team. The Challenge: Going Digital With No Developers Our Partner’s CTO is a Ruby on Rails expert — but he needed a trusted development partner who spoke his language, worked transparently, and had deep RoR expertise. That’s where JetRuby came in. From day one, we formed a tight collaboration. Our Lead Ruby Developer and the client’s CTO communicated seamlessly, shared ideas, and aligned on architecture. This strong technical rapport became a basis of the project — and a key reason why the client stayed with us. The mission: Build a fast, intuitive web interface that lets everyday customers: Browse available storage units near them, Compare by price, size, and availability, Reserve and rent units online, Pay directly from the platform. And behind the scenes, the system had to sync with third-party services like StorEDGE and Customer.io — all while handling legacy insurance APIs that hadn’t seen an update in years. Building Unit Rental Platform: From Zero to Platform in 6 Months Zero Sprint & Discovery: We started with a 2 week DnD (Design & Discovery) sprint to map the product vision, clarify scope, define user flows, and integrate feedback from the CTO. Together, we aligned on architecture and third-party integrations, including outdated XML-based APIs that required careful handling. Consumer MVP: Browse, Rent, Pay: The first delivery was a consumer-facing MVP, completed in just 12 weeks. Key features included: Interactive facility map, Unit selection with availability filters, Step-by-step rental flow, Secure payment integration, Personal account with rental management tools. The frontend was built with Hotwire (Stimulus + Turbo) and styled with Tailwind CSS. The backend ran on Ruby on Rails, supported by PostgreSQL and Redis. We used the JetRuby Flow methodology, with agile sprints, biweekly demos, CI/CD, and comprehensive documentation to support long-term platform ownership. Expanding the Vision: Operator CRM After launching the MVP, Our Client needed an internal system to support their storage operations across 20+ facilities. We built a custom CRM from the ground up: Lead management and intake (including orphan leads), One-click unit reservations and rentals, Integration with StorEDGE for real-time data sync, Tools for operators to call, email, and soon SMS customers, Follow-up workflows with automatic reminders, Admin dashboard and performance tracking, Debt management and overdue alerts. To make this possible, we scaled the team to 9 people: PM, Business Analyst, Backend and Hotwire Developers, QA Engineers, DevOps, and a UI/UX designer. The CRM entered production in mid 2025 and is now used daily to manage rentals, communication, and reporting across the network. Overcoming Roadblocks Legacy APIs: Some third-party APIs, particularly for insurance and protection plans, were outdated, under-documented, and prone to failure. We built robust failover logic and created detailed internal docs to make integration predictable and safe. Unstable MVP Post-Launch: After the consumer app went live, a wave of edge-case bugs surfaced from real users. We responded with rapid hotfixes and regression testing by improving QA coverage and reinforcing our test automation suite. Results: A Stable, Scalable Platform for Nationwide Storage Today, the Unit Rental Platform lets consumers reserve and pay for units from any device, while operators manage everything through a centralized CRM. 20+ facilities onboarded Zero downtime during consumer rollout CRM in full use by multiple operator teams Full documentation for handover and expansion SLA-based support in progress The Ruby-based codebase is clean, documented, and ready to scale, giving Our Partner the freedom to grow the Unit Rental Platform without technical friction. ### AI in Healthcare: Faster Diagnoses, Leaner Workflows, Healthier Patients What if your hospital regained the hours lost to endless typing and idle scanners? AI has the potential to unlock $200 – $360 billions nationwide or about $15 – $25 millions a year for a 250-bed facility. That windfall buys more staff, sharper tech, and stronger community care for a smart healthcare industry. Any healthcare provider who reclaims this time can reinvest it in bedside staff and community outreach. Across the wider healthcare system, a minute lost at triage can snowball into hours of downstream delay. Curious how other sectors harness automation? Discover the 9 key benefits of AI in the supply chain. Despite the promise, clinicians still spend nearly 2 hours inside the EHR for every hour with patients, and fewer than half of emergency-department x-ray reports reach doctors within the clinically recommended 1-hour window.  These delays show the potential of how AI can help healthcare solve time-sensitive gaps across the healthcare continuum.Each delay ramps up overtime, fuels burnout, and, what is most important, puts timely care at risk. Here’s where speed and precision slip through the cracks: Diagnosis delays Chart-completion drag Patient-routing bottlenecks Equipment-downtime surprises Below you’ll see an example of AI in healthcare modules that tackles each choke point, the returns early adopters report, and the first steps your team can take this quarter.  Key Takeaways AI targets the pressure points. Faster imaging reads, open beds, instant documentation, and real-time med checks stop delays from snowballing through care. Quality meets cash flow. Each module's diagnostics, routing, and maintenance pairs a clinical win with a measurable revenue or cost-avoidance boost, improving the overall quality of care. Good data and no dice. Ambient scribes and chatbots shine only when they ingest clean EHR data and well-labeled training sets. Predict, don’t react. Forecasting bed demand and equipment failures days ahead beats scrambling after a backlog or breakdown. Automate tasks, not people. Offloading rote tasks cuts burnout, lifts retention, and lets healthcare workers focus on care, not clicks. Pro Tip: Validate new features faster with these AI test automation tools for unit tests. Where AI in Healthcare Elevates Care and Economics Alike Imagine slipping a digital co-pilot into the tasks that now drain your budget and stretch your team. Artificial intelligence in healthcare and analytics weaves itself into everyday healthcare operations without a rip-and-replace overhaul.  By integrating AI with existing EHR and PACS feeds, you avoid the cost of ripping out legacy tools. Quick Tip: Follow our blueprint to build a smart AI assistant in 8 steps for your CRM. In the next 8 snapshots, we’ll look at AI devices in healthcare at work, see the dollars it puts back on your balance sheet, and feel the difference it makes in each patient’s day.  AI Devices in Healthcare: Medical Imaging & Diagnostics A generative model now reviews every scan the moment it lands in PACS. AI analyzes contours, estimates tumor volume, and drafts heat-map reports that radiologists sign off in minutes.  The workflow trims turnaround by up to 40% while maintaining accuracy. The core AI algorithm was trained on millions of annotated scans and keeps learning from each new study. Benefits for Your Clinic: You load MRI and CT machines evenly throughout the day, complete more studies without overtime, and push a multi-million-dollar scanner toward breakeven months sooner. A built-in “second reader” also cuts the risk and cost of missed findings. These continuously refined AI models now match senior radiologists on sensitivity while cutting their workload in half. Benefits for Your Patients: Personalize patient care with same-day answers, replacing anxious waits. Treatment starts earlier, survival odds rise, and the chance of discovering the disease at a late, costlier stage falls sharply. Hint: See real-world wins in how JetRuby uses AI task automation. Hospital AI: Predictive Bed & Equipment Management This is hands-on AI automation in healthcare that many AI in hospitals pilots aim to copy. Johns Hopkins’ Capacity Command Center feeds HL7-ADT streams, OR calendars, and seasonal flu data into a machine-learning dashboard. The forecasts push bed occupancy up from 85 % to 92 %, cut the wait to assign a bed by 3.5 hours, and bring in $16 million in extra annual revenue. GE HealthCare’s OnWatch analytics monitor your MRI sensors around the clock and schedule service before peak demand. Clinics that deploy it report 35% fewer unplanned outages, so scanners stay billable when you need them most. Benefits for Your Clinic: You fill beds optimally instead of paying for empty rooms or diverting admissions. Predictive maintenance keeps million-dollar machines online and delays costly replacements. Benefits for Your Patients: They move straight into a ready bed, receive scans without last-minute cancellations, and leave the hospital as soon as care protocols allow. Less waiting, lower stress, faster recovery. By the way, smooth shifts keep talent happy — apply these 13 Steps to Reduce Employee Turnover. Advantages of AI in Healthcare: Smart Patient Routing & Scheduling A reinforcement-learning agent monitors your schedule, timing each test or consultation, which is a clear proof of how AI can help in healthcare.  When radiology clogs, it reorganizes the route and sends the patient a new path. No one wastes steps or minutes hunting for the next room. AI algorithms can analyze live queue data and reroute patients within seconds. Benefits for Your Clinic: With AI in Healthcare, every suite runs at a steady, predictable load. Peak-hour bottlenecks flatten, staff overtime drops, and higher satisfaction scores turn into better online ratings and repeat visits. Benefits for Your Patients: Clear, real-time prompts replace hallway confusion. They complete a full diagnostic loop in hours instead of an entire day, head home sooner, and carry far less stress while they wait for answers. AI in Patient Care: NLP-Driven Clinical Documentation At the point of care, AI can be used to transcribe visits and code them instantly. Ambient scribes transcribe visits and code them instantly. The capabilities of AI healthcare here slash pajama-time charting by 30%. Benefits for Your Clinic: Faster encounters lift room turnover, so you see more patients without overtime. Clean, code-ready notes reach payers the same day, accelerating reimbursement and reducing denials. Benefits for Your Patients: Your doctor keeps eye contact instead of typing. Complete notes mean fewer missed details, and e-prescriptions drop into the pharmacy queue before the patient leaves the room. Concerned about workforce impact? Read Why You Shouldn’t Fear AI Taking Jobs. AI and Healthcare Communication: Chatbots & Virtual Triage As one of the most common forms of AI used in healthcare, these digital AI assistants show the benefits of using AI in healthcare before a patient arrives. Not to mention that better bots start with better data — see Understanding AI Training Data. A large-language-model chatbot on your website or app can handle the first conversation, ask follow-up questions, rate symptom severity, and book the right slot. Weill Cornell Medicine saw a 47% jump in appointments booked digitally after turning that “digital front door” on. Benefits for Your Clinic: Around-the-clock self-service deflects routine calls, so your contact-center staff focus on complex cases and spend fewer paid hours on hold music. Benefits for Your Patients: People get guidance and a confirmed visit in minutes, which means no more busy tone or daylight restrictions. Immediate answers lower anxiety, and urgent red-flag cases pass smoothly to a live nurse, protecting safety while speeding access to care. AI Technology in Healthcare: Predictive Maintenance for Imaging & Lab Equipment This AI technology in healthcare keeps expensive hospital AI assets running instead of gathering dust. Smart sensors stream temperature, vibration, and load data from each MRI into an AI console. Spotting a bearing drift, the model triggers a work order immediately, so techs are able to swap parts during planned downtime.  Benefits for Your Clinic: Predictable service windows replace emergency repairs. Scanners stay billable, rental and overtime costs reduce, and high-value gear pays for itself faster. Benefits for Your Patients: Their scan goes ahead on schedule — no last-minute cancellations. Treatment starts on time, and diagnostic accuracy stays high because equipment is always in peak condition. Role of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: AI-Guided Precision Treatment Plans Here, AI can be used to match pharmacogenomic markers to dosing guidelines in real time. It signals the future of AI for healthcare, a textbook example of the technology’s role in improving outcomes. Picture an EHR screen that combines labs, pharmacogenetics, and past drug responses, then recommends the best dose and explains why. In the PREPARE trial (6,950 adults across seven countries) this setup cut adverse reactions by 30% and drove clinicians to adjust therapy in 70% of visits. Benefits for Your Clinic: Fewer drug-related complications mean fewer costly readmissions and shorter stays. Cleaner outcomes boost quality scores and strengthen your reputation with payers and referring physicians. Benefits for Your Patients: Therapy fits their biology from day one, so side effects drop and recovery speeds up. They gain confidence that the plan is truly “for me”, not “for the average patient”. Benefits of AI in Healthcare: Medication Safety & Drug-Interaction Alerts Few other uses of AI and healthcare scenarios show the payoff when AI in healthcare prevents harmful drug combinations on the spot. The moment you click “Order,” your e-prescribing screen becomes a safety net. An NLP engine checks dose, route, labs, and the full med list against FDA and WHO data. If it spots a risk, it shows an alert with safer options before the script leaves your desk. Benefits for Your Clinic: Fewer errors mean fewer malpractice payouts and regulatory fines. Clean, coded orders pass payer edits the first time, so reimbursements arrive sooner and revenue isn’t bled away by claim denials. Benefits for Your Patients: Patients get the right treatment at the right dose. They avoid dangerous drug interactions and unexpected side effects that could send them back to the ER. Elevate with CTO Co-Pilot Elevate your development with our CTO Co-Pilot! Get expert support, AI audits, cost analysis, and a detailed implementation plan - or let us handle full implementation. Get in touch AI Automation in Healthcare: Trusty Care Case Study Trusty Care helps health-insurance advisors match clients with the best plans. They couldn’t afford a crash when 90% of customers switch policies at once. JetRuby stepped in, replaced fragile Node.js / Vue.js code with a hardened backend, and tuned the stack to survive renewal-season surges. Pro Tip: AI can also inspect code quality with AI Code Review for Ruby on Rails Projects.  Challenges Stabilizing renewal-season traffic came down to four urgent challenges: Results Tackling those issues delivered measurable gains; here are the results now live: AI in Healthcare Sector: Practice Management Case Study A consortium of U.S. private hospitals asked JetRuby to craft a practice-management platform that books visits, syncs records, and cuts paperwork to just a few clicks. We designed a HIPAA-ready system that plugs straight into Athena EMR and scales from a single clinic to a nationwide network.  After launch and rapid uptake, the company’s valuation topped $1 billion, officially making it a healthcare-tech unicorn. Challenges Building a multi-clinic platform that could scale nationwide hinged on five critical hurdles: Results Clearing them unlocked rapid growth and a unicorn valuation; the numbers speak for themselves: JetRuby CTO Co-Pilot Service: Expert Backup on Demand Here’s how the CTO Co-Pilot integrates with your team to deliver expert guidance. Our expert, experienced in cloud, security, and AI Healthcare platforms, joins your roadmap to audit the stack, and show where AI can enhance performance or cut costs.  Review the key benefits below to see how you can close skill gaps and accelerate your digital-health roadmap.  Co-Pilot steps in when your roadmap needs skills beyond the core stack. A senior architect with deep cloud, clinical data, and AI Healthcare expertise embeds directly with your developers, reviewing pull requests and showing where AI can enhance speed or reliability.  If you already have an in-house CTO, our fractional CTO simply extends that bench, covering gaps in expertise or time. The Co-Pilot patches architecture issues, fast transfers proven healthcare patterns, and mentors the team to support healthcare professionals long after we roll off. Pro Tip: Thinking about bringing in or leveling up a tech leader? Read What Is a CTO? The Real Meaning Behind the Title in Business first to align everyone’s expectations. Each engagement starts with a quick audit that surfaces regulatory risks associated with AI healthcare and spots quick wins. We lock scope, cost, and timeline, code shoulder-to-shoulder, and stay until quality and safety metrics stabilize, then you take the reins. Ready to Transform Your Operations? If you’re ready to move beyond pilots and embed artificial intelligence in clinical workflows, use our Contact Us form to schedule a call, discuss your challenges, and map out a tailored AI healthcare development plan with JetRuby today. ### AI PODs: Small AI-Driven Teams Revolutionizing Software Development AI PODs represent a new approach to software development, where a small, highly skilled team works in tandem with AI tools to deliver projects faster and more efficiently.  The term “POD” is borrowed from Kubernetes (which uses “pods” to package software containers). Similarly, an AI POD is a self-contained unit of experts and AI components working together. By embedding custom AI agents into our development process, we significantly accelerate timelines while maintaining high quality and keeping costs low.  This mirrors a broader industry trend: AI-augmented development can boost productivity by up to 40%, and JetRuby’s results prove it. In this article, we'll show how JetRuby’s AI POD teams are structured and run, the problems they solve that traditional teams can't, and the tangible benefits they deliver. What is an AI POD at JetRuby? An AI POD at JetRuby is essentially a compact, high-performing squad (2–5 engineers + AIQA + AI agents) — a software development special forces team backed by AI assistants.  These AI assistants include code-generation tools, AI-driven testing utilities, and other “co-pilot” systems that we train based on our 15-year software development expertise and extensive codebase. They help write code, catch bugs, generate tests, and handle routine tasks, all under the guidance of our engineers. More importantly, AI PODs don’t throw AI tools at a project. Instead, we reorganize the process to fully leverage those tools.  Rather than each developer spending all day writing code from scratch or manually testing, much of the heavy lifting is done by AI, with developers curating and guiding those AI outputs. The concept arose as a response to the growing demand for leaner, more cost-effective development units. Large developer groups can be expensive and unwieldy, so many clients now prefer having an “in-house” feel — a small team that can handle complex projects while delegating repetitive or mundane work to AI tools.  In other words, an AI POD strives to do more with less: fewer people but amplified productivity. Much like an elite commando unit compared to a conventional army platoon. The big difference from a traditional team? In a normal setup, AI might be an add-on used sparingly or kept separate. In an AI POD, AI is embedded from day one as an active team member.  It's deployed in planning, coding, and testing continuously, not as an afterthought. Our developers collaborate with the AI on each task, combining human creativity and judgment with machine speed and consistency. JetRuby’s Journey to AI PODs In 2023, as AI tools became vastly more capable, JetRuby began experimenting by pairing developers with AI assistants on projects. The outcome was striking: features built in record time, with fewer bugs.  Encouraged by this success, we formally adopted the AI POD model across the company by mid-2024. A key part of this transition was training our AI agents on JetRuby’s entire 15-year codebase and project history. This provided the AI with a deep understanding of our coding standards, frameworks, and domain-specific patterns.  We reorganized our teams around small pods and trained our engineers to collaborate closely with the AI. Once the early PODs delivered outstanding results, it was clear this was the way forward. Structure and Operation of JetRuby’s AI POD Teams Unlike a traditional software project team that might include a dozen or more specialists (front-end developers, back-end developers, QA testers, UX designers, business analysts, etc.), an AI POD typically consists of just 2–5 people in total.  JetRuby designs each AI POD to be small but complete. Here’s a breakdown of the typical roles and components inside an AI POD: 1–3 Software Engineers: Full-stack developers or specialists who design and build features. Keeping the headcount low makes communication tight and decisions quick. AI QA Assistant ("AiQA"): An AI-driven quality assurance agent that continuously tests code and flags issues. It’s like having a tireless QA engineer on the team from day one. AI Coding Co-Pilot(s): AI tools integrated into the development environment. AI assistants write code, suggest improvements, and speed up routine programming tasks. Engineers break the goal into atomic tasks, sketch data models, and outline API contracts. An  AI design assistant then delivers architecture drafts, time estimates, and a risk matrix in seconds so the roadmap is clear before coding starts. An AI co-pilot produces boilerplate, edge-case tests, and docstrings on demand. A developer reviews each snippet, patches nuances, and commits. At once, an AiQA bot launches various tests and security scans. Any issue loops back to the engineer within minutes.  This compact team has all the roles needed to deliver a project end-to-end. Because the pod includes its own QA and AI helpers, there’s no waiting on external departments.  As our G2 profile notes, these are "high-impact, compact teams... able to handle complex challenges with speed and surgical precision." Finally, AI PODs learn and improve with each project. We continually update our AI agents with the latest code and feedback from every project, so the next time they're even smarter.  Every bug caught and feature built trains our AI to be even more effective, a compounding improvement traditional teams can’t match.  Our pods even use AI to automate project management tasks (like drafting documentation or status updates), freeing developers to focus on features. Benefits of JetRuby AI PODs JetRuby AI PODs deliver software with a pace and cost profile that large teams cannot match. A compact squad of two to five senior engineers works with AI co-pilots that generate boilerplate code, draft tests, and run security scans. This cuts idle time, meetings, and hand-offs. Speed converts straight into business advantage. Our pods shave up to 40% off time-to-market, allowing clients to launch features months earlier and capture market share ahead of their rivals.  Smaller headcount plus AI automation also reduces labor hours, which lowers total engineering spending. Quality rises in parallel: continuous AI testing and security checks produce fewer defects, which saves future maintenance dollars and preserves brand reputation. The model scales value, not payroll. One pod can handle work that once required an entire department, and multiple pods can run in parallel on separate product slices without coordination drag.  GitHub Copilot research shows that AI pair programming cuts individual coding time by 55%. And a small-team structure removes up to 39% of communication overhead compared to larger groups. This keeps budgets lean while letting ambitious roadmaps stay on track. Because engineers spend more time on creative problem-solving and less on rote coding, morale remains high, and employee turnover stays low. Besides, AI PODs directly address many common pain points in software development teams: Long timelines & large teams: Traditional projects can take months and require big teams (and budgets). AI PODs compress timelines by parallelizing work and automating tasks, so a small pod can deliver in the time a much larger team would need. Inconsistent quality: Human-only teams might miss bugs or skip best practices. In our pods, an AI QA runs continuous tests and code checks, catching issues early and enforcing high standards. Knowledge silos: On large projects, critical know-how is often tied to specific people. In an AI POD, the AI retains JetRuby’s 15-year knowledge base of code and solutions, so expertise isn't lost, and onboarding new members is faster. Challenges and Considerations An AI POD only thrives when people, tools, and processes align. Each member must be a skilled engineer who treats AI as a partner, not a curiosity. They need clear coding standards, a secure AI toolchain, and lightweight rules for when humans override machine suggestions.  Trust remains front and center: the team owns every line of code the AI generates and is accountable for any defects. Finally, the POD must keep learning — new models appear monthly, so prompts and workflows evolve just as fast. Potential Limitations and When an AI POD Is Not the Best Fit AI PODs work best on fresh builds, MVPs, and clean service slices. They slow down when the codebase is huge, undocumented, or tangled with decades of business rules. A legacy monolith may need months of discovery and refactoring that a three-person squad cannot cover. In that case, JetRuby adds a larger crew or runs a staged rewrite before the POD takes over new features. Regulated products in aviation or healthcare demand traceable proofs and formal audits. Those steps erode the speed edge, so we pair the POD with compliance specialists and manual verifiers. Culture also matters. If a client bans cloud AI services or distrusts machine-written code, the POD loses its edge and reverts to a normal small team.  Likewise, unclear strategy or shifting goals can derail any lean squad. AI accelerates execution, but it cannot resolve product direction chaos. Success still relies on human leadership, clear requirements, and an environment that fosters continuous AI learning. Future of AI PODs AI PODs stand where Agile did in 2001 — promising and still new. Analyst polls show three-quarters of developers already pair with generative AI, so the small-team model will spread fast.  JetRuby plans to double its POD capacity next year and license JetRuby.Flow to partners, positioning our format as a reference playbook. Tooling will leap ahead. Co-pilots now suggest code. The next wave will open pull requests, run pipelines, and roll back bad builds without prompts. Domain LLMs, fine-tuned on medical or banking rules, will sit inside each POD as built-in consultants. Org charts will shift. Titles like Prompt Engineer and AI Ops Lead will join Scrum boards. Velocity, burndown, and defect graphs will stream from AI dashboards in real time, so managers steer by outcomes, not guesswork.  Schools and bootcamps already pilot “AI-augmented developer” tracks to fill this skills gap. Governance will mature in parallel. Clients will demand proof that AI outputs respect licenses, avoid bias, and log every change. JetRuby invests in traceable code stamps and bias-scan hooks, aiming to set the compliance bar before regulations lock in. Conclusion: The JetRuby AI POD Advantage Our small AI-powered teams are delivering in weeks which might take others months, and doing it with higher quality and lower cost. In short, it's faster, better, cheaper, and seamlessly AI-integrated — that's the JetRuby AI POD advantage. Here’s a comparison table to see the real difference between an AI POD and a traditional team: For decision-makers, the takeaway is clear: if speed, agility, and innovation are top priorities, it's time to consider the AI POD approach.  We've embraced it fully at JetRuby. Now, we're ready to help you achieve the same kind of breakthrough in your software development projects. Please contact us anytime you see fit. ### AI Fintech: Key Benefits and Use Cases Picture your risk team stuck on a 6-month chargeback. Analysts copy-paste data, and manual credit scoring delays new applications. Meanwhile, 67% of prospects quit after extra KYC questions. Faster AI FinTech competitors approve in under a minute and win the business. Those six months illustrate how slowly legacy tools move, while the use of AI can clear the same dispute in days. It's proof that you no longer need to fear AI taking jobs when it saves them instead. In 2025, such delays are unacceptable in AI in financial services circles. AI scoring processes thousands of variables in milliseconds, and tools like Inscribe dramatically accelerate manual document review. This speed is already live at top banks and neobanks. Instant decisions cut costs, prevent fraud, and keep customers loyal. This proves how tightly AI and FinTech now converge, showing why AI is revolutionizing the customer journey across the entire financial services industry. Up next, we’ll learn where AI fits into the FinTech workflow, from credit, fraud, KYC, offers, churn, and to pricing, and what each upgrade does for the bottom line. Key Takeaways Instant credit decisions. AI scoring approves worthy borrowers in under a second, lifts accuracy 5–7 points, and keeps your funnel moving. Streaming anomaly detection stops fraud without annoying customers. Models adjust thresholds on live data, cutting false positives and chargebacks in one stroke. LLM-driven KYC/AML turns compliance into a competitive edge. One SaaS endpoint slashes onboarding to minutes and wipes out late-filing penalties. Personalized offers land right when users are ready to say yes. Recurrent nets and clustering raise conversion while shrinking your ad budget. Churn forecasts buy you a 30-day head start on retention. Early alerts turn silent exits into win-back wins and grow LTV. Dynamic pricing learns what each segment will happily pay. Reinforcement learning adjusts fees on the fly, increasing commission revenue without harming loyalty.. Case studies prove the model. Backbase cut release cycles by 14% with adaptive auth and CI, while Moments NFC trimmed checkout time by 40% and launched a multi-platform MVP in 12 days. Where AI Hits the FinTech Pain Points Your FinTech business might face pressure in credit scoring, fraud and AML checks, KYC onboarding, transaction monitoring, and cross-selling. Manual workflows slow approvals, waste engineering time on false positives, and drain marketing when offers miss the right moment. AI turns gaps into profit centers. Across these processes, we already count dozens of use cases of AI delivering hard ROI. AML can save $3 trillion annually by cutting false alerts and analyst work.  Tools like GiniMachine cut defaults by 25% and boost approvals by 30%, proving that faster risk models unlock revenue. Similar gains show up in KYC, fraud, loyalty, and upselling as well. That upside is why many fintech organizations budget heavily for AI this year. Next, we'll break down each pain point one by one, with a concise recap of your engineering wins, including fewer tickets and cleaner data, and your business wins, like lower OPEX and higher LTV.  Lightning-Fast Credit Scoring with AI in Finance Industry A headline application of AI in finance is lightning-fast scoring. It’s also among the highest-impact applications of AI in FinTech. Gradient-boosting models and deep neural nets sweep through thousands of signals like transaction history, social media, and even geodata, and deliver a verdict in under a second.  Continuous learning boosts accuracy by 5–7 percentage points and reduces unnecessary rejections, allowing clean approvals to roll in while rivals still shuffle paperwork. This illustrates mature FinTech machine learning in action. Benefits for your engineers: One endpoint handles scoring. Risk logic moves out of scattered SQL and into a self-updating model, eliminating pipeline hassle and context switching. Benefits for your business: Instant approvals reduce funnel drop-off, sharper models decrease charge-offs, and faster yes-decisions enhance customer satisfaction and lifetime value. Beyond risk, AI offers deeper insights for pricing and product design. Real-Time Fraud Detection for Financial Technology and Banking Fraud detection is one of the clearest examples of AI for financial services. Autoencoder and Isolation Forest models watch every payment in milliseconds, flagging impossible geolocations, out-of-pattern spends, or device overlaps before the transaction clears.  Retraining on live data shifts thresholds on the fly, ending hard-coded scores and catching fraudsters before they switch tactics. Benefits for your engineers: Thresholds and rules now live inside the ML pipeline, refresh automatically after each retrain, and appear on one dashboard — no manual deploys or scattered SQL alerts. Benefits for your business: Fewer false positives keep legitimate customers spending, while earlier fraud blocks cut chargebacks and fees, boosting trust and protecting revenue. Instant KYC & AML: AI Applications in Finance A FinTech AI now scans a passport image, extracts data in a single pass, checks it against global watchlists within seconds, and stamps “verified” straight into your CRM with no re-keying or follow-ups. Benefits for your engineers: A single SaaS endpoint combines OCR and NLP, allowing you to retire brittle document templates and retrain the model instead of patching scripts. Benefits for your business: Customers verify in minutes, late-filing penalties disappear, and revenue flows as competitors upload PDFs. Hyper-Personalized Offers: Machine Learning for FinTech This is advanced business intelligence for FinTech marketers. Recurrent nets analyze every tap, while clustering finds like-minded spenders.  The model offers a lounge upgrade during travel weeks and a credit line boost right after payday, right when the “yes” rate peaks, turning each journey into a standout FinTech experience.  And it can also act like a smart AI assistant for your CRM. Benefits for your engineers: A gRPC microservice returns the best offer and its 28 % acceptance rationale, replacing hand-built SQL rules and weekly campaign edits. Benefits for your business: Conversions rise and ad spend drops as messages reach warm leads, boosting lifetime value with tailored offers. Predictive Customer Churn in FinTech AI Companies CatBoost is a flagship case of AI in financial software development. It tracks every swipe, ticket, and login gap to flag customers likely to churn up to 30 days early. It streams scores into your data warehouse, allowing product managers to monitor risk in real-time on familiar dashboards. No extra SQL or exports needed.  This early warning helps you launch win-back campaigns before it’s too late. Retention pays off across the broader financial technology sector. Benefits for your engineers: The churn model delivers a live score through a single data-warehouse table, eliminating ad-hoc scripts and pipeline maintenance. Benefits for your business: Timely retention nudges cut churn, preserve revenue, and lift each customer’s lifetime value. Quick Tip: Retention starts inside. Use these 13 steps to reduce employee turnover and keep morale high. Dynamic Pricing & Fees: AI for FinTech Revenue Growth Dynamic pricing ranks among the highest-ROI FinTech use cases. Reinforcement-learning agents test thousands of fee combinations every hour, fine-tuning prices by segment. VIP traders see lower spreads during peak hours, while late-night micro-payments carry small, unnoticed fees.  The model continuously balances revenue and churn, evolving long-term margins and freeing staff to focus on creative work instead of rote tasks, just as AI logistics frees operators from manual planning. Benefits for your engineers: Pricing logic evolves from fragile if-else branches to a trainable policy activated by a simple A/B flag, eliminating the need for hand-tuning rate tables. Benefits for your business: Commission revenue rises without denting customer loyalty, giving you elastic pricing power that adjusts in real time. Elevate with CTO Co-Pilot Elevate your development with our CTO Co-Pilot! Get expert support, AI audits, cost analysis, and a detailed implementation plan - or let us handle full implementation. Get in touch Backbase: Enterprise-Grade Artificial Intelligence FinTech Solution Backbase tasked our team with creating a banking app tailored to each partner bank, with strong security and rapid feature delivery. We expanded the team from two specialists to a full unit and implemented AI-powered CI pipelines and a configurable authentication engine. Backbase interface Choosing a stack? Review 9 reasons Ruby on Rails is perfect for SaaS before architecting your own FinTech app. Challenges Rolling out a secure, white-label banking app for partner banks came down to four key challenges: Results Clearing those hurdles helped Backbase onboard partner banks faster, secure regulatory approvals sooner, and release new features with less effort. Here are the results now in production: Moments NFC: AI FinTech Startups in Action Moments NFC lets your patrons pay with a single tap of a wristband, while you collect revenue on any smartphone instead of bulky terminals. In 2017, the founders asked us to prove the concept, pick the fastest gateway, and build an MVP that could scale across U.S. bars. Moments NFC interface Scaling mobile fast? Compare the 8 best Ruby on Rails hosting providers for speed and cost. Challenges Building a tap-to-pay system for U.S. bars hinged on four critical goals: Results  Our lean build turned an idea into a revenue-ready platform and gave bar owners data they had never seen before: JetRuby CTO Co-Pilot Service: Expert Backup on Demand When your AI FinTech roadmap demands real-time risk engines, PCI-ready cloud, or fintech AI analytics, our CTO Co-Pilot seamlessly integrates into your team, providing fast, flexible solutions without adding overhead. An experienced team in fintech artificial intelligence collaborates closely with your experts, patches security or scalability bottlenecks, and shares proven patterns for payments, KYC, and compliance while the internal leader stays in charge. Pro Tip: If you’re about to hire or upskill a tech leader, read What Is a CTO? Unveiling the Truth About CTO Meaning in Business to set clear expectations. The service is tailored for AI FinTech startups, SMBs, and large businesses searching for AI for FinTech expertise. Every engagement starts with a brief audit that flags quick wins and hidden risks.  Together we set scope, cost, and timeline, then code shoulder-to-shoulder through each sprint until performance and regulatory metrics hit green. Once the platform runs smoothly, you scale on your own with zero vendor lock-in. Ready to raise your financial-technology platform to bank-grade standards?  Reach out via our Contact Us form, outline your toughest challenge, and we’ll draft a custom acceleration plan within one business day. ### Best 6 AI Mobile App Development Tools Revolution: Your 2025 Toolkit The market for AI technologies is large. It is estimated to reach about $244 billion by 2025 and to grow to over $800 billion by 2030. As a software development company with over 15+ years of expertise in mobile app development, we have seen many tools and trends come and go. When AI in app development came along, we all felt excited about its potential. However, using AI mobile app development tools often feels more like digging through dirt than discovering treasure, partly because understanding AI training data is critical yet overlooked. At the same time, companies raised concerns about AI taking jobs. Gemini has some interesting features, such as converting screenshots into UI code, but it struggles with basic tasks like drag-and-drop. It's promising, but not reliable. Copilot works well for simple tasks but struggles with complex projects. We were excited about Junie, but it's locked behind a paywall for the Ultimate IDE, making it difficult to access. You might wonder where the big benefits of AI in app development are. What tasks are getting faster, and which AI tools for mobile apps help with this? You might be missing something, or the hype may not match the reality, particularly when it comes to AI automation for routine tasks. We’ll help you find AI coding assistant tools that truly make mobile app development faster. Key Takeaways Choosing the wrong tool leads to major problems: unacceptable latency (>300ms for real-time), uncontrolled costs (~$21k/user/year for cloud), 3-6 month integration delays, and poor UX (battery drain, connectivity dependence), causing low adoption (<30%). Key AI tools for 2025 include TensorFlow Lite for IoT, PyTorch Mobile for privacy, Core ML 5 for Apple health tech, Snyk for AI code security, AWS Amplify for cloud scaling, and Hugging Face Transformers for quick deployment in NLP and vision. Choose options based on four factors: the use case, your team’s skills, the available budget, and how well the option can grow as needs change. Testing tools, using hybrid architectures, prioritizing real user problems, and relying on human expertise are key for ethical AI and user experience. The 2025 AI Mobile App Development Tools: Intelligence Where It Matters Most Let’s set aside the futuristic ideas for a moment. What’s happening in 2025? AI is becoming practical. Think less about robots taking over and more about using intelligence in ways that really help our work and lives. That’s the AI toolbox for 2025. 1. TensorFlow Lite: Powering Tomorrow's Smart Devices Imagine running real-time object detection on a solar-powered field sensor. TensorFlow Lite makes this possible with an ultra-lean framework designed for the edge. It’s the engine behind intelligent devices from factories to farmlands, processing data where it’s generated. Ideal For: Predictive maintenance tools Detect machinery failures via vibration sensors in remote wind turbines. Autonomous farm robots Identify crop diseases in real-time using quantized vision models on Raspberry Pi. Why It Matters: Converts complex TensorFlow/Keras models to edge-ready formats in one command. With support for over 15 sensor types and zero dependencies, it turns constraints into fuel for innovation.   Start Strong Begin your product journey with our Design and Discovery session! Our expert engineers enhance their exceptional work with advanced AI, delivering superior results! Hire developers   2. PyTorch Mobile: Where Flexibility Meets Privacy Imagine a mental health chatbot, a potential best AI app, that refines its empathy through conversation, without uploading voice data or app updates. PyTorch Mobile enables this via a dynamic edge architecture, allowing models to adapt locally while keeping sensitive data on-device. It powers privacy-first applications from real-time medical diagnostics to encrypted financial advisors. Ideal For Mental Wellness Coaches: DistilBERT models fine-tuned locally to detect depression markers in speech, updating therapeutic protocols without leaking voice data. Offline Medical Imaging: Tumor segmentation via DeepLabV3 on low-cost tablets, slashing diagnosis latency from hours to minutes in rural clinics. Note: Legacy PyTorch Mobile enters maintenance — ExecuTorch unlocks next-gen acceleration (Vulkan/DSP) and expanded operator coverage. Why It Matters: As 78% of health and finance apps mandate on-device processing, PyTorch Mobile transforms privacy constraints into innovation catalysts for AI in app development.   Pro Tip: More efficient workflows, happier teams, and improved business outcomes — the results of building and implementing a custom ERP system! 3. Core ML 5: Where Privacy Powers Personalization Core ML 5 turns Apple devices into autonomous intelligence hubs, processing everything from health diagnostics to generative AI locally. It’s the engine behind 2025’s most secure and responsive apps, a true AI app builder enabler. Ideal For Health Tech: Mental wellness coaches that adapt therapeutic approaches using local NLP analysis — one of the prime uses of AI tools for mobile apps. Generative AI: On-device image/video synthesis with diffusion models, avoiding cloud latency — key for the best AI app responsiveness. "Use Core ML's conversion tools for TensorFlow models before rewriting entire codebases in Swift. We've saved clients months of rework this way."   Looking for ways to lower employee turnover in 2025? We’ve got you covered with 13 actionable strategies to reduce employee turnover! 4. Snyk: Secure Innovation, Delivered Confidently As AI reshapes software development, security can’t be an afterthought. Snyk empowers developers to build fast and secure by embedding intelligent protection directly into tools they already use, from code to cloud. Ideal for: Health-tech apps using generative AI. Snyk secures patient data end-to-end, ensuring HIPAA-ready containers, prompt-injection defenses, and real-time dependency checks so you can innovate responsibly within the mobile app development process. 5. AWS Amplify: Where Speed Meets Scale You can turn ideas into working apps in just hours instead of weeks. AWS Amplify provides a code-first, Git-based workflow that streamlines cloud infrastructure development. It helps both startups and large companies create everything from real-time collaboration tools to AI-powered web apps, all without requiring backend skills. Ideal for: Real-time social apps (e.g., live polling platforms with instant vote tallying). Global startups that need HIPAA-compliant auth + storage for telehealth UIs.   Is Ruby on Rails the right choice for a SaaS idea? Read the article to find out! 6. Hugging Face Transformers: AI’s Open-Source Playground Imagine whipping up a custom AI for text, images, or audio in minutes, not months. Transformers hands you 1M+ pre-trained models and simple tools, so you skip the grunt work and jump straight to building smart apps. It’s why startups and researchers alike treat it like their AI toolbox. Ideal for: An AI tutor that explains math concepts in plain English + turns textbook diagrams into simple summaries. Build, tweak, and deploy without rebuilding the wheel. It’s AI, simplified. Why AI Tool Choice Matters: Getting AI Right in 2025 The right AI mobile app development tool can make the difference between a project that works well and one that fails quietly during the mobile app development process. In 2025, studies found that 42% of businesses abandoned most of their AI projects because the tools did not fit their needs. How can choosing the wrong tool cause problems? Performance is very important Let’s say you are creating a real-time augmented reality app for surgeons, but you choose a tool that only works in the cloud. This results in delays of over 300 milliseconds, which is too slow for life-and-death situations. On the other hand, edge tools that run on devices save valuable time for things like AR glasses and factory robots. What happens if you make the wrong choice? You could end up with slow apps, unhappy users, and tools that don't work well. How to Avoid Problems Start by analyzing the latency needs. Define the maximum acceptable latency (e.g., <50ms for AR surgery) before selecting your tools. Use devices like phones, glasses, and local servers to process sensor data and respond in real-time. Test candidate tools and frameworks in your target environment, like your device or network, under realistic conditions. Measure actual delays during these tests. Send less data to the cloud, compress it, process on-device, and use efficient communication methods. Pick frameworks and libraries that work well with the GPUs and NPUs in your edge devices. Ensure that core real-time functions operate reliably without requiring cloud connectivity at all times. Costs can add up quickly You can easily spend too much on large cloud systems for training, possibly costing around $21,000 per user each year if you’re not careful. Additionally, picking a model that is too basic can lead to mistakes, resulting in costly redo efforts during actual use. Almost half of all promising AI projects fail to launch, often because costs skyrocket once testing is over. How to Avoid Problems Set clear budget limits, monitor usage with alerts, and take advantage of discounts for spot purchases or long-term commitments. Test models thoroughly in real-world situations before making a final choice, using step-by-step pilots. Create clear cost estimates that cover full deployment and ongoing maintenance before getting approval for the pilot. Select the right compute instance size, automate the shutdown of idle resources, and improve storage and data transfer. Take responsibility for costs, make sure projects are tagged, and hold regular cost reviews. If your tools don't work well together, getting your product to market will take much longer When your new vision AI tool needs weeks of custom coding to connect with older systems, you could face delays of 3 to 6 months in your mobile app development process. During that time, your competitors will continue moving forward. How to Avoid Problems Choose tools that provide native integrations, strong APIs, or ready-made connectors for your system. Use iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) tools like Zapier or MuleSoft to automate links between systems. Build apps with microservices or containerization tools like Docker and Kubernetes for easy tool swaps. Ask vendors to demonstrate proof-of-concept integration before purchase. Test new tools on less important projects to check if they work well without interrupting main schedules. Use standard formats like RESTful APIs and GraphQL across all tools to make connections easier. How does user experience matter? People notice it. Apps that drain a phone’s battery in 2 hours won’t be kept for long. Apps that need internet access can leave users stuck. If an AI feels clumsy and requires too much effort with little payoff, people will quickly stop using it. Adoption can drop below 30% fast. In 2025, choosing the right AI tools for mobile apps has become harder due to two new issues: First, stricter privacy laws, like GDPR 2.0, require tools to handle data carefully. They must process data on devices, keep data in specific countries, and track user consent. If your tool can't do this automatically, it could face fines of up to 6% of global revenue. That’s a big deal. Second, the demand for real-time AR/VR is growing quickly. This technology needs fast response times of less than 20 milliseconds. Standard tools may not be sufficient. You need efficient frameworks designed for quick performance. In 2025, choosing AI tools wisely means looking past shiny features. It’s about honestly asking: “Will this keep data safe? Run fast enough? Scale affordably? And will real people actually like using it?” The teams winning today treat tools like partners, not magic boxes. They test hard, plan for hybrid (edge + cloud), and sweat the small details because in AI, the small details are what users feel.   You might want to know more about the 8 best hosting providers for Ruby on Rails! How to Choose Your Stack for AI Mobile App Development Tools Choosing the right AI tools for mobile apps in 2025 can be challenging, as there are numerous options available. At JetRuby, we simplify the mobile app development process. We help you choose a technology stack that meets your project’s needs today and will still be useful in the future. Stop following short-lived trends and focus on finding the right solution based on four important factors. First, take a close look at your Use Case What does your app need to do? If it needs to give quick responses, like recognizing objects in real time through a phone camera, consider using edge AI tools for mobile apps, like Core ML or TensorFlow Lite. For mobile use cases that require immediate results, focus on edge-optimized frameworks such as Core ML and TensorFlow Lite. Second, be clear about your team’s skills What does your team already know well? If your team is comfortable with Python, learning PyTorch will be easier and faster. If your team is skilled in Swift for iOS, Core ML will be a better choice. For teams that are strong in Python, focus on PyTorch. For iOS teams that use Swift, focus on Core ML. This is where hiring top engineers and implementing personalized development plans becomes critical for success. Third, be realistic about your budget Costs can add up quickly. Services like AWS Amplify do a lot for you, but charge ongoing fees. In contrast, open-source options like TensorFlow Lite are more cost-effective for on-device tasks but require additional setup work. If you need to deploy quickly in the cloud and want managed scaling, choose cloud-based tools like AWS Amplify. For projects that focus on cost and use on-device processing, choose open-source edge frameworks like TensorFlow Lite. Finally, scalability What will you do if your app becomes very popular? If your goal is to reach one million users, you need to understand the costs associated with supporting your models at that level. You must also ensure that your tools can handle the demand without slowing down. For apps that expect to grow quickly to over 1 million users, choose tools that are known for being cost-effective and efficient at serving models on a large scale. JetRuby ensures your AI tools for mobile app and tech stack are effective for 2025 and beyond by focusing on Use Case, Team Skills, Budget, and Scalability in the mobile app development process. The Value of Human Expertise While mobile app development tools build foundations, vision requires skill. This is where our partnership makes new opportunities possible. JetRuby Flow is our project management method has helped clients across various industries, including logistics, financial technology (FinTech), and agricultural technology (AgriTech). These clients have seen the benefits firsthand. In Logistics, we create AI solutions to solve problems like optimizing routes, monitoring IoT assets in real time, maintaining fleets predictively, and automating warehouses with smart technology like computer vision and RFID. In FinTech, we build secure systems for detecting fraud with AI, automating credit scores, onboarding customers easily, providing conversational banking, and using predictive analytics. In AgriTech, we develop AI solutions for forecasting crop yields, detecting diseases with computer vision and satellite or drone images, controlling smart irrigation, monitoring livestock, and predicting when equipment needs maintenance. These examples show just a few areas where our method achieves real results. Ethical AI Integration We recently added a feature to our mobile app that analyzes radiology scans. This change has cut false positives by 40% by using bias detection layers. This improvement is important because accurate diagnoses can save lives. Full Lifecycle Development We help teams ensure their AI ideas meet regulatory standards and assist in deploying apps on the App Store with improved models. We address challenges that many teams only discover during a crisis, including implementing AI-powered code reviews to maintain quality. Industry-Specific Optimization A logistics partner reduced battery use in their fleet management app by utilizing our hybrid approach, combining TensorFlow Lite and Core ML. This change added three hours to their daily operational time. As we approach 2026, the mobile app development tools we use will continue to change. However, some key principles will stay the same: The best apps this year will be those that make using AI easy, ethical, and essential, not necessarily the most advanced. If you have any questions left, please don’t hesitate to contact us anytime you see fit.   ### Our AI UI UX Approach: Where Human Insight Meets AI Precision User experience and user interface (UX/UI) are the most important areas for improvement, according to McKinsey Quarterly Insights. At JetRuby, we design interfaces and create experiences that truly connect. How? By using proven design principles along with smart AI UI UX technology. Our foundation is the "product mindset". Everything we develop, from a single pixel to the user's journey, focuses on three key elements: visual appeal, ease of use, and clear business value. We believe that beauty and function can work together. We design visually appealing interfaces that help users achieve their goals easily. Genuine engagement, increased conversions, and deeper brand loyalty are the true results of our work. Key Takeaways: JetRuby prioritizes user needs in design. We believe AI enhances our solutions but doesn't replace human creativity and judgment. We use AI throughout our process to gather user insights, generate ideas, create prototypes, predict usability issues, and enhance personalized user experiences. Combining human and machine intelligence speeds up workflows and helps make data-driven design decisions. We address AI bias, data privacy, and user trust through human oversight, diverse data, clear communication, and ethical guidelines. We view AI integration as an ongoing journey, continuously learning new skills, testing tools, and updating workflows to use advancements responsibly. Our AI UX UI Design Philosophy: Empathy, Simplicity, Innovation Great design doesn’t just happen. At JetRuby, we focus on the user first. We believe that understanding the people who will use a digital product is key to its success. Every choice we make, big or small, stems from empathy, clarity, and purpose. Our main goal is to create experiences that are easy to use, accessible to everyone, and truly enjoyable. Simplicity is our superpower. Straightforward and functional designs are our primary focus. We remove obstacles and unnecessary features, each item on the screen has a specific purpose, and every action is carefully planned. We turn complicated tasks into simple steps. Simplicity does not mean there’s no room for improvement. We welcome new ideas and technologies, such as artificial intelligence, as helpful tools for our design work. These tools help us understand users better, create smarter prototypes, and offer user-friendly solutions. We combine important design principles like usability, accessibility, and visual hierarchy with AI technology. Our products stay user-focused and future-ready, leveraging insights from the latest trends in AI adoption. Integrating AI into Our Design Process The question isn't if AI belongs in design, but how and where it can create the most value. We leverage AI throughout the UX/UI design process, and it helps us make smarter, data-driven decisions from initial research to final refinement.   Many call him The Orchestrator. But what does CTO actually mean in business?   User Research & Analysis AI is invaluable for processing vast datasets. It helps us analyze user behavior patterns, segment audiences from complex data, perform sentiment analysis on reviews and feedback, and even generate preliminary user personas. We move beyond small-sample surveys and uncover deeper, often hidden, trends much faster. Idea Development and Planning Staring at a blank canvas? AI can jumpstart creativity. We brainstorm layout options based on best practices and information about our target audience. We create initial wireframe designs, explore different visual styles, and make mood boards. AI is a strong source of ideas. Prototyping & Testing AI helps us test user interactions and gather feedback quickly through automated testing, enabling early input from stakeholders. Before users see a prototype, AI predicts usability. It simulates eye-tracking (heatmaps, gaze plots) and identifies potential confusion or drop-off points. It also automatically tests different design options, helping us find major issues early. Final Optimization In later stages, AI assists in fine-tuning. It can suggest optimal color palettes, recommend typography pairings, and analyze content hierarchy for clarity. AI models drive dynamic UI adaptation for personalized products So, has AI changed our workflow? Absolutely. Our design principles are the same, but our tools and work pace have changed. Designers needed to adapt to changes. They learned how to use AI tools in their daily work, particularly through our structured Personalized Development Plans (PDPs). For example, how to ask AI systems the right questions, interpret the insights they provide, and evaluate design suggestions made by AI. The result is a faster, insight-driven workflow. Tasks that used to take hours, like analyzing user research, improving designs, or running A/B tests, are now quicker with AI help. What are the key areas to focus on during Ruby on Rails AI Code Reviews?   AI Tools and Technologies We Use For Our AI UX Approach So, how does our team actually work with AI tools for UX designers? How to improve UX with AI UI design tools? Is it more like having a smart AI assistant, or does the AI just run the show itself? At first, some team members were concerned that AI might replace their jobs and wondered what AI for UI design could actually do. We provided training and support to show that AI is a tool, not a threat, and now AI serves as a firm and intelligent assistant. It helps our design team handle specific, often time-consuming tasks such as generating design variations, analyzing user data, and automating repetitive tasks. This collaboration is key. Designers actively guide the AI, set parameters, input prompts, and curate datasets. In return, AI offers suggestions, insights, or draft concepts to help push the project forward, and, as a result, is improving user experience. It's a productive back-and-forth. AI is fantastic for speeding things up and exploring more options, but the essential ingredients like creative judgment, empathy, and understanding context are uniquely human strengths. That’s why only through this synergy can we achieve real results. We leverage a diverse toolkit, selecting AI tools for UX designers based on the specific task and phase of the project, including AI for UX design, AI for X research, and AI for user interface design, among others. Here’s our arsenal of UI UX AI tools: [table id=53 /]   Heard about the end of Rails? So is it finally dead this time? We don’t think so. So, what's new in Rails 8.0?   AI-Driven vs. Traditional UX The traditional UX/UI design process, while valuable, often relies heavily on manual effort, smaller-scale research, intuition, and sequential iteration, and can lead to longer timelines, potential blind spots due to data limitations, and slower response to user feedback. Traditionally, synthesizing hundreds of user interviews or survey responses took weeks. It's different with AI UI/UX design. Now AI analyzes vast datasets (behavioral logs, reviews, support tickets) in hours, and can reveal patterns humans might miss. We move from sampling to near-comprehensive understanding faster. For brainstorming, AI generates dozens of layout variations, content approaches, or visual styles based on constraints in just minutes. Creating clickable prototypes was a significant time investment. AI tools quickly convert workflows or text descriptions into interactive prototypes for faster validation. Traditional usability testing involves recruiting participants and manual analysis, limiting the scope. AI improves predictive testing by simulating user interactions and automating the analysis of extensive A/B tests, providing quicker and cheaper insights. Additionally, AI makes dynamic, real-time interface personalization based on user behavior possible and practical. Designers spend less time on manual synthesis, repetitive asset creation, and basic testing setup. Instead, they interpret AI insights, create emotional interactions, and solve complex user problems. Core advantage: Our AI UI UX approach speeds up the feedback process. We quickly turn insights into ideas, prototypes, and tests. Each step relies on data, leading to faster delivery of products that better meet user needs, thanks to a stronger understanding of what they want. Why does hosting matter for Ruby on Rails? We've got you covered and will help you find the best Ruby on Rails hosting providers! Why AI UI UX Design Wins for Users and Businesses AI brings major advantages to our design team. It speeds up the design process, from research to testing, so we deliver high-quality work quickly, even under tight deadlines. AI also finds key patterns in user data that traditional methods may overlook, providing a clearer understanding of user needs. With the help of UI UX AI tools, we can offer effective personalization for multiple users, enhancing their experiences compared to manual methods. AI doesn't replace human creativity. Instead, it helps our team. It suggests new ideas, handles routine jobs automatically, and gives designers more time for real innovation. AI also lowers risk. It helps us simulate and test designs early, so we can find usability problems before they become expensive to fix. Precision in Development Clear requirements, strong vision, and accurate estimates? Our expert developers augment their skills with AI to bring your project to life! Get in touch How AI UI UX Approach Benefits the People Who Use Our Products Besides making AI app designers' lives easier, AI is improving user experience. By carefully studying how people behave, what they like, and the patterns they follow, AI helps us create AI user interface design that feel more personal, intuitive, and efficient. One big advantage is that our products become easier to use. AI identifies challenging areas in a user's journey and helps us enhance layouts, navigation, and content. No wonder nowadays many teams use AI for user interface design, and AI tools for UX designers. We adjust content, features, and even parts of the interface based on what each individual person needs or prefers. Imagine a mobile solution that uses AR, computer vision, and ML (YOLO, TensorFlow) to help housekeeping teams in hotels, or a smart farming system with Advanced Micro Radar and AI Analytics that transforms traditional farming into smart and eco-friendly management. Thanks to AI, we test more efficiently and respond to feedback faster, and users receive better-functioning, less error-prone products with each update. The SaaS sector doesn’t stand still. You're overwhelmed by an endless list of decisions...Great that Rails is perfect for your SaaS product! Challenges in AI UI UX Design Approach and How We Overcame Them Using AI comes with its challenges, but we actively work to address these issues to ensure our approach is both responsible and effective. Here’s how we confront these challenges directly: 1. Quality, not a generic output Human designers refine AI UI generator suggestions. AI can sometimes give suggestions that seem too generic or not in line with our brand, which can weaken our design quality. To prevent this, we must have human oversight. Every piece generated by AI, such as a wireframe, written content, or insights, receives a thorough designer review and improvement, if needed. In short, AI can inspire ideas, but it does not make the final decisions. 2. Promoting fairness by reducing bias Diverse datasets and inclusive reviews for AI UX design. AI can learn biases from data, causing unfairness. We address this with proactive measures: Analyzing AI training data for diversity and fairness. Regularly check for bias among different user groups. Encouraging diverse design reviews to have multiple viewpoints. Important decisions in fairness-related areas, like loan applications, need human judgment and ethical care. We follow inclusive design principles. 3. Safeguarding user privacy AI depends on user data, so it must be handled ethically. Our privacy-by-design framework includes: Collecting only essential data. We prioritize anonymized/aggregated data for training. We are always open about how AI uses data. We clearly explain this and allow users to opt out of data sharing if they choose. We ensure strong security that follows GDPR, CCPA, and other regulations. Users retain control, and their trust guides every step. 4. Trust via transparency Transparency in AI for UI/UX (e.g., opt-outs, clear labeling). People often doubt AI because they worry about how it works, losing control, or "creepy" personalization. This skepticism can slow down its use. We build trust by being completely clear. Clearly labeling AI-driven features (e.g., “Recommended by AI”). Explaining decisions simply (e.g., “Based on your interest in X”). Providing easy opt-outs and preference adjustments. Ensuring human fallback options (e.g., overriding chatbots). We emphasize tangible benefits, showing how AI saves time or enhances experiences. Complex AI models can make it challenging to understand decision-making, leading to issues with problem-solving and fairness. More efficient workflows, happier teams, and improved business outcomes - results of building our own ERP system! The Future is Teamwork: AI UI UX and Changing Design Trends At JetRuby, we view AI not as an endpoint but as a dynamic companion in our ongoing journey of design innovation. The future? Briefly: AI UI designers will predict needs and suggest actions. AI tools for UX designers will streamline collaboration. AI user experience will expand beyond screens (voice, gestures). AI will help us to predict our needs before they happen. It will suggest steps to take or provide information when it’s most useful. Generative design tools will improve over time. You will be able to describe a complex animation or user flow simply and see it come to life. These tools will speed up exploration, but we still need our sharpest human judgment to improve the results. Interaction will go beyond just the screen. People will use voice, gestures, and eye movements to connect naturally with technology. For designers, this means we need to think about more than just pixels and taps. Even our design systems will evolve into "living" partners. AI will ensure consistency across platforms, create smart variations, and suggest updates based on real data. This lets us focus on our vision instead of just managing versions. Collaboration gets smoother, too. AI will turn design ideas into clear instructions for developers, automatically create documentation, and even help identify team issues. It’s about working smarter, together. We believe the future of design is intelligent, adaptable, and centered around human needs. At JetRuby, we shape this vision through structured approaches supported by our rigorous hiring process and strategies to retain top talent. Our clients transform their ideas into resonant products with our foundational services: Product Development Strategy (PDS) Ideal for founders with raw ideas but no product. Turn your idea into a clear plan. We identify key problems and risks early to avoid costly mistakes and define the basic features needed for market testing, led by experienced experts. Design & Discovery Phase (DnD) For projects needing architectural clarity. We develop clear plans before coding, outlining project structure and risks, and create UX/UI concepts while staying within budget and on schedule. Ready to build products that resonate? JetRuby’s AI UI/UX design approach blends empathy with cutting-edge tools. Contact us today to schedule a call and explore the possibilities. ### AI Future: It's About to Disappear (And That’s a Good Thing) Do you remember when being "online" was a big deal? Or when you actually thought about how electrons made your lights work? That’s the AI future. According to Deloitte’s latest tech forecast, AI won’t just be a cool gadget we “use.” It will be like electricity, which means completely necessary, completely unseen, working quietly behind the scenes. Is traffic moving better? That’s AI at work. Does your child’s math tutor adapt in real-time to the child's frustration? That’s AI too. Can your doctor identify unusual patterns on a scan and, therefore, detect your potential health issues? Yes, that’s AI. We won’t be having "conversations" with it. We’ll just live in a world that functions more smoothly. The main message is to stop focusing on flashy chatbots. Instead, integrate AI into your core systems, as it is becoming the essential foundation, not just a trendy feature. Small is the New Big (and Agents are the New Apps) We were impressed by large language models (LLMs) that can write poems and pass the bar exam. Many companies find large AI models too complex, thinking it’s like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. They are now focusing on smaller, specialized AI models trained on specific datasets. For example, an inventory bot that knows your warehouse very well, but not the entire internet. Even more extensive? AI Agents. Picture one managing your Q2 financial tasks overnight, while another books flights that perfectly match your preferences (window seat, aisle? never!), and a third resolves a customer's problem by actually accessing systems and fixing it. The phrase "There’s an app for that" is changing to "There’s an agent for that." The hardware industry is coming back. Software was once the primary focus for years. Now, the AI future requires robust hardware to function. Think about that: Specialized chips, such as GPUs and NPUs, are built for the heavy tasks of AI. Demand for these chips is growing quickly, with predictions suggesting a $400 billion market by 2027. The AI PC Revolution: Your old office laptop will soon get a major upgrade. New PCs equipped with neural chips will run powerful AI applications without requiring an internet connection. This means faster responses, lower cloud costs, and better privacy. Get ready for a hardware update across the company. The Issue: Energy. Running this technology requires a lot of power. Data centers are looking for solutions, such as nuclear plants and geothermal energy from Iceland. Improving efficiency is now essential; it’s crucial for survival. "Spatial Computing" Isn’t Just Metaverse Hype Forget about bulky VR headsets. It’s all about combining real-world data from sensors, cameras, and IoT devices with digital technology to understand physical spaces better. Right now, the main application is simulation: Benfica football club uses AI + 3D player models to simulate plays and sell talent for record profits. A Canadian health authority built a "digital twin" of its entire hospital system to visualize patient flow and optimize care. The main challenge is combining different types of spatial data, like lidar, drone scans, and CAD files. Once this is done, AI agents can easily connect you to the physical world. IT is undergoing a total transformation (Thanks to AI) Generative AI for coding and testing software is driving significant changes in the IT industry. This is a unique opportunity for IT to transition from merely maintaining systems to leading the way in AI development. Priorities: Engineering: Use less manual coding and focus more on AI to help with design and architecture reviews. Skill: Using AI to train IT employees on AI (ironic, isn’t it?). Cost Control: Use AI tools to manage and optimize cloud spending. Infrastructure: Developing systems that can "heal" themselves automatically. Safety: Combating AI-driven risks with AI-driven protection. The goal is to create a more efficient IT department that manages AI agents and citizen developers, rather than doing everything on its own. Quantum computing is a serious threat, and your data is at risk now Quantum computers could break today's encryption in 5 to 20 years, making data insecure. Hackers are currently stealing encrypted data, hoping that future quantum computers will be able to easily unlock it. Don’t wait. Switching to Quantum-Resistant Encryption (new standards released!) is a large task that takes several years. Apple and Google are already taking action. Don’t be part of the majority that does nothing. Start planning right away. Your ERP system now includes AI features. Core systems like SAP and Oracle are being rebuilt to focus on the AI future. This goes beyond just automating payroll. AI will understand your business logic, predict problems, and suggest new ways to operate. The main question is: Will you use your vendor's easy but slow AI tools, buy flexible but messy tools from other companies, or build your own tools, which require a lot of work but give you full control? Choose carefully. Managing your data is crucial. The Main Point: Look for Unusual Combinations The most exciting new ideas will not come from focusing on one specific technology. They will result from combining different areas: AI with advanced materials, space technology with biotechnology (yes, that means growing perfect crystals in zero gravity for new drugs!), auto giants building moon rovers. Breadth beats depth. The winners will notice unexpected links between ideas. As AI becomes a basic part of our systems, true breakthroughs occur where different ideas meet. Start looking sideways. Now, go make sense of it. ### How JetRuby Helped Trusty Care Unlock Healthcare Access for Millions In 2024, the average cost of healthcare data breaches rose to a record high of $9.8 million per incident, according to IBM's Cost of a Data Breach report. For the first time, healthcare has become the most targeted industry, surpassing finance. This scenario is concerning: healthcare platforms, which are to protect some of society's most vulnerable people, risk major failures during peak renewal times. Each breach can result in significant direct and indirect costs. Additionally, healthcare organizations are especially vulnerable because they handle large amounts of sensitive personal information, often using outdated technology. For millions relying on insurance plans, Trusty Care was a lifeline. Initially, Trusty Care purchased third-party software to improve user interactions. They were concerned about a possible system failure during their annual renewal period, when 90% of users review their plans. This could cause technical issues and, more importantly, restrict access to essential healthcare services. So, Trusty Care team asked JetRuby for help. Immediately, we found old security issues that could endanger HIPAA compliance. Our job was to make sure security was a priority at every level. We: Removed insecure patches and redundant logic. This way, we protected encrypted data flows. Updated access controls to keep sensitive user information safe. Ensured the system could adapt to changing healthcare regulations and integrate seamlessly with other services. Sprints, Feedback Loops, and Iteration Trusty Care had a strict six-month deadline. To meet this deadline, we used JetRuby Flow methodology to create an organized and team-focused development process. We started with a Zero Sprint. Our Senior Solution Architect worked with Trusty Care’s team to perform a basic technical audit. During this important planning stage, we identified weaknesses in the system, set goals for expansion, and set up continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) systems along with automated testing tools. From the beginning, we prioritized thorough documentation to help Trusty Care’s developers understand Node.js and Python. This approach would support their long-term skill development. As development accelerated, we started working in two-week agile sprints to deliver regular improvements to the updated system. In the early sprints, we removed unstable legacy patches, reorganized backend processes, and set up encrypted data flows compliant with HIPAA regulations. Mid-project, we conducted load-testing sprints to simulate over 5,000 users simultaneously and confirm the system’s stability during peak times. We also held biweekly demos with Trusty Care’s stakeholders to match improvements in user experience and interface with the needs of end-users. Additionally, we developed simpler designs for people with limited technical skills. JetRuby Flow methodology includes a specific Performance & Alignment phase where a project coordinator closely tracks progress and potential risks. So, the coordinator conducted formal reviews every four weeks to recalibrate priorities as the annual renewal deadline approached. Having more developers on board boosted our testing speed and made documenting everything much easier. Plus, the clear resource reports helped us keep a close eye on the budget, making sure everything stayed on track. This ongoing cycle, supported by regular feedback, helped Trusty Care’s Python-focused team to learn the new tech stack and turn uncertainty into confidence. Overcoming Key Roadblocks Integrating a complex software product alone can be challenging. No wonder, Gartner states that integration work accounts for 50% of the time and cost of building a digital platform. However, the risks of maintaining legacy systems as they are are significantly higher. According to the Paubox Report, 83% of healthcare IT teams say that outdated systems disrupt their daily work. These issues affect the IT department and the entire organization. For instance, legacy email platforms can jeopardize operational stability and efficiency across healthcare organizations. During work with Trusty Care, it was about integrating a new Node.js/Vue.js platform. While it was a valuable asset, the platform had legacy issues that could harm its stability and future growth. Trusty Care Enhancements: Legacy Code & Scaling Risks Here’s how we addressed the project’s primary challenges. Decouple & Document We removed fragile workarounds and created comprehensive docs to bridge the Node.js/Python knowledge gap. Scale Smartly Our team redesigned the backend architecture for concurrent user loads, avoiding costly rewrites. Future-Proof Maintenance We reduced long-term costs by 40% via clean, maintainable code. The Deadline Countdown Close to the renewal window, a project coordinator and an additional developer joined the project team. Rigorous traffic simulations proved the platform could handle the pressure. JetRuby enhanced the system to ensure it remains stable without any downtime during peak times and supports vulnerable communities. Meanwhile, Trusty Care’s team can focus on new ideas instead of handling problems. For health tech companies like Trusty Care, legacy systems pose significant challenges. However, if they work with a reliable partner, these challenges can turn into opportunities. Our team combined strong technology with attention to regulations and, as a result, helped millions access healthcare services without any delays. "JetRuby didn’t just fix our code — they restored our mission’s heartbeat." — Trusty Care Team ### AI Roadmap for AI App Development 2025 At the start of 2024, 71% of organizations had already folded generative AI into at least one business process. Teams that use tools like GitHub Copilot report they write new functions 55% faster and catch bugs earlier in the cycle. Meanwhile, they project that the overall AI market will surge from roughly $372 billion in 2025 to $2.4 trillion by 2032. It means artificial intelligence app development will soon be the #1 priority for app development companies. Startups without AI assistance face months of repetitive coding, long QA cycles, and costly scaling. Here we’ll provide a clear AI roadmap with market insights, tech details, and examples to help your development team build an AI-powered app faster. Key Takeaways Strong AI frameworks and large funding create a great opportunity to build an AI app Automated review AI agent catches about 80% of security and style flaws before merge, reducing bug-fix costs. Generative AI writes end-to-end tests in minutes, cuts over 90% of false positives, and shrinks regression runs from days to hours. On-device inference and behavioral models boost retention and lifetime value by up to 25%. AI-driven CI/CD and AIOps pipelines cut downtime by 40% and MTTR under one hour. AI-assisted backlog grooming and sprint forecasting reduce schedule slips by 30%. Why 2025 Is the Best Moment for AI App Development Consultancies call AI the foundation beneath nearly every technology trend for the next 18 months. PwC estimates that AI’s cumulative boost to global GDP will reach $15.7 trillion by 2030. That torrent of capital means investors now hunt for teams skilled in AI app development to turn proofs-of-concept into comprehensive web and mobile app development services, especially as alternative app stores gain traction. Tools like GitHub Copilot and Amazon CodeWhisperer help developers write unit tests and review code faster within the IDE, reducing routine coding time by half. This speed reduces MVP cycles from several months to just a few weeks, and makes AI for app development a significant advantage. Subscription-based pricing makes advanced AI available in mobile app development. A small AI-powered team can now do the work of two traditional teams, giving startups a competitive boost in terms of speed and cost. With a clear opportunity in the market, let’s see how AI influences code creation for frontend and backend development. AI-Powered Frontend and Backend: Write Code Faster than Ever Numerous studies have shown that developers are happier and can be up to 45% more productive when using AI coding assistants, particularly in mobile app development, highlighting key benefits of AI. In 2024, businesses quickly adopted AI technology. Many AI-focused companies started investing in AI for app development to reduce costs and accelerate processes, recognizing how AI is transforming workflows. "By automating routine tasks and improving efficiency, AI will have a major impact on the economy, changing industries, creating new markets, and shifting competition," said Lapo Fioretti, senior research analyst at IDC. Developers leverage powerful AI capabilities to write client and server code quickly, so they focus on business logic and user experience. On the frontend, popular AI tools like Copilot and Codeium help developers write entire app components like React hooks easily. When a developer types a simple function name, such as useFetch(url), these tools automatically include error handling, documentation comments, and Jest tests. This process leans on file context and project conventions, then returns production-ready code in under a second. Shifting to the backend, Amazon CodeWhisperer reads comments such as // create user in DynamoDB and generates a Lambda handler, schema definitions, error-trap logic, and logging statements. What once took a developer half a day now completes in about twenty minutes, helping teams build smarter and prototype API endpoints at lightning speed. Database teams can benefit from Prisma’s AI-Advisor. It identifies missing indexes and suggests ways to improve queries before launch — a must for artificial intelligence application development and optimizing app performance. In a FinTech project, our team resolved 63 major security issues in a single day using Snyk DeepCode's autofix. This task would have taken three days if done manually without AI assistance, demonstrating a successful AI implementation. Across full-stack workflows, these AI assistants lift sprint velocity by 30–40%. Two engineers using code hints now match the output of three without them. As companies explore how to create an artificial intelligence app, integrating these tools becomes non-negotiable, especially for those getting started with AI. After sped-up code creation, the next priority is ensuring the code stays clean and secure through AI-driven review. When teams combine AI and mobile apps, they code faster and ship cleaner. Safer builds are a crucial move in any artificial intelligence roadmap. Follow a clear roadmap to learn AI and scale your projects — start with data collection, move to model training, then refine in production. Code Review on Autopilot — Ship Cleaner Commits, Faster A global DevOps.com survey found that 38% of respondents spend up to 25% of their time fixing software bugs, and 26% spend up to 50% of their time. Snyk’s DeepCode feature scans PRs against over 150 security patterns and generates patch suggestions with about 80% precision — ideal for building your first AI project. The AI-augmented software development market is growing quickly and will keep growing through 2027, according to IDC. What's the key driver? AI-powered code review tools are transforming the way developers identify and resolve issues in their code. More than 4 million developers worldwide use Snyk DeepCode AI. Amazon CodeGuru prioritizes findings by real-world runtime risk and surfaces urgent defects first. Google’s AutoCommenter service automatically inserts best-practice notes on style and architecture, sparing senior reviewers from routine comments. This automation slashes review cycles and catches defects before they reach QA or production. IDC predicts that by 2026, 75% of enterprise code will either be machine-generated or machine-verified. This trend aligns with the roadmap for AI engineers who plan to master AI in technical workflows. For startups without dedicated QA or experienced engineers, AI chatbots and tools like Snyk, DeepCode, and GitHub Copilot Chat can be very helpful. Small teams can automate code reviews and fix vulnerabilities adding these tools to their CI/CD pipelines from the start, a smart approach to AI app development. AI helps startups automate tasks like static analysis, security checks, and style corrections in real time, thereby preventing technical debt from building up, so there’s less to fix after launch. Once you secure clean code, you can automate testing at scale to catch regressions faster than ever. For teams eager to learn AI and integrate artificial intelligence in mobile app development, the future of clean, secure code starts now. Dive deeper into AI-powered code review for Rails. Learn how AI code review enhances Ruby on Rails projects and accelerates secure, maintainable code. QA Automation: Bug Hunting at Machine Speed AI is changing software testing just as much as Copilot changed coding. Manual bug hunting is less useful. AI helps reduce mistakes and false alerts by using past data and self-adjusting tests that adapt to changes in code. You can train your AI systems to perfectly match your unique goals. Just as developers leverage AI for application development to improve coding, testers now leverage AI to monitor smart systems. Engineers describe a user journey, like "log in, add item to cart, checkout." GitHub Copilot then creates a Playwright script, including navigation steps and error handlers, in under ten minutes, rather than several hours. Microsoft’s official tutorials confirm that AI-assisted test authoring cuts creation time by over 80%. There is no doubt that modern code reviews are essential. But they are also tedious. Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer simplifies this by integrating directly into GitHub pull requests. Using AI trained on billions of code lines, it detects critical issues like concurrency bugs, resource leaks, and security anti-patterns before code merges. It stabilizes unstable code, preventing post-deployment bugs. For example, fixing a resource leak in a PR can save days on memory issues later. Developers receive actionable feedback in their workflow, learning AWS best practices while maintaining pace. CodeGuru highlights high-risk flaws and improves its suggestions over time. Applitools Visual AI verifies UI snapshots against a baseline, ignoring dynamic regions and reducing false positives from hundreds to just a few genuine issues, allowing QA teams to focus on critical bugs. Predictive analytics identifies fragile microservices through past build failures and bug trends, so teams target test coverage where risks are highest. Forrester predicted that 2025 will be when leaders digest the lessons of 2024 and begin monetizing Gen AI, including AI-powered QA platforms. If you are still writing tests manually, you are wasting your budget on outdated methods. This approach will reduce production bug reports and speed up release cycles within just one quarter. With quality assured, let’s turn to personalizing user experiences on mobile platforms. AI in Mobile App Development: Personalizing the User Experience What is an AI app? It’s one that transforms interfaces into dynamic systems by analyzing user behavior in real time. It learns individual preferences, habits, and contexts to deliver personalized content, features, or recommendations right when users need them — a hallmark of what an AI app must achieve. For example, generative AI can tailor product suggestions, optimize workflows, or predict user needs before explicitly stating them. Leaders in AI mobile app development services view personalization as the main way to increase revenue. Twilio Segment finds 86% of decision-makers expect apps to use predictive suggestions soon, while PwC notes over 80% of consumers share data for personalized services. TensorFlow Lite AI builds taste profiles from user interactions, syncing with the cloud to boost streaming service retention by 20% through genre prioritization and automatic subtitle settings. Personalization goes beyond a recommendation widget. It involves analytics, model training, and UX design. In two three-week sprints, JetRuby engineers integrate a CDP like Segment, train your AI model, and deploy personalized UI blocks, which results in improved metrics by the end of the first sprint. Learn how data shapes AI models to see why high-quality AI training data is foundational to every AI-powered app. Deloitte reports that the adoption of generative AI in the workplace has skyrocketed, increasing from 6% to 24% of employees in just one year. It means teams are ready to embrace AI personalization and, particularly, AI in mobile app development as a standard, rather than fearing AI will take their jobs. If your app looks the same for all users, you miss out on revenue. Use a tool like Segment to collect user data, so you can create a simple recommendation model and add personalized content within 2-3 weeks. Let developers set up the process, and the marketing team track the results. Most teams see increased engagement or conversions after the first sprint.   CTO as a Service Advance your product with CTO as a Service! Build, attract investors, and confidently report progress. Get in touch   DevOps, CI/CD & AIOps: Zero-Downtime Releases IDC forecasts that, by 2025, 67% of the $227 billion in AI funding will flow into product and IT operations rather than back-office analytics. Google’s DORA report finds that teams using AI-enhanced CI/CD slash mean time to recovery less than an hour, and top performers recover in under 30 minutes. GitLab Duo uses AI to identify and remove unnecessary test steps in its pipeline stages. It helps users achieve 30% faster runs with fewer false failures, optimizing app performance. In production, Datadog Watchdog detects anomalies in APM and infrastructure data and sends root-cause suggestions to on-call engineers. Google's 2024 DORA report shows that one-third of developers reported "significant productivity gains" after using AI tools in their CI/CD processes. The best teams achieved a median time to repair (MTTR) of less than an hour on Google Cloud. In production monitoring, Datadog’s Watchdog groups APM/infrastructure anomalies, identifies root causes, and triggers alerts without predefined rules. IBM Instana updates telemetry every second, spotting performance drift before it hits users. Splunk’s State of Observability 2024 shows that mature AIOps practices reduce unplanned downtime by 42% and double feature release frequency. ML-powered incident prediction puts SRE teams in a proactive stance — “fix what will break tomorrow, today” — instead of firefighting at 2 a.m. AI in app development services also reshapes infrastructure management. Tools like Google SRE use machine learning to predict disk failures and traffic spikes, so teams proactively address them. Datadog’s Log Anomaly Detection quickly identifies unusual patterns, reducing troubleshooting time. AI speeds up engineering by reducing build times to 10 minutes. It suggests better YAML files, manages Kubernetes limits, and alerts engineers to critical issues like memory leaks. When businesses release updates quickly, they gain an advantage and improve fraud detection weeks ahead of their competitors. AI will improve cost management, predict resource needs, and optimize cloud spending. Tools like AWS Cost Explorer help find unused instances to save budget. Smart Scaling & Cost Control — Let AI Trim Your Cloud Bill Flexera’s 2025 State of the Cloud report highlights that 84% of organizations consider cost management their top cloud challenge. Companies seek various workarounds to optimize their services. Google Cloud’s Predictive Autoscaling service uses time-series analysis on weekly metrics to scale VM groups seconds before peak load, improving response times without lifting costs. On AWS, EC2 Predictive Scaling combined with Graviton3 processors helped an ed-tech platform boost throughput by 30% while cutting compute expenses by 20%. It’s a successful AI cost optimization case. Pro Tip: Selecting the right Ruby on Rails hosting provider further streamlines costs and performance. In Kubernetes clusters, Cast AI’s cost benchmark reveals roughly 30% of CPU and memory sit idle. Its auto-right-sizing agent slims down nodes in real time, trimming “cloud fat” without developer intervention. How a Startup Can Master AI-Powered Scaling in an Evening A startup can quickly scale using AI by analyzing one week of CPU, memory, traffic, and latency data, perfect for getting started with AI scaling. Google Cloud’s Predictive Autoscaling tests AI changes on a few virtual machines to manage traffic spikes. Cast AI optimizes Kubernetes resources based on demand, while Amazon EC2 Predictive Scaling preps instances ahead of traffic spikes. Businesses can save 20-40% on costs in a month by reducing waste, so engineers can focus on product development and manage traffic without downtime. The savings can potentially be used for hiring or research and development in your AI app development pipeline. As one engineer put it: “Predictive tools help us pay only for what we actually need. They keep us quick during busy times and save money at night.” As scale becomes effortless, project planning and roadmap AI adjustments keep your team on track. AI Roadmaps and Project Planning A January 2024 McKinsey survey shows 65% of companies use generative AI daily, up from 32.5%. The Project Management Institute expects the AI project management market to grow to $5.7 billion by 2028, supporting AI app development lifecycle efficiency. 82% of leaders anticipate AI will impact project operations in the next five years, showing how AI is transforming management.   Almost 70% of Fortune 500 companies now use Microsoft 365 Copilot and see strong adoption results. These tools support the product owner with data-driven insights and reduce debates about deadlines and risks. Teams save 25% of grooming sessions, and sponsors see a live-updating roadmap. But how to master AI? Well, developers need a clear AI developer roadmap for that. Tools like Jira Align use ML to predict sprint delays — key for AI software success. Monday.com AI breaks down epics into smaller tasks based on team speed, while Notion AI quickly organizes brainstorming ideas into roadmaps. For example, our team connected Copilot to a FinTech startup's Jira Cloud. The AI analyzed 60 sprints and improved task prioritization. As a result, on-time delivery rose from 68% to 92%, which in turn reduced employee turnover. With strategy and planning in place, real-world examples show these approaches in action. Read how JetRuby uses AI task automation to streamline workflows and reduce manual steps in development. Our Cases JetRuby’s real-world projects illustrate how apps with AI transform industry workflows, cut costs, and drive measurable ROI. In Smart Farming for Date Palms, we replaced manual irrigation with soil-moisture and CO₂ sensors that feed Azure Databricks models. They cut fertilizer use by 30%, lowered pesticide costs by 40%, and provided disease outbreak alerts.   Air-quality sensors and machine learning now detect pathogens in poultry at 10 million cells per cubic meter. Farms already using AI can spot outbreaks up to three days earlier with 80–90% accuracy, therefore increasing flock survival by 15% and saving about $200,000 annually per facility. Our Cattle Health & Productivity Monitoring platform helps farmers boost milk production. We use IoT scales, milk sensors, and behavior cameras throughout the entire app to track cattle health. The system predicts health risks and sends alerts through AWS. Clients have seen a 28% increase in milk production, a 35% drop in vet bills, and over 95% efficiency in herd management.   These success stories demonstrate the power of combining domain knowledge with complex AI at every step. Backed by 15+ years of hands-on development expertise, we know how to make an AI app that brings actual business value. JetRuby: Your Partner in AI App Development Services The global CTO-as-a-Service market is about $280 million and will nearly double by 2031. Research & Markets forecasts the entire XaaS outsourcing sector to surpass $1.1 trillion by 2030. As AI becomes crucial for innovation, businesses must master future trends in AI through learning AI in 2025. JetRuby offers two services to build an AI app: 1. CTO Co-Pilot: Provides on-demand support for companies with a CTO (learn more about the role of a CTO in business), addressing software challenges, technology adoption, and R&D to enhance productivity and reduce hiring costs for AI app development. 2. CTO as a Service (CTOaaS): Assists organizations without IT leaders in building or enhancing their IT departments, focusing on building your first AI solutions through guided team development. Both services deliver top talent, flexible support, and cost-effective solutions. JetRuby can help you speed up development, improve product quality, and create new business opportunities with custom AI application strategies. We leverage popular AI tools and techniques to accelerate your app creation. If you're ready to build your app, please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information. ### JetRuby Flow - What is it? You have a clear vision for a digital product. The market is ready, and your team has the necessary skills. However, you wonder: Will we actually launch on time, within budget, and meet expectations? If you feel uncertain, you’re facing a key challenge — the pressure for speed often clashes with predictability, transparency, and quality. This conflict is not a minor issue. It drains resources, lowers team morale, and results in missed market opportunities. Traditional methods claim to be agile but can leave clients and teams confused about progress, costs, and launch dates. JetRuby Flow was created to solve this problem for both our team and our clients. After 15 years of delivering complex projects and smart AI-assistant solutions, we developed the Flow, JetRuby's own lean product delivery system. It’s a solution that removes the trade-off between speed and certainty. The core promise of JetRuby Flow: Speed up your journey from idea to launch with clear updates on timelines, budget, and quality. Flow focuses on efficiency, removes unnecessary barriers, and ensures that everyone involved – your team, our experts, and you – has a shared understanding and confidence at every stage. Let’s see how this approach changes product delivery from a gamble into a reliable success engine. Key Takeaways You don’t have to choose between rapid delivery and predictable outcomes. A purpose-built framework can harmonize both. Treat scope, budget, and time as interdependent variables. Make trade-offs explicit so stakeholders understand their impact on deliverables. (JetRuby’s CTO-as-a-Service model helps structure these decisions clearly). Investing upfront in planning, infrastructure, and CI/CD pipelines dramatically reduces risks and speeds up later stages. Short sprints with regular demos and budget tracking keep clients aligned and allow course corrections before issues compound. Pair performance metrics (velocity, defect counts) with formal reviews every 4–6 weeks to recalibrate priorities and maintain transparency. Taking charge of issues and communicating clearly brings “peace of mind” and adds value to efficiency improvements.   Automating routine tasks (documentation, prototyping, code templates) with Figma AI, GitHub Copilot, and custom AI agents frees teams to focus on more strategic tasks. (You can even enhance code review with AI!)   History and Evolution of JetRuby Flow "JetRuby Flow combines our best practices. We have selected the most effective parts from proven methods and tested them in real projects." — Alexey G., Head of Talent Management Discipline Many traditional software delivery methodologies, such as Agile, Scrum, and Kanban, promise strict procedures but often struggle to fit real-world project needs. As Alexey points out, "None are used in their pure form." Teams typically combine these methods, and these on-the-spot adjustments can lead to inconsistency and unexpected outcomes. JetRuby Flow has developed over 15 years of experience in handling complex projects. Along the way, we noticed several persistent challenges. We'll explore these key hurdles in more detail shortly. We’ll be covering changes in priorities and client expectations, as well as the specific transparency issues with Kanban and flexibility concerns within Scrum. Our answer is a system built to balance the "Project Triangle": Flow turns these factors into a clear equation: changing one area reliably affects the others. For example: Reducing the budget will result in longer timelines or a smaller scope. Expanding the scope will likely result in higher costs or delays. We have improved our work with AI. In fact, many clients now embrace AI adoption as a strategic advantage in delivery planning. And there’s one unchanged truth here — the more AI training data AI tools ingest, the smarter and more tailored they become. This has led to measurable improvements: - 15% faster idea-to-prototype cycles (using Figma AI) - 10-35% quicker development (with GitHub Copilot/Cursor) - 15% better efficiency in gathering requirements (via Anthropic Claude/OpenAI) "Unlike teams that charge clients for basic ChatGPT access, we use AI purposefully, so our team can concentrate on creativity and critical thinking."   If you're building a SaaS solution, check out why Ruby on Rails is ideal for SaaS and explore the best hosting providers.   JetRuby Flow Stages At JetRuby, our development methodology, JetRuby Flow, helps us deliver high-quality software reliably and efficiently. This method consists of four stages that are essential to the product lifecycle. We use practical knowledge, hands-on experience, and smart AI tools to enhance our work while ensuring quality and creativity.   Discover the truth behind JetRuby's Personalized Development Plans that ensure engineer growth!   Stage 1: Zero Sprint — Foundational Planning & Infrastructure Setup Every project starts with the Zero Sprint. In this phase, we build a strong foundation. We ensure that all technical and procedural systems are working well before development begins. Key activities include: 1. Work together to establish primary goals, decide which features to prioritize, and develop the technical design. 2. Set up important tools like CI/CD pipelines, automated testing systems, and project tracking tools AI Integration in Zero Sprint: We leverage AI here to accelerate this foundational work: Figma AI helps speed up routine design tasks and prototyping. Our analysis shows it can reduce the time from idea to prototype by about 15%. However, it does not help with the initial creative ideas. LLMs like Claude and ChatGPT help define business requirements and create test scenarios. They can reduce result times by 10-15% for summarization and refinement tasks, with further efficiency from JetRuby’s QA and analyst processes for validation. Note: LLMs work best on projects started by JetRuby. These projects include built-in documentation processes that help cover almost everything from day one. Stage 2: Agile Development & Iterative Delivery — Building in Cycles We have built a strong foundation and are now starting Agile Development. We deliver value in short sprints with frequent feedback and clear progress. We deliver working features every sprint for early client feedback and review. We keep everyone updated with regular demos, progress reports, and budget tracking. We conduct thorough automated and manual testing throughout the project. Stage 3: Performance & Alignment — Continuous Monitoring and Adaptation This phase runs alongside Stage 2 and helps us stay on track in numbers and strategy, so we can: Monitor our productivity, task completion times, and the number of defects. Hold formal client reviews every 4 to 6 weeks to change priorities, scope, or timelines as needed. Provide detailed reports on efforts to ensure transparent visibility of resources and costs. AI Integration in Development & Performance: Cursor IDE and GitHub Copilot help reduce delivery time by 35% for templatable code and unit tests early in the process, and by 10–15% later on. JetRuby Internal AI Agent: Our custom tool, trained on JetRuby standards: - Generates outputs that comply with our quality and security rules. - Formats are suitable for immediate use in documents, spreadsheets, or test cases. - Only requires a human review — no reformatting is needed.   Still unsure about AI benefits? Here's why you shouldn't fear of AI taking jobs — it’s here to help you work smarter!   Stage 4: Final Launch & Ongoing Support — Transitioning to Live Operations We smoothly move approved products to live environments. Beta Testing: We test the product in real situations before the full launch. Post-Launch Support: We monitor the product, quickly address any bugs, and ensure it runs smoothly. Long-Term Partnership: We provide ongoing maintenance, improve performance, and develop new features. Note! We move to Stage 4 at major release milestones. Projects can remain in a continuous Agile loop (Stages 2–3) for as long as needed, which is ideal for products that evolve over time. In Stage 2, we use a standard software development process. Each iteration includes sprint planning, design, development, testing, and release.   Software projects often face retention challenges. See how we reduce employee turnover with a blend of culture and AI.   AI-Enhanced Efficiency Transform your business! With AI as a powerful support tool, our skilled engineers work more efficiently and effectively, enhancing outcomes and driving profitability! Get in touch   Real-World Results of JetRuby Flow When standard ERP systems couldn't adjust to our hybrid workflows and agile processes, we developed a custom platform that combines operational accuracy with a focus on people. The outcome has changed how we work together, make decisions, and grow. We thoroughly tested our development methodology during this project. It worked well whether we coordinated 5 or 30 specialists. We maintained transparency and reduced cycle times by 15% by using AI. The platform combines core operations, such as payroll, time tracking, and automated administrative tasks, with the Hub’s collaborative features, including real-time mood tracking, JetCoin rewards, and knowledge sharing among teams. We integrated tools like Jira, Slack, and Superset BI, which helped us remove manual reconciliation as a step and save over 300 hours each month for more strategic work. Using automation to sync time logs cut payroll processing time by 40%. Self-service tools also lowered administrative requests by 60%. A project manager summed it up well: "What was a Friday nightmare of chasing updates is now effortless." The JetCoin marketplace and mood analytics increased peer recognition by 30% and boosted retention by 20%. Engineers felt "seen" when mentorship led to real rewards. Decisions sharpened: Leadership now uses real-time dashboards that combine project, financial, and feedback data. This speeds up resource decisions by 35% and reduces budget differences by 15%. So why did customization win? Pre-built solutions could not adapt to our needs. They forced us into strict workflows and nearly $50k+ customizations. This ERP system clearly shows how effective JetRuby Flow is. We completed a 1,200-hour resource module in just 900 hours, which is 25% faster than expected. "It’s not another software solution. We created an ecosystem where people and processes work well together. The results are clear."   Looking ahead? Learn what’s new in Rails 8 and future-proof your tech stack.   Comparison with Scrum and Kanban In modern project management, Scrum and Kanban are the most popular methods used. Yet, hybrid approaches, like ours, have clear benefits. Below is a simple comparison of these frameworks that highlights their key differences without making guesses.   Choosing the right project management methodology is about understanding the strengths, trade-offs, and operational rhythms unique to each approach. Every framework carries its own DNA — a distinct set of unique features that shape how work flows, teams collaborate, and value is delivered. These characteristics offer advantages in some contexts but can also introduce complexities in others. Kanban is great for managing small tasks, but has trouble when scaling up. It focuses on how quickly tasks are completed, which works well for support work. However, managing large projects gets complicated because the deliverables do not stay in sync. Scrum promotes discipline through fixed time periods, dedicated teams, and regular progress tracking. These features help measure performance. However, Scrum's strict structure makes it hard to make changes during a sprint. While the framework works well for predictable tasks, it struggles when flexibility is needed. So, why JetRuby Flow? Scrum provides a clear structure for projects, while Kanban offers flexibility. JetRuby Flow combines these two approaches. Delivers work completely and promotes teamwork, similar to Scrum. Allows for changing priorities and quick responses, like Kanban. Can easily expand or shrink teams without losing efficiency, adjusting its pace naturally. It helps teams manage large projects while staying adaptable to changing priorities and team sizes. This hybrid model is a strong choice for organizations that need to balance efficiency with the ability to adjust as needed. "JetRuby Flow lets us deliver like Scrum, pivot like Kanban, and scale without penalties. It combines the best of both methods while reducing their drawbacks." Client Feedback on JetRuby Flow JetRuby's project management method, known as the Jetruby Flow, is not just a series of steps. It represents 15 years of ongoing improvement in our development process. This approach guides every client project, providing a clear and flexible route to success. Many clients in various industries, such as logistics, financial technology (FinTech), and agricultural technology (AgriTech), have seen its benefits firsthand. For instance: In Logistics, we develop AI-driven solutions that tackle challenges such as dynamic route optimization, real-time IoT asset monitoring, predictive fleet maintenance, and smart warehouse automation, using computer vision and RFID. Within FinTech, our teams build secure systems for AI-powered fraud detection, automated credit scoring, streamlined customer onboarding, conversational banking assistants, and predictive analytics. For AgriTech, we develop intelligent solutions with AI for predictive crop analytics, disease detection via computer vision and satellite/drone imagery, smart irrigation control, livestock monitoring, and predictive equipment maintenance. These examples represent just a few areas where our methodology delivers tangible results. Let's take a closer look at one example of our work: Cloudbooking. Cloudbooking’s rapid growth revealed problems with its IT infrastructure. The Founder and CEO hired JetRuby team to redesign the system completely. Our team rebuilt the cloud platform using container services. We set up a clear CI/CD pipeline, created strong monitoring with reliable alerts, and developed disaster recovery plans. We also made staging environments that matched the production setup. This change let Cloudbooking’s engineers focus more on developing the core product. The effects were immediate: system downtime decreased, deployment cycles sped up, and scaling became easy. As the CEO remarked, “...the real win was peace of mind. We went from reacting to every hiccup to actually planning ahead.” JetRuby meets its goals because the team runs every project with discipline: We set practical deadlines and move them only when new facts demand it. We hold weekly check-ins and track progress on shared dashboards, so everyone stays on the same page. We spot security gaps early and patch them right away. That habit builds strong trust with clients. Our approach supports hiring top talent. Read how we recruit engineers through a rigorous hiring process. The Future-Proof Delivery Framework JetRuby Flow is the crystallization of our 15-year journey perfecting product delivery. By blending battle-tested human expertise with strategic AI automation, we've engineered a system that accelerates time-to-market by 10-35% while maintaining ironclad commitments to transparency, budget integrity, and quality. Software projects run the highest risk of cost and schedule overruns, large IT projects run 45% over budget and 7% over time, while delivering 56% less value than predicted. JetRuby Flow offers a solution so you don't have to choose between speed and certainty. Are you ready to turn delivery into a strength for your business instead of just a cost? Don’t hesitate to contact JetRuby anytime you see fit! ### AI Agriculture — Future of Farming Can artificial intelligence tame the unpredictability of farming? The AI agriculture market is on track to rocket from $1.7 billion in 2023 to $4.7 billion by 2028, compounding at roughly 23% a year. These numbers confirm that Artificial intelligence in agriculture is shifting from pilots to full-scale production. Today’s agri leaders are asking: how can AI transform the way we grow food? Below are four succinct examples of how AI is already leveraging data to drive decisive actions across AgriTech sites, from fields and greenhouses to fish farms and livestock operations, and throughout the entire value chain: Precision Irrigation Control: AI analyzes real-time soil moisture and weather data to autonomously adjust irrigation schedules on fields and greenhouses, maximizing water efficiency and crop health — a hallmark of precision agriculture and smart farming. Early Disease and Pest Detection: Machine-learning models process multispectral drone imagery over crop sites and greenhouses to identify disease outbreaks or pest infestations at their inception. It enables minimizing yield loss, showcasing the application of AI in agriculture. Aquaculture Feed Optimization: AI applications in agriculture ingest water quality metrics and fish growth data from sensor-equipped fish farms to predict optimal feeding regimes — a bright example of how AI can provide actionable insights. End-to-End Supply Chain Forecasting: Ag AI-driven demand-forecast models integrate harvest timelines, pricing, logistics, storage allocation, and distribution routes. It’s proof that AI tools now touch every link in food production. Curious how we roll out practical automation on live projects? Check out How JetRuby Uses AI Task Automation or dig into the Top 20 AI task-automation routines we deploy most often.   Key Takeaways AI adoption is accelerating: The ag-tech market is set to hit $4.7B by 2028 (23% CAGR), making data-driven farming a strategic must-have for modern agriculture and underscoring the future of AI agriculture for any growth-minded farm. High-impact use cases: Precision irrigation, early pest/disease detection, aquaculture feed tuning, and AI supply-chain forecasting already deliver rapid ROI. Hard numbers matter: Early adopters see 10-15% higher yields, 20-30% water savings, 15-25% fertilizer costs, and 25-35% lower labor costs — benefits that AI can support at. Proven at scale: JetRuby’s OSRAM urban-farm platform lifted yields 32%, while its AI poultry system hits >80% real-time detection accuracy across thousands of birds. Strategic edge: Embedding AI now secures cost efficiency, sustainability gains, and climate resilience before the core role of AI in agriculture becomes table stakes.  Challenges Facing the Farming Industry Despite advances in agricultural practices, traditional farming continues to face regular challenges that limit operational efficiency, yield stability, and profitability. These obstacles are becoming increasingly pronounced as global food demand grows and climate variability intensifies.  Below are some of the most critical issues: Unpredictable Weather and Yield Instability: Climate change has made weather patterns erratic, causing inconsistent crop performance. Farmers without advanced forecasting tools and sustainable agriculture can lose up to 25% of their harvest annually due to adverse weather events. Rising Input Costs: The cost of essential agricultural inputs such as fertilizers, irrigation water, and fuel has surged in recent years. These inputs often represent a major share of a farm's operating expenses, directly impacting margins and limiting scalability. Excessive Water and Fertilizer Use: Agriculture accounts for approximately 70% of global freshwater consumption. Without precision tools, water and fertilizer are frequently over-applied, leading to waste, environmental degradation, and reduced long-term soil health. Labor Shortages and Skill Gaps: A growing shortage of skilled agricultural labor worldwide. Many farms struggle to recruit and retain qualified workers, resulting in delays and suboptimal field management. Not to mention that recruiting qualified hands is harder than ever. For retention tips, see our Top 13 Steps to Reduce Employee Turnover. Outdated Field Monitoring Practices: Manual scouting and infrequent inspections are prone to human error. This often misses early signs of diseases, pests, and nutrient deficiencies, which can escalate rapidly. Intuition-Based Decision Making: Many day-to-day farm decisions are still made based on gut feeling rather than data. This approach lacks the precision and consistency needed in a high-stakes, variable environment, leading to avoidable losses and underperformance. Key Benefits of AI In Agriculture Below are the core benefits of integrating AI into modern farming. Each technology tackles the pain points above, turning resource-intensive workflows into data-driven processes.    Pro Tip: Looking to build a full-stack intelligence layer for your farm? Start with our guide on How to Build a Smart AI Assistant in 8 Key Steps.   Agriculture AI: Yield Forecasting and Crop Planning Farmers face high financial risk when harvests underperform due to variable weather and soil. AI for agriculture forecasting uses machine learning on historical yields, real-time weather, and soil data to predict outcomes within a 5% margin of error. With forecasts, growers adjust planting schedules, field layouts, and resource orders. Early adopters report 10–15% yield gains and lower underperformance risk. AI stabilizes output, protects margins, and enables confident planning under variable climates. Precision Resource Management (Water and Fertilizer Efficiency) Used by AI Farms Water and fertilizer are costly inputs and harm the environment if overused. AI systems use soil sensors, satellite imagery, and forecasts to assess real-time crop needs. JetRuby’s models fine-tune fertilizer rates per zone, giving each plant precise care. Studies show AI can cut water use by 20–30% and fertilizer use by 15–25%, without sacrificing yield. Automated irrigation adjusts in real time to soil and plant conditions. This slashes costs and minimizes environmental impact through smarter, cleaner resource use, enabling truly innovative farming. AI Farming Technology for Early Pest and Disease Detection AI-powered computer vision enables early detection of pests and diseases, before symptoms are visible. Drones and cameras capture high-res images across farms. Neural networks analyze these at the leaf level, spotting tiny signs that are often missed by the human eye. AI platforms flag outbreaks early and enable targeted actions like spot spraying or biocontrols. This reduces reliance on broad pesticide use and prevents large-scale crop damage. Trials showed 20–40% lower crop losses and improved sustainability and product quality. Farmer AI: Data-Driven Decision Making AI platforms unify fragmented datasets, from weather feeds and IoT sensors to financials and market trends into a single, actionable dashboard. With the power of analytical AI and Gen AI, these systems provide clear and prioritized recommendations for field operations, procurement, storage, etc. By automating data integration and surfacing key insights, growers can respond faster and with greater precision. This empowers timely decisions in planting, irrigation, and marketing, reducing waste and increasing impact. Real-Time Crop Monitoring with Drones and Sensors — One of the Key AI Applications in Agriculture Continuous field surveillance using drones, satellites, and IoT sensors delivers real-time insights far beyond traditional scouting. Drones capture high-res aerial imagery, while satellites map crop health across large areas. Soil and plant sensors transmit live data on moisture, nutrients, and microclimate conditions. AI engines analyze it all instantly, flagging anomalies like moisture stress or early disease, long before symptoms appear. By maintaining constant vigilance, growers can act instantly, whether through targeted irrigation, spot pathogen treatment, or pest control. This creates a truly “smart” farming system that minimizes losses, optimizes resource use, and sustains peak crop performance. Automation and Labor Efficiency Powered by Machine Learning in Agriculture AI Agriculture robotics and autonomous machinery automate labor-intensive tasks like planting, weeding, spraying, and harvesting with high precision. Driverless tractors and smart robots scout fields, detect issues, and apply targeted treatments without human intervention. Deploying these technologies cuts labor costs by 25–35% and eases workforce shortages. Workers move from repetitive routines to higher-value tasks like monitoring and analysis. This shift lowers expenses, boosts productivity, and reduces errors and downtime. Sustainable Farming and Environmental Impact — Advantages of AI in Agriculture   AI-driven precision agriculture cuts input costs and reduces environmental impact. It matches irrigation and fertilizer precisely to crop needs, limiting runoff and chemical leaching.  AI for agriculture watering systems adjust in real time to conserve water, while machine learning optimizes nutrient delivery to minimize pollution. Beyond resource efficiency, AI-driven sustainability is a core business value. Measurable cuts in water use, fertilizer runoff, and emissions boost a farm’s ESG profile. This strengthens market appeal to eco-conscious buyers and investors, making farming cleaner, more responsible, and future-focused. Climate Resilience and Risk Mitigation with AI farming AI-driven analytics use historical yields, climate models, and real-time forecasts to assess agronomic risks. ML models help prevent crop losses by spotting vulnerability windows like droughts or frosts. They recommend adaptive strategies to protect your fields before extreme events hit. These systems advise on optimal planting, irrigation, and fertilizer timing based on weather probabilities. This gives your farm a “data-backed insurance policy” against volatility and climate surprises. By embedding resilience into planning, you stabilize revenue and safeguard your business long term. Livestock Monitoring and Health Management Technology for Farmers Precision Livestock Farming uses smart sensors, video analytics, and wearable IoT devices to monitor animal behavior, physiology, and conditions continuously. Computer vision tracks movement and distress signs, while biometric sensors measure temperature, rumination, and feed intake in real time. Advanced AI for agriculture analytics flag anomalies like reduced appetite, elevated temperature, or altered gait and prompt early intervention. AI-driven feeding platforms adjust rations and schedules based on animal growth, cutting feed costs by 5–10% and boosting weight gain, which improves herd productivity and welfare. Elevate with CTO Co-Pilot Elevate your development with our CTO Co-Pilot! Get expert support, AI audits, cost analysis, and a detailed implementation plan - or let us handle full implementation. Get in touch Case Study: OSRAM Urban Farming Platform — Harnessing AI AgriTech for Urban Farms We partnered with OSRAM to create a cutting-edge, scalable platform for automated urban farming based on AI technologies. The goal was to bring real-time visibility and AI Agriculture control to every stage of the cultivation process.  Under the hood, the platform’s backend is built with Ruby on Rails, a framework we rely on for rapid, reliable SaaS delivery. If you’d like to understand why Rails is our framework of choice for data‑heavy SaaS products, explore our article 9 Reasons Why Ruby on Rails Is Perfect for SaaS. Osram interface Challenges OSRAM Faced OSRAM needed a scalable, user-friendly platform to manage urban farms with real-time insights into soil health, microclimate, crop growth, machinery performance, and energy usage. Manual, siloed monitoring was labor-intensive and lacked the precision required for consistent, high-quality yields. Our Approach to Integrating AI in Agriculture We built an IoT and AI-enabled platform that automates sensor data collection, cloud processing, and delivers insights via a web dashboard. We installed environmental and crop-health sensors, a serverless AWS backend for analytics, and an IoT Device Simulator for swift onboarding.  Results Achieved Through the Use of AI in Agriculture Quality matters at scale — learn how AI code review enhances Ruby on Rails projects like this one. Case Study: AI Farming for Early Detection of Poultry Diseases We built an end-to-end cloud-native AI agriculture stack. An IoT and AI system that monitors poultry-house air for bacterial pathogens.  Using low-cost sensors, custom ML pipelines, and a simple dashboard, it delivers real-time alerts, proving how AI can provide early warnings that save flocks and margins. Challenges Farmers Face During Poultry Disease Detection Traditional bacterial culture tests take 4–10 days for results, during which infections can decimate a flock and jeopardize worker safety. Detecting disease purely from airborne microbial concentrations had never been attempted at scale and required: Our Solution: Real-Time AI-Enhanced Poultry Pathogen Monitoring We installed calibrated air-quality sensors above the flock, measuring temperature, humidity, VOCs, CO/CO2, and airflow. Data fed MLflow- and Azure-powered pipelines for analysis and fuzzy-logic classification. These models flagged pathogen spikes of 10 to 80 million cells in real time. A serverless cloud backend ingested data while a web interface showed trends and sent instant alerts. Ongoing R&D with microbiologists kept models and sensors precise in changing conditions. This enabled fast detection and response to pathogen threats on site. Results of Implementing Artificial Intelligence in Farming JetRuby CTO Co-Pilot Service: Expert Backup on Demand When your AgriTech plans call for sharp AI, IoT, or cloud skills, JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot plugs in as your instant tech ally. Our senior experts join your crew on demand, working shoulder-to-shoulder with your existing CTO and filling critical gaps without adding another full-time executive seat. Each CTO Co-Pilot engagement starts with a fast, focused audit that uncovers immediate risks and low-hanging wins. We map out scope, budget, and timeline, then embed our expert alongside your CTO and developers for seamless collaboration.   Pro Tip: Before you hire or upskill a tech leader, check out What Is a CTO? Unveiling the Truth About CTO Meaning in Business to set clear expectations.   Together, we align on architecture, implement critical features, and benchmark performance until your key metrics stabilize. Once systems are operating smoothly, your team continues forward, fortified with new skills and best practices. Ready to Cultivate Innovation? Move beyond pilots and embed AI solutions for agriculture at scale, leveraging AI, IoT, and advanced analytics to integrate them deeply into your farming operations. Reach out via our Contact Us form to schedule a discovery call, outline your AgriTech challenges, and co-create a tailored CTO Co-Pilot engagement plan with JetRuby today. ### AI In Supply Chain Management: 9 Ways Artificial Intelligence Transforms Logistics AI in supply chain uses advanced data analysis and algorithmic models to forecast demand, optimize inventory, plan efficient routes, deliver real-time visibility across the network, and detect supplier risks. The global market for AI in logistics and supply chain totaled $9.15 billion in 2024 and may expand to $40.53 billion by 2030 (28% CAGR), according to AI-SCM analytics. Not to mention that 78% of global companies now employ AI in at least one function.  Our AI Adoption 2025 report at JetRuby shows corporate AI budgets surged 92% over the past two years. The market keeps expanding fast, and decision-makers now treat AI as a core tool, not a side project.  Below, we outline 9 key benefits and two case studies that confirm the benefits of AI logistics. Key Takeaways A unified AI dashboard brings together GPS, IoT, and telematics data to provide true end-to-end visibility of fleets and warehouse operations, leveraging EPD dashboards and Insights. Automated document generation and AI-powered regulatory lookup reduce manual effort and cut compliance errors. Predictive maintenance models analyze vibration and diagnostic data to forecast equipment failures and schedule repairs during idle periods. Integrated UWB sensors and computer-vision systems create a multi-layered safety net that detects personnel and machinery in blind spots. AI-driven staffing tools forecast demand, honor individual preferences, and generate balanced shift schedules that mitigate burnout. Intelligent route-planning algorithms optimize fuel usage, monitor real-time resource levels, and automatically plan refueling and parts-replacement tasks. 9 Wins Only AI In Logistics And Supply Chain Can Unlock When AI algorithms join the warehouse crew, idle cranes, missing trucks, and guesswork forecasts vanish. At JetRuby, our projects demonstrate how AI and supply chain technologies solve persistent challenges that drain time, money, and customer trust.  Here are just a few common issues companies face without AI in supply chain management: Dispatchers operate blindly during delays or route changes Fleet managers rely on manual calls to track vehicle location Empty runs go unnoticed until profit margins shrink Delivery estimates stay vague, leaving customers frustrated Drivers miss route changes or weather alerts in real time AI tools eliminate these weak spots with fast data, predictive insights, and automated workflows. How Does Artificial Intelligence Improve Supply Chain? Leaders use AI for logistics to fix blind spots, reduce paperwork, and cut downtime. The following examples show how AI in the supply chain creates real value in critical operations. Real-Time Visibility & Fleet Tracking You send out dozens of trucks, containers, or vessels, but only hear updates after someone picks up the phone. Delays throw off the schedule. Empty runs drain margins. Without AI in logistics, dispatchers work blind during disruptions. AI solution: Our team built an AI-powered control tower for Anova Unify. It connects GPS, ELD, and IoT feeds into one dashboard. Dispatchers see a live map of fleets, facilities, and storage units across three countries.  Quick Tip: For an inside look at our methodologies, explore how we hire top engineers. The platform supports over 90 filters and mobile tasking for crew members. It also predicts arrival times and flags route issues, even without a stable internet connection. Result: The system reduced empty runs and gave full visibility across operations. Teams respond faster, optimize capacity, and make better route decisions, all in real time. Zero-Touch Paperwork You spend hours filling CMRs and bills of lading, and errors in paperwork lead to fines. Staff devote long shifts to manual data entry, and typos trigger compliance issues. AI solution: JetRuby LLM smart AI assistant uses LLaMA 3 with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Crew members issue voice commands or text prompts to create acts, customs declarations, or find rules in PDFs or Word files. A secure vector store powers the model, so teams skip manual searches and get instant, accurate answers. Result: During our pilot, teams cut the time it took to find rules and forms by 90%. Now, they spend just 10% of the prior effort. Error rates among new hires fell by 70%, and annual operating costs dropped by $50,000 through lower labor hours and reduced compliance fees. No More Costly Downtime A single crane breakdown can stall port operations and drain budgets. Containers pile up, trucks idle, and the vessel racks thousands of dollars per hour in demurrage. AI solution: We place vibration sensors on each vehicle and crane. AI spots wear before failure and schedules repairs during layovers. Cameras and LiDAR steer lifts with one-centimeter accuracy and record each move. A safety engine maps motion paths and warns 10 seconds before a collision. Pro Tip: Want to keep your best people? Check out our Top 13 Actionable Steps to Reduce Employee Turnover. Result: Service and repair costs fall, and fleets hit delivery windows without surprise breakdowns. Early alerts give yards fewer impacts and higher safety scores. These results prove that machine learning and supply chain work together to keep operations smooth. Built-In Safety Shields A forklift hides in a blind spot as workers move pallets nearby. Without warning, the driver turns and nearly hits a worker, causing a near-miss. Without a safety shield, this scenario repeats daily, increasing the risk of injury. AI solution: We combine Ultra-Wideband sensors and computer-vision cameras to create a 360° safety net around every vehicle. UWB tags track personnel and assets with 15 cm accuracy. The system alarms and stops equipment seconds before a collision. These systems are as reliable in the field as a well-architected SaaS app in production. If you’ve read 9 Reasons Why Ruby on Rails Is Perfect for SaaS, you already know what that level of stability looks like. Our CV module scans for hard hats and high-visibility vests. If it spots unprotected workers, it immediately locks down nearby vehicles. On top of that, a predictive-safety engine analyzes movement trajectories of people and machines. Result: Operations gain a multi-layered safety shield. Incidents in blind zones drop sharply. Equipment stays inactive only when truly necessary. And by logging every near-miss scenario, managers refine zone rules and drive continuous improvement in site safety. Balanced Workloads, Happier Crews Shifts burn out some teams while others sit idle because managers still build schedules by hand. Unbalanced rosters drive overtime up and increase employee turnover. AI solution: JetRuby’s workforce-planning system forecasts demand, gathers individual preferences, and generates optimal rosters. Its RMO module delivers heat maps of staff utilization, tracks vacations, sick leave, and training sessions, and adapts schedules automatically when variables change. It’s built to scale, much like the platforms featured in 8 Best Ruby on Rails Hosting Providers, where performance and flexibility go hand in hand. Result: Optimized rosters cut turnover, thanks to more reasonable shift assignments and stronger engagement. Desertion drops when AI flags fatigue risks and proactively rebalances workloads. As a result, teams report a boost in satisfaction. And because AI respects individual preferences rather than replacing roles, it actually elevates job satisfaction — explore why you shouldn’t fear of AI taking jobs in our dedicated post. Fast Crew Reassignment Unexpected leave or illness can stall a shipment for days when you scramble to find qualified replacements. AI solution: Our ERP recruitment module scans crew records for skills, certifications, and open slots. It returns a shortlist of ready drivers or seafarers in seconds. After you confirm a hire, the system reassigns tasks and alerts dispatchers, crew, and clients with one click. Result: Automated crew swaps cut average downtime, keeping schedules intact. Administrative overhead falls sharply as the platform handles credential checks and paperwork, freeing managers to focus on core operations. Infinite IoT Scalability Your pilot with 500 sensors worked smoothly, but adding the next thousand devices overloaded your servers. AI solution: We build a cloud-native LPWAN infrastructure — a clustered “umbrella” monitor scales to 100,000 devices per zone, handling both fixed sites and mobile container units. JetRuby integrates CI/CD pipelines for firmware and analytics, so each new device joins automatically without downtime. Case in point: A U.S. railroad company rolled out the system across four large stations and twenty key junctions. The carrier recorded a 15% revenue lift from stronger asset use and lower equipment loss.  Result: Clients gain confidence to expand IoT coverage without server failures. Automated CI/CD ensures updates roll out smoothly as fleets grow, preserving performance and data integrity. Predictive Fuel & Spares Planning The fuel is burning out, crews hoard spare parts, and you only learn about shortages when it’s too late. Deliveries slip, penalties pile up, and clients question your reliability. AI solution: Our Python engine hosts 2 AI models, one projects fuel use, the other flags parts wear. When tanks run low or a part nears its limit, it routes trucks past the nearest fuel stop or parts depot. The dashboard shows live levels, sends alerts, and auto-creates refuel or parts tasks on the map. Result: A single consumption model lets teams react instantly in emergencies and avoids fuel spoilage and last-minute rush orders. Thanks to timely refills and on-time parts delivery, clients report a cut in fuel waste and a drop in spares logistics costs. Quality Control at Machine Speed Human inspectors often miss microfractures or surface defects, allowing damaged goods to reach customers and trigger costly returns. AI solution: We deploy a computer-vision system built on EfficientNetV3 for feature extraction and an R-CNN for precise region proposals and classification. High-resolution cameras scan each package on the conveyor belt in real time. This model lifts processing speed by 20-23%. Result: Implementations of this architecture deliver 20–23% faster defect-detection throughput compared to traditional machine-vision pipelines. Warehouse operations report an 18–25% drop in quality-related incidents, lowering rework and customer-return rates. Elevate with CTO Co-Pilot Elevate your development with our CTO Co-Pilot! Get expert support, AI audits, cost analysis, and a detailed implementation plan - or let us handle full implementation. Get in touch Anova Case Study: How AI Logistics Reduced Route Planning Time And Fuel Costs The ANOVA platform oversees more than 600,000 assets for 1,500+ clients in about 70 countries and drives continuous growth across its unified toolset. Pain Points Before AI In Supply Chain Management ANOVA’s dispatchers spent up to six hours building daily routes for 20-30 trucks, while managers spent another five hours on phone calls to fix delays. Preparing a single delivery request could take three hours, leaving vehicles idle, incurring fines, and cutting revenue. AI In SCM Solution: Our Approach JetRuby assembled a cross-functional squad to deliver an automation platform that: Pulls live sensor data, predicts demand, and flags anomalies with AI supply-chain models Auto-generates optimal routes, waybills, and delivery requests Unifies vehicles, drivers, warehouses, and schedules on one dashboard Shows real-time status on interactive maps Enforces role-based access and enterprise-grade security Benefits of AI in Logistics The new system trims fuel loss through smarter routes, wipes out idle time and fines, and slashes manual planning and paperwork costs. Managers now see every step of the fuel cycle, end-to-end, on a single screen, moving ANOVA to the next tier of operational efficiency. Read the complete ANOVA case study. Sortly Case Study: AI In Supply Chain Management Sortly is a top IOS inventory app. Its clear visual layout lets users easily track and sort items. They asked us to build a web platform that matches the mobile feel and supports bigger loads. Hint: Like many mobile apps, Sortly thrives beyond App Store walls — see our List of 15 Alternative App Stores for 2025 to expand your distribution strategy. Pain Before AI Supply Chain Management Small crews juggled two separate apps yet still lacked end-to-end control. The older backend stalled when clients asked for payments, data import or export, dashboards, and ledger links. Rising user traffic pushed the system past its limit. AI in SCM Solution: Our Approach We've used Rails, Vue.js, QA, design, and product experts. We rebuilt data models, wrote over 1,000 tests, and kept work in brisk monthly sprints. The new web app shows a drag-and-drop view. Users scan barcodes, set custom fields, assign roles, and pull reports in seconds. Benefits of AI Supply Chain Management: Real Results Sortly’s key growth metrics following our engagement: Inventory control moved from manual steps to a visual flow. Read the full Sortly case study. AI in Logistics: JetRuby Delivers Proven Wins Machine learning and AI in logistics unlock clear wins across every link in the supply chain: Real-time visibility across the fleet and warehouse Auto paperwork and instant route plans Predictive maintenance ends downtime Balanced workloads and safer yards Limitless IoT scale Lower fuel use and parts spent Vision systems find defects before shipment Our case studies with ANOVA and Sortly prove these gains in action. JetRuby CTO Co-Pilot Service: Expert Backup on Demand Here’s how CTO Co-Pilot integrates with your team to deliver expert guidance exactly when you need it — fast, flexible, and without extra overhead. Review the key benefits below to see how you can close skill gaps and accelerate your technology roadmap. CTO Co-Pilot steps in when the roadmap needs skills beyond the core stack. We assign a senior architect with deep cloud, AI, and DevOps insight to work directly with the in-house CTO. The expert fixes architecture gaps fast and shares proven patterns while the internal leader stays in charge. Pro Tip: Hiring or leveling up leadership? Start with What Is a CTO? Unveiling the Truth About CTO Meaning in Business for a quick reality check. The engagement starts with a brief audit that surfaces risks and quick wins. We outline scope, cost, and timeline, then code side by side with the team and guide each release until key metrics hold steady. When the system runs smoothly, the company moves forward on its own. Ready to Transform Your Operations? If you’re ready to move beyond pilots and embed artificial intelligence in supply chain management, use our Contact Us form to schedule a call, discuss your challenges, and map out a tailored development plan with JetRuby today. ### AIQA: How We Leverage AI-powered Tools for Quality Assurance at JetRuby AIQA (Artificial Intelligence for Quality Assurance) is a “tool” everyone can use today to improve productivity. Rather than giving in to the fear of AI taking jobs, we treat it as an amplifier of human insight. At JetRuby, we asked ourselves: “How much test coverage and confidence in releases are we losing by only using human effort?” We found that tasks like analyzing requirements, creating test materials, and maintaining API or load test suites took up to 40% of a QA engineer’s time during a sprint. Since we started using AIQA, we have seen important improvements: We cut the time for requirement analysis from three days to one day. We reduced release preparation time by 20 to 30%. We now detect specification mismatches early enough to stop 5 to 10% of critical production bugs. In the pages that follow, you will learn why we chose AI for QA, how we introduced it step-by-step, the tools we use, the ROI we measure, and the candid limitations we still battle from time to time. Key Takeaways AIQA ≠ automation 2.0: It is a mindset that shifts QA effort from rote work to insight generation. Clear KPIs — coverage, escaped-defect rate, cycle time — turn AI adoption from hype to hard ROI. ChatGPT accelerates requirement analysis and test-case ideation. GitHub Copilot speeds up API, performance, and E2E test coding, while an AI code review enhances Ruby on Rails projects downstream. Pilot → feedback → a gradual rollout of AI platforms is better than launching them all at once. Double-layer “AI-first, human-final” review keeps trust high. AI still struggles with volatile UIs and domain-specific e2e flows — manual insight still matters. Next on our roadmap: domain-tuned LLMs, AI-assisted accessibility audits, and a proprietary QA copilot that already tracks the top 20 AI-automatable routines inside JetRuby. Our Goals for AI in QA Our ambition is simple: remove the friction that delays releases and saps creative energy. Today's biggest challenges are long document reviews, last-minute test creation, and unstable regression tests. AI test automation tools for unit tests and other AI-fueled solutions help us address all three issues at once. #1. Instant, collaborative requirements scrutiny Large language models (LLMs) ingest specs in their raw form, highlight ambiguities, and surface contradictions in minutes — something that once stole whole sprint cycles. To make this work, we invested time in understanding AI training data quality, not just model size. According to the 16th World Quality Report, 68 % of organizations already lean on generative AI for quality-engineering tasks, and 72 % report noticeably faster automation as a direct result. #2. Living user stories and edge-case libraries After clarifying requirements, those same LLMs draft user stories and enumerate edge-case scenarios, creating a direct trace from “idea” to “test.” In Tricentis’ 2024 DevOps survey, teams ranked testing as the single most valuable target for AI investment. 47.5 % now use AI to decide what to test, and 44 % to generate the cases themselves. #3. Self-healing, low-maintenance regression suites AI-powered tools can fix broken links, focus on risky areas, and turn off tests no longer needed because of code updates. Research from trusted companies shows the benefits: Deloitte expects AI tools to cut software development costs by 20% to 40%. McKinsey adds that generative AI assistants can improve developer productivity by 35 to 45%. This boost helps make regression tests more efficient and reliable. #4. Re-focusing people on analysis and insight When machines write, triage, and maintain the repetitive parts, engineers reclaim the better part of the time they can spend on exploratory testing, risk modelling, and customer journey analytics. A third of respondents in the same Tricentis study estimate AI tooling already saves them 40 hours or more every month. By weaving these capabilities into our daily workflow, we expect faster and safer releases, turning QA from a perceived bottleneck into JetRuby’s competitive advantage.   For teams whose products run on Ruby on Rails, the Rails 8 release introduces features like Hotwire, MRSK, and Compact SQL caching, that pair perfectly with the AI-driven speed-ups!   Our Approach to Implementing AI in QA We resisted the temptation to “buy everything AI” on day one. Instead, we followed a four-step path. #1. Pain-Point Mapping Before touching a model, we gathered our QA leads for a half-day workshop. Together, we listed 47 recurring tasks, then rated each one for manual effort, frequency, and defect impact. Those ratings fed into a clear “automation heat map” that showed which tasks to automate first. The exercise revealed two fast wins: Boilerplate test-case creation was eating nearly one-fifth of tester hours. Requirement-clarity checks were responsible for more than a quarter of all rework loops. #2. Pilot Project in a Regulated Domain We chose a healthcare platform that follows HIPAA rules, an environment where mistakes can be expensive, and tracking actions is very important. We set specific goals for ChatGPT 4o. It needed to look at new requirements to find any gaps, unclear points, or regulatory issues and draft first-pass test cases in Gherkin format, including suggestions for edge cases. Three sprints later, the numbers spoke for themselves: No critical defects escaped to production — a green light for broader use. #3. Gradual Release Success breeds the temptation to scale too quickly, but we resisted. Over the next four months, we expanded AI support in three waves: API suites for seeding ChatGPT with OpenAPI specs to propose request-response matrices. Load-testing scaffolds for generating synthetic payloads and locating throughput choke points. Selective end-to-end paths for high-traffic user journeys only, with human approval gates. Coverage increased from 28 % to 61 %, yet false positives stayed flat — evidence that a staged rhythm beats a big bang. #4. Improving Processes and Team Support Technology adoption slows down without a change in company culture. To address this, we created personalized development plans for every engineer. We also used our guide on how to reduce employee turnover and ensured top-tier engineers join our team as skills change. Additionally we: We started holding workshops called “Prompt Engineering for QA” every two weeks. In these live sessions, engineers improve prompts and analyze mistakes in AI responses. We added a two-step review process: every AI-generated work must pass human and automated quality checks before approval. We record every prompt, response, and human change in a central database. This helps us track problems back to their original conversations. This blend of tooling and governance pushed us into the top efficiency quartile reported by industry benchmarks. Why It Works We connected automation levels with a heat map to avoid failure in AI projects that don’t have a clear testing strategy. By checking AI systems early, we cut compliance issues by 75%. This is important because HIPAA fines can reach $1.5 million for each violation. What’s more important, testers are not getting replaced by AI. Instead, they are becoming AI coordinators. Our surveys show that teams using AI now complete 35-40% more work than those who rely only on manual processes. So, what's next? We are developing a testing system to update priorities when the code or data changes. This system will help us stay flexible and respond quickly to updates. We will use a large language model (LLM) tailored to our needs. This will help us provide clear context and reduce errors, resulting in more accurate results. We will also align our practices with the new ISO/IEC 42001 AI management standard. This will help us keep clear records and ensure accountability in our AI systems. By following a careful process of mapping, piloting, expanding, and refining, we have changed generative AI from a flashy tool into a reliable partner. This allows us to deliver software that is faster, safer, and easier to trust. AI Tools and Technologies Used We chose specific generative AI tools and low-code testing platforms to improve quality engineering while keeping our release schedule aligned with HIPAA regulations. Each tool has a specific role: some turn requirements into user stories, others help with test code in the IDE, and some enable testing without scripts. ChatGPT (OpenAI API) We begin each sprint with many raw notes from stakeholders, security checklists, and regulatory requirements. A simple tool we call Requirements-Bot sends this information to the GPT-4o endpoint. In just a few seconds, it provides a clear backlog. This includes user stories that meet the INVEST criteria, relevant Gherkin scenarios, and a traceability matrix that connects every acceptance criterion to a HIPAA control. Why did it stuck? The OpenAI API did not need any new systems. A senior analyst built the prototype in just forty-eight hours. Since then, the time our business analysis team spends preparing stories has been reduced by about two-thirds, according to internal Tempo logs. Developers have also reported fewer last-minute clarifications because stories come in clear and ready for testing from the start. GitHub Copilot Once the backlog is set up, GitHub Copilot helps reduce the anxiety of starting with a blank file. VS Code and IntelliJ automatically fill in details for REST-assured fixtures, k6 performance scripts, and Cypress/Playwright UI tests. Because Copilot understands the context, the code snippets follow our company’s security rules and even pull in the correct secrets wrapper. Why did it stuck? Copilot works within the tools engineers already use, so they don't have to switch between different systems. During our four-month trial, engineers created a working API test harness 55% faster than before using AI. Additionally, there was a nearly one-third reduction in post-merge lint violations. These small improvements make a difference when merging hundreds of monthly pull requests. Governance in Plain Language We prioritize your privacy. Before any data leaves our network, a redaction proxy removes all personal health information from user prompts. This keeps sensitive details safe and allows us to handle requests carefully. We run nightly checks on a sample of user interactions. Our system reviews responses and flags inconsistencies. If answers change by more than 5%, we begin an investigation. This helps us improve accuracy over time. We also monitor spending closely. Our FinOps dashboard tracks token usage in real time and alerts team leads if spending exceeds forecasts by 10%. If you’re still defining who owns that dashboard, our primer on what a CTO means in business explains how modern technical leaders balance innovation, risk, and cost control — exactly the levers AI governance depends on. As a result, budgets remain transparent and aligned with organizational goals, fostering responsible resource management. Using ChatGPT for early insights and Copilot for hands-on automation has cut our time from requirement to release by about 40%. It has also improved our engineering quality. Now, our process is faster without being reckless. We have fewer hand-offs, clearer stories, cleaner code, and audit documents that meet the most thorough regulations.   We frequently remind clients that Ruby on Rails is perfect for SaaS and review the best Ruby on Rails hosting providers whenever we spin up new pipelines!   Integration into the QA Workflow We weave generative AI and code assistants through five pivotal moments in our delivery pipeline, turning QA from a final gate into a continuous source of insight and speed. Requirements Analysis – spotting ambiguity early During backlog refinement, ChatGPT reviews each user story and points out unclear phrases. Words like “fast” or “robust” may seem clear until tested. Sprint Planning – drafting cleaner user stories Large-language models now propose INVEST-compliant stories complete with first-pass effort tags. The product owners still make the call but accept roughly four out of five suggestions without changes, cutting average planning time per story from 18 to 7 minutes. Test Design – generating balanced case suites The LLM combines domain embeddings with past defect patterns to suggest a variety of examples, including positive, negative, and edge cases. Engineers curate the list, not replace it. And we’ve seen about a 30% drop in design and execution effort since moving to this model. Automation Coding – letting Copilot handle the boilerplate When we create new APIs or performance suites, GitHub Copilot helps by writing most of the basic code, like HTTP wrappers, data builders, and load-test setups. This allows engineers to concentrate on the more complex parts. Our studies show that teams complete these tasks about 55% faster, and pull requests are finished in half the usual time. CI Feedback Loop – learning from every test run After tests finish, an agent condenses the noisy logs into structured events and streams them into our Elastic (ELK) stack. Elastic’s built-in machine-learning jobs establish baselines for log volume and message patterns, flagging anomalies in minutes instead of hours and shrinking mean-time-to-diagnosis for flaky tests or environment drift. Since adopting this AI-enabled workflow, we have cut our defect-detection cycle by 22%, expanded coverage by 25%, and built a self-learning quality pipeline that grows effortlessly with product complexity. Automated Tasks and Efficiency Gains In the last two quarters, our generative-AI toolkit has taken over most of the routine tasks in Quality Engineering. It now handles reading specifications, turning them into detailed user stories, creating test matrices for CRUD operations, and generating predictable data for load tests. Requirement analysis lead time shrank by 66 %, falling from three working days to a single day, which now aligns neatly with our sprint-planning cadence. AI-assisted test-case ideation throughput improved by 50–70 %, enabling the team to author depth-oriented negative cases that would have been deprioritized in the past. API-test coverage that once took a whole work week is now achieved within hours, thanks to large-language-model (LLM) pattern mining. We apply AIQA on web and mobile products, with particular depth in our HIPAA-compliant healthcare suite. We have integrated these practices into our daily operations, which has enhanced our processes and produced measurable outcomes. Gartner projects that by 2025, 30 % of enterprises will have instituted comparable AI-augmented dev-and-test strategies, up from <5 % in 2021. Benefits and ROI of AI in QA Finance stakeholders track two macro metrics — speed, stability, and labor redeployment: Release-prep lead time is down 20–30 %, accelerating the entire CI/CD pipeline without compromising gate quality. Engineers use their time better. They now spend about 45% of their work on testing new ideas and improving how the product feels to users, instead of just 20% before. This helps them learn more about the product without needing more team members. Zooming out, McKinsey estimates that AI could inject $2.6–4.4 trillion of economic value annually, much of it tied to software development productivity gains — evidence that our localized wins are a much larger trend. AI in QA Case Study Example In 2024, a team worked on an oncology data portal project with multiple institutions involved. They needed to review over 300 requirements pages, which usually took three analysts an entire sprint to break down. Instead, our customized version of ChatGPT produced 127 user stories with acceptance criteria in under four hours. The team found four conflicting chemotherapy dosage rules during the process, preventing 6 to 8 potential defects and saving about 15% of the project budget. We used the same tool for sprint planning to generate numerous Gherkin scenarios. The QA lead accepted most of them in just two days, a task that previously took a week with three people, resulting in a faster cycle time and enabling earlier exploratory testing. These results are consistent with industry trends: Key challenges and limitations when introducing AI into QA Integrating AI into quality assurance can bring significant benefits but creates challenges that teams must manage — from skill gaps to compliance issues. Let’s see the five main challenges and discover practical solutions for successful AI use. #1. Learning to “speak AI” Even experienced test engineers need a few sprints to learn effective prompting. A shared prompt guide and support from an “AI steward” can help the team learn quickly. #2. Protecting sensitive data When key confidential information must stay on-site, all model runs and prompts must use company hardware. This setup slows down operations by about 25% compared to cloud solutions, but it satisfies compliance requirements. #3. Keeping results consistent Large language models often provide different answers. To manage this, many teams use an “AI-draft, human-final” method: the model creates a draft, a reviewer saves it in Git, and future drafts are compared to the approved version. #4. Fragile end-to-end tests Vision-language models have difficulty with dynamic CSS selectors, Shadow DOM elements, and changing component IDs, causing a 30% locator churn. For critical tasks, we need to create manual page objects. AI-generated locators work best for low-risk smoke tests that are updated with UI changes. #5. Limited domain insight Generic models often miss key details in specialized workflows and ignore rare situations. They make basic claims without proper adjustments. While providing relevant documents can improve accuracy, it also needs regular updates. Team Perspectives and Future Outlook Will AI eventually replace manual testing, or will it remain a support tool? Artificial Intelligence is redefining the QA landscape, but full replacement of manual testing remains out of reach, especially for safety-critical or UX-sensitive systems. Yet, human testers excel in empathy, creativity, and exploratory testing, while AI handles routine tasks. This enables QA engineers to focus on product quality and user value. JetRuby Roadmap for AI in QA and How We See the Field Evolving JetRuby is transforming quality assurance with AI to combine intelligent systems with human skills better. Our roadmap reimagines QA as a key part of success. We develop tools that help testers spend less time on repetitive tasks, so they can work more on inclusive, user-friendly digital experiences. Here’s how we see AI reshaping quality assurance today, tomorrow, and beyond. Universal adoption across projects We are scaling our AI test-suite orchestration platform to every delivery team so that predictive defect detection and self-healing pipelines become the default, not the exception. Domain-specific models for healthcare Because medical workflows demand near-zero tolerance for error, we fine-tune large-language and vision models with curated clinical datasets to catch edge-case failures that generic AI overlooks. Automated visual & accessibility testing We train computer vision networks to spot layout drift, color-contrast violations, and screen-reader issues in milliseconds, giving us immediate feedback on inclusivity and brand consistency. Internal QA AI-assistant A conversational agent (currently awaiting client API access) will ingest build artifacts, test results, and product specs, then answer “why did this fail?” or “what should I test next?” in plain language. Looking 2–3 years ahead AI will sit beside every tester as a real-time co-pilot, eliminating rote setup, environment wrangling, and redundant execution. The QA engineer’s centre of gravity will shift toward holistic product quality and user experience stewardship, ensuring the right problems are solved, not just that the code works as written. The future of testing is not about choosing between AI and manual testing. Instead, it is about using both together in symbiosis. We can let machines handle routine checks, while humans focus on improving quality in a way that centers on the user. AIQA changed our QA process into a helpful partner for product and engineering. Seeking strategic technical leadership beyond QA? JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot helps your organization by connecting you with experienced architects and specialists in various fields. They solve complex architectural and infrastructure problems, support the use of new technologies, and back every suggestion with thorough research and validation. Get quick access to top experts without the delays and costs of traditional hiring. Schedule a free discovery call or message us through our Contact Us form. ### How Google and Apple Are Redefining Mobile Intelligence in 2025 A Strategic Look at Two Diverging Visions of AI on the Most Personal Device in the World Google and Apple are reshaping the AI-powered mobile experience in 2025. Where Google charges ahead with scalable, cloud-driven intelligence, such as Gemini 2.5 Pro and the ambient AI agent Astra, Apple is pursuing a tightly integrated, privacy-first path with on-device AI and a deeply reworked Siri. This article examines the underlying strategies, real-world applications, and their implications for consumers, developers, and businesses. From Taps to Thought: 2025 Is the Year Phones Get Smart With You Once upon a time, you told your phone what to do. Now, it tells you what you need before you realize it. Mobile intelligence in 2025 isn’t just about smarter queries or prettier widgets. It’s about ambient, cross-modal AI that understands your voice, vision, and context in real time. And at the forefront of this transformation are two ecosystem giants: Google and Apple. Both companies are redefining what it means to “use” a smartphone — or a wearable — with strategies that mirror their long-standing philosophies: scale and openness for Google, privacy and vertical integration for Apple. Let’s break down what they announced, what’s powering it, and where the real edge lies. Google: Cloud-Powered Intelligence at Planetary Scale Google’s announcements at I/O 2025 reinforced its position as the leader in large-scale, developer-friendly AI. At the heart of this strategy lies the Gemini 2.5 Pro, a model engineered for deep reasoning, coding, and memory-enabled problem-solving. Gemini 2.5 Pro & Flash Gemini 2.5 Pro brings “Deep Think”, a stepwise reasoning capability that allows it to outperform in coding tasks, math problems, and complex prompts. It’s already embedded into Workspace, Android Studio, and the Google Search experience. Developers using Gemini Flash in Android Studio are seeing code completion speeds improve by up to 40%, with inline documentation and UI drafts generated in seconds. AI Mode in Search: Beyond Queries, Into Conversations Forget static lists of links; embrace the seamless integration of contextual information. The new AI Mode in Search turns questions into dynamic, personalized explorations — mixing live summaries, product comparisons, and even virtual try-ons. As one reviewer put it, “It’s like a fusion of Google, Reddit, and a shopping assistant — curated and fast.” Project Astra: The Assistant That Sees, Hears, and Remembers If Gemini is the engine powered by artificial intelligence, Project Astra is the interface. It’s a multimodal, memory-capable AI assistant that listens to your environment, sees through your camera, and recalls past interactions. Think of it as a digital agent that “lives” seamlessly across your iPhone, glasses, and possibly your desktop. Astra’s capabilities are immense — but so are the ethical implications. Continuous memory, visual scanning, and behavioral context will likely test global privacy laws in the age of AI capabilities in ways we haven’t seen since the rise of targeted advertising driven by artificial intelligence. Veo 3 & Imagen 4: Creative Productivity at Scale Google’s AI models aren’t just analytical — they’re generative. Veo 3 can produce HD video from text prompts, while Imagen 4 pushes photorealism and design prototyping into seconds, not hours. YouTube Shorts and digital marketing may soon be inundated with AI-generated ad content, disrupting traditional production pipelines and prompting companies to rely on prompt engineers as key creatives. Android XR & Smart Glasses: The Post-Screen Frontier Google’s new Android XR platform, developed in collaboration with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, signals a real push into wearable ambient computing. These are not bulky headsets, but elegant smart glasses with real-time Gemini integration. With Gemini-native apps, Google might spark a post-app UI revolution — a new category of “gesture-first” and vision-enabled interfaces. Apple: Intelligence You Don’t Have to Trust — Because It Stays With You Where Google broadcasts power, Apple whispers confidence. Their focus is clear: deliver AI that stays on the device, integrates with native apps, and never leaks your context to the cloud — unless you explicitly allow it to do so. Apple Intelligence SDK Developers can now access on-device LLM capabilities, including summarization, voice logic, and image generation, without needing to ping external servers. This opens the door for HIPAA-compliant medical tools, finance apps, and legal software that want AI features but can’t compromise data privacy. Siri+ Gets Smarter — Quietly The long-awaited Siri overhaul is fundamental. Now powered by an in-house large language model (LLM), Siri understands cross-app context, follows up naturally, and can execute multi-step commands. It also now handles email summarization, real-time scheduling, and voice-driven file management. Expect deep productivity integration — Siri might become your native Zapier if it continues to evolve further. Visual Intelligence: Quiet Power in the Camera Apple’s Visual Intelligence offers private photo-to-data analysis: identify plants, recipes, signs, and business cards, with no server dependency. A beta tester tweeted, “Snapped my pantry. Siri offered two complete meals using ingredients I hadn’t touched in months.” Genmoji & Image Playground: Monetizing AI Creatively Fun, yes — but potentially a strategic trend in AI development. With personalized emojis and visuals now native to Messages and Notes, Apple’s user experience becomes more expressive and sticky. Insiders suggest paid Genmoji packs and AI-generated keynote slides might become new revenue channels within the Apple ecosystem. Strategic Comparison: Power vs. Privacy [table id=52 /] As global AI regulation ramps up, Apple’s on-device approach may become the enterprise default, while Google dominates consumer creativity, content, and research flows. What to Do Next (Based on Who You Are) Whether you build apps, guide product vision, or want more innovative tools in your pocket, the announcements from Google and Apple aren’t just cool updates. They signal a shift in how artificial intelligence will operate , not just in a contextual manner for us. Here’s what to consider next based on your focus: For Developers & Tech Teams Choose your AI stack wisely: If you value raw AI power and fast prototyping, explore Google’s Gemini API and Flash integration in Android Studio. For privacy-focused apps (such as health, finance, and education), begin testing Apple’s on-device SDK. Prototype user flows for ambient interaction: Think beyond chatbot interfaces. How could voice, vision, or context create zero-friction AI in your app? Watch performance trade-offs: Gemini offers richer reasoning but requires cloud calls to leverage its AI capabilities fully. Apple limits depth but guarantees data control. Design with constraints in mind. For Product Leaders & Strategists Reevaluate your AI feature roadmap: Apple’s LLM Siri upgrade and SDK will rapidly shift iOS user expectations. Google’s Astra pushes expectations for real-time assistance. Align your UX to match. Prepare your product for AI-led discovery, leveraging AI capabilities: Google Search’s AI Mode changes how users discover, compare, and convert. Rethink your presence in AI-curated experiences — not just SEO. Consider the regulatory angle now: If your roadmap includes user-generated content, visual data, or cross-device assistants, anticipate responses to GDPR, DMA, and U.S. privacy laws. For Marketers & Brand Builders Create assets for AI summarization: Traditional SEO snippets may lose visibility. Focus on well-structured, AI-friendly content is essential for effective communication with СhatGPT.  Optimize your content for answers, not just traffic: Expect Google and Apple AI interfaces to extract summaries, lists, and comparisons from your content. Structure messaging accordingly. Watch AI-native channels emerge: Gemini-powered content assistants and Siri’s integration into Notes, Messages, and Mail could become new surfaces for branded influence. For Everyday Users & Power Consumers Decide what you want in an assistant: Do you prioritize advanced features (Google) or privacy-by-design (Apple)? The ecosystem you choose in 2025 could shape your digital autonomy. ### Reviving Legacy Code: How AI Transforms Code Debt into a Strategic Advantage Imagine a once-great corporate headquarters where old software makes everything slow and difficult. Employees log in daily but face frustration — tasks take longer to complete, security risks increase, and finding valid data feels like solving a complex puzzle. Old software slows down work and increases security risks for businesses. Legacy code costs money and stops innovation. This was StratusNex’s reality: a monolithic Java system built in the early 2000s, with a codebase that looked like a labyrinth of tangled logic and forgotten patches. While competitors raced ahead with AI-driven solutions, StratusNex’s team spent their days propping up a digital relic. But this case is more about survival, not just old code. Innovations create new opportunities but can also lead to problems, like legacy code debt. According to McKinsey, 70% of organizations struggle with code debt, spending 20-40% of their IT budget just to fix it. These staggering numbers show the urgent need for effective ways to reduce code debt. We will look at practical steps and valuable insights organizations can use to cut costs and make software more sustainable. Key takeaways Organizations spend 20-40% of their IT budgets fixing issues with old technology, and outdated systems increase data breach costs by 10% annually. AI tools like GitHub Copilot reduce manual coding by 70% and automate security updates for old frameworks like Apache Struts. Success with AI depends on training developers in AI tools, creating governance frameworks like Centers of Excellence, and integrating AI into CI/CD pipelines. JetRuby's AI approach cut migration costs by 70% from €1.2 million to €360,000, reduced downtime, and increased onboarding by 40%. What’s legacy code? Legacy code refers to an existing code base passed down from previous teams. It can be functional, but it’s challenging to manage due to modifications by various developers and the potential use of outdated technologies. Many companies keep using legacy code because it feels familiar, even if it's not efficient. Rewriting it can be risky, expensive, and disruptive, so teams often choose to maintain it instead. While this avoids major changes in the short term, it can still be hard to update, especially when there’s little documentation or new team members need training. Problems legacy code can cause Legacy code can cause many problems for organizations that choose to keep it. It often doesn’t work well with new technology, which can hurt product performance and growth, and affect customers' experience of the product in the future. Legacy code often lacks modern security tools, such as automated scanners and static analyzers. Without them, developers struggle to detect issues when they update the code. When they do not fully understand the codebase, new security gaps can appear. The financial impact is clear. IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report reveals that the cost of legacy systems is around $4.88 million (a massive 10% increase over last year and the highest total ever!) The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warns that using outdated software for critical operations can be risky. It can threaten national security, the economy, and public health. No industry is immune, and reliance on old code brings both financial and operational risks. How AI can help with legacy code AI speeds up software development and can help teams update old code more effectively. Tools like GitLab Duo explain existing code and create new code, making it easier to modernize systems. AI also assists with testing and security by identifying root causes, generating tests, and fixing vulnerabilities. Research shows that 34% of AI users in software development are modernizing legacy code, reaching 46% in financial services. However, AI is not perfect and needs testing, clear guidelines, and human oversight. It should be used alongside other security tools. We recommend creating a dynamic software bill of materials (SBOM) to understand licensing and security risks related to your software, including older code. JetRuby created a program that helped the client's developers use Copilot confidently to update Apache Struts. The program included strong security measures and good performance practices and worked across 19 applications. This approach reduced manual work by 70%, saved costs, and led to quick and lasting use. Training the Team: Building In-House AI Skills for Company Growth We carefully structured our training to shift the client’s developers from bystanders into hands-on Copilot practitioners. We focused on three key areas. Mastering Contextual Prompt Engineering We held workshops where participants learned how to make clear and specific requests. For example, instead of just asking Copilot to change old tags, engineers explained how to convert a Struts 1.x loop into a Struts 7 iterator. They included details like pagination settings and XSS protections so Copilot could replace the tag and add the right library declarations. In another exercise, teams described how to update an old Action.execute() method to the latest ActionSupport style. They specified using an up-to-date validation interceptor and explained when to skip validation. This method kept all current business rules while also following modern security standards. Embedding Struts 7 Security & Performance Best Practices Our deep-dive sessions addressed the client’s most critical risks: Session Management: We guided developers to replace insecure, cookie-only session tracking with encrypted JSON Web Tokens stored in HTTP-only cookies, fully aligning with OWASP recommendations. Centralized Input Validation: Instead of scattering checks throughout JSPs, teams implemented a unified validation framework in Struts 7, using regex rules to guard against SQL injection and cross-site scripting. Memory Leak Remediation: Participants audited legacy modules to identify and close unbounded JDBC connections, eliminating a chronic source of outages that had accounted for 15% of production downtime over five years. Scaling Across 19 Applications After the proof of concept, we rolled out a standardized migration playbook: Template Library: We curated over 120 reusable prompt templates, organized by scenario, such as form-tag conversion, session encryption, and dependency injection, and hosted them in a shared repository for on-demand access. CI/CD Integration: The team embedded Copilot-driven migrations into their Azure Pipelines via GitHub Actions. The automated workflow scanned for legacy files, applied pre-configured prompts, and deployed updates to a staging environment for automated vulnerability scans. Cross-Team Governance: A new Center of Excellence of senior engineers documented tricky edge cases (for example, custom PDF-generation plugins), established a clear decision tree for handling deprecated features, and held biweekly “AI Retrospectives” to circulate lessons learned. Within six weeks, the client’s in-house staff had independently upgraded four mission-critical systems — order management, billing, CRM, and inventory. It reduced reliance on our consultants by 80% and sustained a 98% compliance rate in automated code audits. AI-Enhanced Efficiency Transform your business! With AI as a powerful support tool, our skilled engineers work more efficiently and effectively, enhancing outcomes and driving profitability! Get in touch Delivering Quantifiable Efficiency Gains Legacy code required substantial developer time for updates, but modern tools make the process easier. They helped save hundreds of hours per sprint and maintain most test coverage and high code quality. 70% Reduction in Manual Development Effort Before Copilot, each module required roughly 22 hours of manual labor — reworking dozens of JSP files, refactoring numerous Action classes, and performing comprehensive cross-browser testing. With Copilot, Tag conversions became almost immediate (about 12 minutes per file), and class refactoring dropped to 25 minutes each. Copilot-generated AI unit tests covered 85% of critical logic versus just half under the old manual process. For example, a legacy purchase-order module with 68 JSP pages and 19 actions went from 51 hours of work to only 16 hours, saving more than 73 hours (around a 74% reduction) in a single sprint. Two-Week Proof-of-Concept Timeline Now, more on how we quickly executed our proof-of-concept (PoC) using strategic planning and AI tools. In 14 days, we tested the migration framework, moving from the client’s outdated setup to a more sustainable approach while ensuring knowledge transfer. The timeline shows key milestones. Days 1–2: Environment Setup Mirrored the client’s Java 8/Struts 1.x production stack in Azure and configured Copilot with project-specific style rules. Days 3–7: Automated Tag Migration Converted over 420 legacy tags across dozens of views, validated by regression testing scripts that Copilot generated. Days 8–10: Action Class Refactoring Updated 14 core classes to the new framework conventions and produced nearly 60 unit tests that covered more than 90% of the business logic. Days 11–14: Training & Handoff Delivered 12 hours of hands-on workshops, published a 45-page migration playbook, and demonstrated how to trigger migrations through the CI/CD pipeline. Long-Term Organizational Impact We are using AI to make development processes more effective. Innovative tools help us and our clients get better results. Here are some significant achievements that show this progress: Cost Avoidance: We forecasted that migrating all 19 applications manually would cost around €1.2 million. The AI-driven approach landed at approximately € 360,000. Accelerated Onboarding: New hires reached full productivity 40% faster, thanks to Confluence guides embedded with Copilot prompts and pre-configured DevTest Lab environments for safe experimentation. Widespread Process Adoption: Within three months, every engineering team leveraged Copilot beyond migrations to generate new microservice boilerplates, automate security reviews, and draft API documentation, cementing a culture of AI-assisted development. Overcome legacy issues with JetRuby’s expert CTO Co-Pilot support and Ruby on Rails 8.0 Upgrade! Your Legacy System Doesn’t Have to Be a Relic The StratusNex story is a beacon for any business trapped in the past. The race to future-proof businesses is on, and the clock is ticking. With rapid technological shifts reshaping industries, modernizing outdated systems is a survival strategy. Here’s a closer look at the trends making now the time to act. #1. 5G: Speed Meets Reliability Let’s put the conspiracy theories aside — 5G is quietly revolutionizing how systems operate. Imagine seamless streaming, lag-free augmented reality (AR), or factory sensors communicating in real time. With lightning-fast speeds and ultra-low latency, 5G is upgrading legacy systems to handle tomorrow’s data tsunami while delivering richer user experiences. #2. AI & Machine Learning: The Automation Powerhouse Picture this: AI tools scanning decades-old code, pinpointing inefficiencies, and suggesting fixes. Machine learning automates grunt work, optimizes systems for cloud compatibility, and speeds up migrations. The result? Smarter decisions, fewer human factors, and systems that evolve with your business, not against it. #3. Low-Code: Building Faster, Smarter Gone are the days of rewriting entire systems from scratch. Low-code platforms are like digital Lego blocks — drag, drop, and assemble apps with minimal coding. By 2025, Gartner predicts 70% of new apps will be built this way. Why? Because businesses can’t afford to wait years for updates. Low-code lets teams modernize piece by piece, keeping the lights on while innovating. #4. AR/VR: Beyond Gaming Glasses AR and VR are stepping out of the gaming world and into the boardroom. Surgeons practicing complex procedures in virtual simulations, shoppers “trying on” clothes via AR mirrors, or remote teams collaborating in 3D workspaces. By 2025, industries like healthcare and education will lean on these technologies to bridge physical and digital gaps. #5. IoT: Breathing New Life into Old Systems Legacy systems often feel like relics, but IoT is changing that. Imagine a decades-old manufacturing rig retrofitted with smart sensors, feeding real-time data to a dashboard halfway across the globe. IoT is turning clunky infrastructure into agile, data-driven tools. For sectors like logistics or healthcare, this means cost savings, predictive maintenance, and staying relevant. #6. Cloud Migration: The No-Brainer Upgrade The cloud isn’t new, but its role is growing. Think instant scalability, AI-powered analytics on tap, and ditching pricey server rooms. By 2025, Gartner said 95% of digital projects will depend on cloud-native tools. Migrating legacy systems here is about unlocking innovations (like serverless computing) that older setups simply can’t support. #7. Containerization: Breaking Free from Monoliths Ever tried moving a mountain? That’s what updating monolithic systems feels like. Containerization tools like Docker slice these mountains into portable, manageable pieces. Many enterprises now use containers in production. The payoff? Faster updates, easier scaling, and systems that bend without breaking. #8. DevOps: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work DevOps is the glue holding modernization together. By merging development and operations teams, businesses slash deployment times and squash bugs faster. Nearly half of companies using DevOps report getting products to market quicker — a critical factor in fast-moving industries. Systems optimized for speed (5G), enhanced by AI, and flexibly deployed (cloud, containers) will define tomorrow’s winners. Delaying modernization is like letting competitors write the future without you. Time to pick up the pen. JetRuby’s Expertise in Legacy Modernization JetRuby has over 15 years of experience improving healthcare, finance, and logistics systems. Our certified team combines technical skill and strategic planning to ensure your code meets modern standards and future needs. AI Tools Beyond GitLab Duo JetRuby uses several AI tools in addition to GitLab Duo and GitHub Copilot: AWS CodeWhisperer: This tool helps update cloud infrastructure and makes managing code in the cloud easier. SonarQube AI finds security weaknesses in older systems built with Java, .NET, and COBOL and helps to keep them safe. Custom and open-source LLMs: We train these models on specific industry codes, such as healthcare standards and banking rules. They help us update code while considering each sector's unique needs. These tools help JetRuby improve its projects and maintain strong security standards. Security JetRuby focuses on security and compliance by using a zero-trust model. We do not automatically trust anyone inside or outside our network. Instead, we verify every access request. We comply with essential regulations like GDPR and HIPAA to protect the EU's healthcare data and privacy rights. To keep our systems safe, we follow the OWASP Top 10 guidelines. This helps us manage common risks such as SQL injection (SQLi) and cross-site scripting (XSS). We also use NIST frameworks for threat modeling, which helps us identify and address potential risks to critical infrastructure. Post-Migration Support JetRuby provides 24/7 monitoring and regular audits using AI to: Improve performance with predictive analytics. Fix security issues with automated threat detection. Expand systems using Kubernetes or serverless setups. Partnerships & Methodologies We innovate through strong partnerships and innovative processes. Here are the key principles that guide this approach: We work with leading companies, such as Microsoft Azure, Docker, and GitLab, to access the latest tools. Our 6-week agile development cycles use Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, AI testing, and stakeholder feedback to improve our process. Why Choose JetRuby? 95% Code Coverage: We use AI-generated tests to validate every software update. 50% Faster Time-to-Market: Our reusable libraries and pre-set pipelines help us deliver solutions more quickly. We support new technologies like 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT), and quantum-ready encryption to keep our solutions secure and relevant. At JetRuby, we resurrect systems, empower teams, and turn technical debt into tomorrow’s competitive edge. Whether your monolith is Java, .NET, or other, we’ll help you build a bridge to the future. Start your new journey! The best time to modernize was yesterday. The second-best? Now. ### AI Test Automation: Using AI to Generate Unit Tests Automatically Fixing defects post-release costs 30× more than catching them in unit tests, yet teams often delay testing due to the tedium of the manual unit tests. Unit tests are quick, focused checks for behaviors like handling negative numbers, invalid inputs (“abc”), or large values. Successful tests build trust in systems. However, manual test creation consumes a third of sprint time, invites errors, raises costs, produces unreliable test results due to human error, and lowers morale. As systems scale, this manual process becomes ineffective and can potentially lead to employee turnover, should a business ignore innovations like AI unit test generation. So, instead of fearing AI taking their jobs, forward-thinking engineers use AI test automation to reduce manual efforts. Not to mention various routines that AI can optimize. AI automation elevates coverage and reliability, integrates into CI/CD pipelines, and offers measurable quality gains, helping teams escape “quality quicksand” while aligning testing with developer efficiency goals. In this article, we’ll look at how to create unit tests with AI and counter manual testing pitfalls. Key Takeaways AI unit tests help find quality issues earlier, speeding up feedback and making releases faster. Automated tools can achieve broad, mutation-tested coverage in minutes, freeing engineers for high-value design work. The most effective strategy pairs AI’s speed with developer insight — using generated suites as a starting point, not a replacement. Treat AI output like regular code — review it, version it, and measure it to avoid complacency and keep trust. Fewer maintenance hours and earlier bug detection lead to real cost savings and quicker time-to-market. AI Unit Tests: How It Works Think of an AI assistant as a tireless quality-assurance engineer who surveys an entire codebase and drafts tests within seconds. Large-language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4-Turbo, CodeWhisperer, and Copilot have analyzed billions of open-source projects. From this training, they know, for example, that a function named calculateShippingCost should never return a negative value and that an overnight option typically increases the price. The assistant’s workflow unfolds in three passes: Static inspection parses each function’s signature and control-flow graph, noting inputs, branches, and documented constraints. Semantic reasoning processes docstrings, inline comments, and identifier names to infer normal and boundary behaviour. Test synthesis applies to every discovered execution path. It fabricates representative inputs, predicts outputs, and renders assertions in the project’s preferred framework, such as RSpec for Ruby, Jest for Node.js, JUnit, or Kotest for Kotlin. This way, continuous-integration pipelines require no alteration. The practical payoff is coverage of edge conditions that human authors often overlook, raising defect detection before a feature reaches production. How AI Understands Your Code to Generate Tests LLMs recognise programming patterns much as linguists recognise grammar: by exposure to massive corpora. (If you want a deeper dive into the data-side mechanics, JetRuby’s primer on understanding AI training data lays it out clearly.) Pattern recognition Decades of public repositories teach the model that a parameter named weightKg must be positive, that lists may be empty, and that network requests can time out. Contextual clues Natural-language comments such as “weight must be > 0” tell the model to include a failure scenario where weight equals zero. Branch-coverage heuristics Advanced tools, including our own plugin deployed at Acme Tech, blend static analysis with AI suggestions. The combined engine refuses to stop until each conditional branch, guard clause, and exception path is exercised. A routine that processes a list will spur the assistant to propose at least three scenarios: an empty list, a typical populated list, and a list containing malformed values. The resulting assertions confirm the method returns expected results, throws the correct exceptions, or logs the appropriate warnings.   Check these 15 alternative app stores for mobile apps if you need to expand your digital footprint or test your mobile app development idea early on.   From Code to Test: Unit Test Example Imagine the following flow performed inside Visual Studio Code with our “Generate Test” command: The routine under scrutiny calculates shipping cost based on weight, distance, and delivery speed. A guard clause throws an error if the weight is not positive. A developer selects the function and creates a prompt for the assistant: “Draft unit tests covering normal, premium, and error cases.” Within seconds, the AI assistant proposes three tests: Standard shipment — ten kilograms over one hundred kilometres by regular service returns the base price plus incremental fees. Overnight premium — the same inputs with overnight speed include a surcharge, validating the premium branch. Invalid weight — a zero-kilogram request triggers the function’s error path and confirms the correct exception message. Each test arrives formatted for Jest, complete with descriptive names, setup, execution, and assertions. In practice, we commit these files alongside developer-written tests. Continuous integration runs them without further configuration. Elevate with CTO Co-Pilot Elevate your development with our CTO Co-Pilot! Get expert support, AI audits, cost analysis, and a detailed implementation plan - or let us handle full implementation. Get in touch Benefits of AI Unit Test Generation: Speed, Coverage, and Confidence Artificial Intelligence made unit test generation faster and easier. Instead of spending time on manual testing, developers can now use AI tools to generate tests in just minutes by learning from large codebases. This change offers four key benefits: Automated generation helps developers spend less time writing repetitive code, so they can focus more on improving core features. AI helps identify tests for unusual cases and potential problems people might miss. This improves overall coverage and protects complex logic. AI-generated tests follow standard industry practices, which reduces the chance of human mistakes, improves quality, and maintains a consistent structure as the code changes over time. Quick testing and early bug detection speed up delivery times, lower fixing costs, and build trust with customers who face fewer issues in production. For Developers: Faster Test Creation and Better Coverage AI-powered testing offers businesses key benefits like speed, thoroughness, and reliability. These advantages create a solid base for success, but the real impact is seen in the everyday work of developers. When routine assertions are written in seconds, engineers can focus on creative work and channel effort into architecture, performance tuning, and innovative problem-solving, not boilerplate tuning. AI detects edge cases early, suggesting scenarios such as boundary values, malformed inputs, or intermittent network failures that might otherwise surface only after deployment. Reviewer-friendly tests move faster, and technical debt declines because generated suites follow consistent naming, setup, and teardown conventions. Developers have greater confidence in their daily work because they know that a wider spectrum of paths is coveredЬа. It lets them refactor boldly, reducing stress and enhancing job satisfaction. For Business Stakeholders: Faster Delivery and Higher Quality While developers see immediate improvements in their productivity and code quality, these technical benefits lead to real business outcomes. AI-powered testing makes workflows more efficient, changing how teams work together and companies compete. By helping engineers innovate more quickly and accurately, organizations can gain strategic advantages: Automated unit test generation cuts weeks from timelines, shortening release cycles and accelerating market entry. Pre-deployment bug detection reduces defect expenses (up to 10x cheaper than post-launch fixes), safeguarding budgets and reputation. Stronger customer loyalty – Reliable software ensures stronger customer loyalty, reduces crisis management, and boosts user satisfaction and NPS scores. Proven innovation – We at JetRuby leverage AI testing to showcase technical leadership, securing contracts with guarantees of speed and measurable quality gains. Traditional testing depends on human skills, but even the best engineers can miss unusual edge cases in modern systems. For example, what happens when a midnight timestamp conflict crashes a payment system? Or when a weather app fails to handle subzero temperatures, frustrating users in cold climates? This is where AI unit testing steps in and analyzes code behavior, simulates unpredictable scenarios, and flags risks that evade manual checks. Here, AI acts like a detail-obsessed co-pilot. It designs tests, uncovering gaps in logic, timing anomalies, or data quirks that humans might overlook. The result? Quicker software releases, fewer urgent fixes, and more reliable systems that can handle surprises. Let's look at Scenario 1: And Scenario 2: The outcome? While human experts set the direction, AI works alongside them to identify risks that often go unnoticed. This collaboration is especially powerful when teams combine AI tools like GitHub Copilot to generate unit tests with foundational knowledge of how to write unit tests manually. This strategy leverages both automation and human precision. Popular AI Tools for Generating Unit Tests AI has matured from “nice-to-have” to “must-have” in modern quality pipelines. Many unit test generators are available now that can create entire test suites on demand, integrate directly with IDEs, and meet corporate privacy rules. The options listed below include the standard technology stacks used by JetRuby — Ruby on Rails (perfect for SaaS), Node/React, and Java/Kotlin microservices. GitHub Copilot & Other AI Code Assistants GitHub Copilot test generation remains the reference point for real-time AI pair-programming. Inside VS Code or JetBrains IDEs, it proposes test functions the moment a developer writes a test name or a comment, sparing teams from boilerplate. The new GitHub Copilot unit tests chat command and Agent mode re-generate failing tests automatically, shortening feedback loops. For organisations that need alternatives or additional privacy modes, Amazon CodeWhisperer and Tabnine perform similar inline completions. CodeWhisperer’s enterprise tier runs on-premises with SSO and suggests RSpec, JUnit or Jest tests for Ruby, Java, JavaScript, Python, and Kotlin code. Tabnine added dedicated “AI test agent” functionality that drafts thorough test plans and cases across 15+ languages, all while keeping code private. Together, these assistants make AI unit test generation a natural part of everyday coding rather than a separate phase. Diffblue Cover (Java/Kotlin) Diffblue Cover specialises in automatically writing JUnit tests for any JVM codebase. Its static-analysis engine explores each method path, then emits assertion-rich tests that routinely expose edge-case defects. The April 2025 release introduced support for composite primary keys in Spring Data JPA, REST endpoints for coverage metrics, and a revamped UI plug-in, illustrating sustained R&D investment and enterprise readiness. Ponicode (Test Generation for JavaScript & Python) Initially a Paris start-up, Ponicode offered a VS Code extension that generated Jest or PyTest suites with a single click. CircleCI acquired the technology and embedded it straight into the CI/CD pipeline. Hence, tests appear automatically in pull requests, perfect for Node.js or React components that dominate front-end work at JetRuby. The acquisition signals the strategic value CI vendors see in AI-assisted quality. ChatGPT & GPT-Based Assistants General-purpose LLMs such as ChatGPT (GPT-4 & successors) remain a flexible fallback: paste a Rails model or describe a Kotlin service, and the assistant returns plausible RSpec or Spek tests. This model-agnostic freedom is ideal for early brainstorming or for edge cases that specialized tools overlook. However, your team must evaluate confidentiality. Sensitive repositories should route prompts through private deployments or secure VPN endpoints. Other Noteworthy Tools There are a few other AI automation tools worth mentioning. Codeium/Qodo Free IDE plug-in that analyses full files and proposes intent-based tests for Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Java. It’s now evolving into an agentic “quality flow” platform. TestGPT (open source) CLI that calls OpenAI or local LLMs to auto-author tests; popular for projects where vendor lock-in is a concern. Amazon CodeWhisperer (Enterprise tier) Mentioned above, notable for its SSO, on-prem mode, and AWS console integration. Tabnine Covered above; adds protected-model variants for regulated industries. Collectively, their adoption curves show that AI-generated testing has progressed from prototype to mainstream. StarCoder 2, Code Llama 70 B-Instruct, and DeepSeek-Coder 33B Recently open-weight code LLMs such as StarCoder 2, Code Llama 70 B-Instruct, and DeepSeek-Coder 33B have jumped from hobby projects to mainstream dev tooling in 2024-25. GitLab, Mozilla AI, and infosec researchers all report a surge of regulated-sector firms swapping SaaS Copilots for on-prem installs to meet tighter GDPR / EU AI Act rules. Why everyone is going self-hosted Privacy pressure – GitLab’s Duo Self-Hosted launch notes public-sector, finance, and healthcare customers choosing on-prem for data-residency control. Security wake-up call – A March 2025 Pillar Security paper shows 97 % of enterprise devs use AI assistants and details a Copilot supply-chain exploit, pushing CISOs toward local gateways. Regulatory squeeze – The EU AI Act now forces open-source LLMs to publish training-data summaries, sharpening audit expectations for European deployments. Operational control – Mozilla.ai highlights that owning the weights lets organisations pick the latency, price-per-token, and audit depth they need. [table id=51 /] Shared upsides — full data sovereignty, custom fine-tuning/RAG, stable latency. Shared downsides — GPU cap-ex, MLOps overhead, and a steep skill curve. How to stop code & PII leakage (GDPR/AI-Act traceability) Self-hosted LLM Gateway – central auth, rate-limit, write-ahead WORM logs (Envoy AI Gateway, Gloo, TGI + policy hooks). Zero-trust prompt-proxy – mTLS, per-user SAC, secret/PII regex deny-lists; real-time redaction before the model sees a byte. IDE mask-filters – plugin strips blocks tagged // NOAI, redacts API keys (AKIA…→***AWS-KEY***), sends only signatures + TODO, fulfilling GDPR data-minimisation. End-to-end UUID trace – request ID in header → Gateway DB → proxy log → SIEM dashboard, stored 24 months. Red-team inference drills – attack with “repeat last 200 tokens”; proxy must block, Gateway logs, SOC alerted⁠ – proving the guard-rail chain works. With this Gateway → proxy → IDE masking stack, enterprises enjoy the speed of StarCoder 2, Code Llama 70B, or DeepSeek-Coder 33B while keeping every proprietary line safely inside the perimeter.   Build or Buy? What are the reasons behind the choice to develop a custom ERP system?   AI Test Work in Practice AI-driven testing provides faster results and broader coverage, but we need a smart mix of new ideas and practical steps to fully benefit from it. Success depends on the test generation software we use and how well we integrate it into our processes. Start Small, Then Scale Pilot the AI on a non-critical module (e.g., a contact form) before rolling it out to core services. Treat the AI as a Junior Colleague Review, refine, and teach the generated tests. If a rule such as “Discounts cannot exceed 50 %” is missed, add it explicitly. Protect Intellectual Property Use Copilot for Business, on-prem CodeWhisperer, or Tabnine Protected to avoid external leakage, and consult our roundup of the 8 best Ruby on Rails hosting providers to keep deployment friction-free. Automate Maintenance Wire test generation into CI/CD so every commit refreshes tests. For example, GitHub's own analysis of enterprise repositories shows that developers wrote 13.6% more error-free lines for each defect when using Copilot. In a 2025 paper on arXiv, researchers introduced an updated version of GitHub Copilot that acts as an independent testing agent. This new tool can find bugs more accurately, improving bug-detection accuracy by 31.2%. It also increases critical-test coverage by 12.6%, showing how automation can enhance software testing. Invest in People & Process JetRuby’s personalized development plans help developers trust and extend AI suggestions, smoothing cultural adoption. Our hiring process for top engineers offers the inside scoop for applicants wondering how we hire the talent behind those plans. With the right blend of these tools and practices, AI-assisted unit testing can compress schedules, raise coverage, and ultimately boost delivery confidence across Ruby, JavaScript, and Kotlin projects alike.   Ever heard of a Game-Changing Omakase Experience referring to software development? Here’s your chance to learn more about what’s new in Rails 8 upgrade!   Making AI Tests Effective: Best Practices AI-generated testing is changing software development quickly. However, to use test generation software well, teams should balance automation and careful review while closely following project goals. Key principles for using AI in testing workflows include: Keep humans in the loop. Every AI-generated test should pass a developer review to verify relevance, adjust assumptions, and prevent false confidence. Integrate AI deeply, not sparingly. Invoke generation while authoring new features and let the pipeline request fresh tests whenever code evolves. Continuous integration keeps coverage current. Improve, don’t just approve. Developers manage exceptional cases and enhance checks, while AI handles simple tasks, allowing experts to focus on depth and accuracy. Safeguard proprietary code. When confidentiality matters, opt for enterprise-grade services such as GitHub Copilot for Business or on-premises large-language-model deployments so stakeholders know IP remains protected. Invest in prompt craftsmanship. Clear function descriptions, thoughtful comments, and incremental feedback help AI learn project conventions, elevating test quality sprint after sprint. Following these guidelines ensures both engineering and business teams extract maximum value while mitigating typical adoption risks. The Future of Unit Testing with AI: How JetRuby Can Help You Integrate Your AI Test Initiatives AI-driven quality is already reshaping software delivery. Yet frameworks, data policies, and organizational culture differ from one company to the next. Jetruby’s CTO Co-Pilot helps companies solve problems and, therefore, grow faster. We provide expert support, training, and flexible collaboration, allowing your CTO and team to achieve great results while reducing risks and costs. JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot bridges the gaps: We can create an AI solution from scratch or integrate tailored AI tools that align with your specific tech stack. Security first is one of our core pillars. Our experts design deployments that respect compliance mandates and keep sensitive code on secure ground. A battle-tested expertise backs us — We’ve completed over 250 successful projects for clients like OSRAM Farming, Backbase, and GoPro. Our Ruby Gems have 40 million downloads. Using AI, we speed up development by 50% while ensuring quality, following ISO standards. Strategic leadership – Not sure what a CTO is and what it actually does? Our primer on what a CTO means in business clarifies how technical vision turns into delivery value. If late-night debugging and creeping release dates sound familiar, let’s change the narrative. You became a developer to create, not to babysit tests. Contact us to seamlessly integrate AI test automation into your existing systems and let AI handle manual repetitive tasks. ### JetRuby Engineering Culture: Transforming Developers into True Innovation Partners JetRuby is a full-cycle, AI-enabled custom software development agency. Since 2010, we have empowered over 200 businesses with digital products and services used by more than 10 million users worldwide.  Behind this success lies a distinct engineering culture.  At JetRuby, culture is the very engine that makes developers into innovation partners. Every engineer takes ownership of work and ideas, not just tasks. They design solutions, suggest improvements, and collaborate closely with clients. Within the company, we treat every engineer as a future partner who drives value, owns the product vision, and shapes the technical strategy. This mindset produces lean releases, rapid pivots, and satisfied clients. In this article, we break down the key pillars of JetRuby’s engineering culture and illustrate what exactly they mean and how exactly we put them into practice. Key Takeaways JetRuby hires juniors for core stacks and cultivates their growth while importing seniors for laser‑focused expertise. You can check our engineer hiring process for a step-by-step view. A live skill matrix, combined with a staffing coordinator, ensures project rosters remain accurate to real-world demands. Engineers track business value, not ticket counts, and receive rewards for initiative. Disciplinary hubs package reusable modules that reduce setup time and enable new projects to launch faster. JetRuby Flow, a lean delivery framework with AI components, injects speed and quality at every stage. See 20 everyday routines we automate with AI. Errors become case studies, not blame games, which reinforces safe experimentation. Building an Innovation-Driven Engineering Culture So, what is engineer culture? At JetRuby, culture starts with people and purpose. The company recognizes that an engineering team’s environment shapes everything from quality to creativity.  In today’s tech world, culture matters more than pay: a Glassdoor study reports that “over half of workers consider company culture more important than their salary.  In other words, talented developers expect inspiring work environments where they can contribute ideas. It keeps engagement high and reduces employee turnover. JetRuby answers that call. Key values in JetRuby’s culture include trust, transparency, and continuous improvement. Leaders trust engineers to make decisions and drive progress.  For example, we at JetRuby sometimes refer to our software engineers as “the ones mastering technology,” emphasizing that humans lead innovation, not tools.  This phrase comes from an internal ethos: AI and automation are “just companions,” while developers hold ultimate authority. In practice, this means every developer has a voice in architecture, tools, and product direction. JetRuby also builds open communication into daily life. Teams hold regular stand-ups and code reviews where anyone can offer ideas. Project plans and metrics stay visible to everyone. This openness keeps engagement high.  A “strong engineering culture lays the foundation for open lines of communication, increased engagement levels, and strong retention rates”. Indeed, developers who feel heard and involved are more excited to innovate. JetRuby designers, QA, and developers all work in cross-functional squads, so every perspective matters. Finally, JetRuby focuses on continuous learning and excellence. We have delivered over 250 successful Ruby on Rails projects, and we share that knowledge widely.  Engineers attend conferences, give tech talks, and mentor each other. Internal technical guilds and knowledge-sharing sessions keep skills sharp.  When a new tool or methodology emerges, teams experiment and discuss, rather than resist change. In sum, JetRuby’s culture motivates every engineer to grow and contribute new ideas daily. These are our engineering team values. Key Pillars of JetRuby’s Engineering Culture JetRuby’s corporate culture can be summed up by four core values: proactivity, innovative project management, focus on results (over process), and transparency. These values define how the engineering teams operate day to day. Rather than being just buzzwords, each value is backed by concrete practices and behaviors.  By combining these elements, JetRuby has created a culture where developers don’t just follow orders — they actively shape projects and contribute new ideas. They are empowered to make decisions, suggest improvements, and respond to challenges creatively. Below are the main elements that define how JetRuby operates. Each plays a specific role in aligning developers with innovation goals. Proactivity and Ownership: Everyone Leads by Example Every engineer owns their work. Developers pick the tools and design approaches for their modules. They manage their own tasks and timelines in collaboration with product owners. What exactly does ownership look like? It means engineers feel responsible not only for their individual tasks but for the project's success as a whole. If a feature needs extra polish or a deadline is tight, team members rally together without waiting for managerial mandates. When a challenge arises, teams collaborate to determine the best solution.  In practice, JetRuby assigns clear accountability. JetRuby’s engineer allocation strategy provides clarity and fosters a culture of responsibility, where each engineer has a specific mandate that contributes directly to the client’s goals. Every engineer is encouraged to be proactive — to take ownership of problems and lead by example.  Proactivity means developers don’t wait to be told what to do. They anticipate issues, propose solutions, and initiate improvements whenever possible. This approach turns each team member into a mini-leader within their realm.  For instance, if a developer sees a potential performance bottleneck or an opportunity to refactor code for clarity, they are expected to speak up and take action.  The company rewards such initiative: each project team has bonus pools that project managers distribute to the most active contributors. This incentive system explicitly recognizes engineers who go beyond “just writing code” and contribute ideas or optimizations. Continuous Learning and Growth JetRuby invests heavily in employee development.  Each developer has a Personalized Development Plan (PDP) with clear goals.  These plans align technical skill growth, soft-skill development, and career targets. Managers regularly meet 1:1 with engineers to review progress, answer questions, and adjust the plan.  We also run internal training workshops, lunches-and-learns, and a stipend for conferences. By setting growth milestones and supporting them, JetRuby ensures engineers constantly level up. Collaboration and Communication Teamwork is a must.  JetRuby schedules frequent project check-ins and code reviews, encouraging any team member to ask questions or suggest improvements.  Cross-team tools (Slack, Jira, GitHub) keep discussions transparent so ideas never get lost in private chats. Senior engineers regularly pair program with juniors, spreading knowledge.  When clients have questions, developers often join calls to explain technical details directly. This tight collaboration accelerates problem-solving. Agility and Efficiency (JetRuby.Flow) The team uses lean-Agile methods to iterate quickly. Sprints typically span 1–2 weeks, delivering small increments of working software. Daily stand-ups and backlog grooming keep everyone focused on priorities.  JetRuby.Flow is the company’s own delivery methodology, ensuring teams remove waste. For example, redundant meetings are eliminated, documentation is kept concise, and decisions happen just-in-time.  Paired with AI-supported automation, this agile approach significantly accelerates delivery. Quality and Excellence High standards are non-negotiable.  JetRuby requires code reviews for every change, uses continuous integration, and enforces best practices (security scanning, test coverage, etc.). Teams maintain a clear Definition of Done criteria.  This attention to quality prevents costly rework. According to JetRuby’s own research, engineers in their teams deliver 40% faster than before because routine bottlenecks are automated, and quality stays high. Upscale Your Culture Contact us and let's check if our approach fits your business Get in Touch JetRuby.Flow: Lean, AI-Driven Delivery System Central to the culture is JetRuby.Flow, the company’s proprietary delivery framework.  JetRuby.Flow applies lean product development principles to software projects, with a strong dose of AI automation. It’s designed to make teams faster, more focused, and more predictable. Some leaders still worry that AI replaces talent. We hold the opposite view and explained why you shouldn’t fear AI taking jobs. AI augments humans, but it never erases them. This principle sits at the heart of our JetRuby.Flow. Here’s how it works in practice. Lean Principles JetRuby.Flow is designed to minimize waste and prioritize value. Teams work in short cycles and release minimum viable increments frequently.  They validate ideas early with clients instead of building huge features that might change. This lean cycle means developers get quick feedback.  It also means high impact: JetRuby.Flow teams often reduce time-to-market by delivering ready-to-use features step by step rather than waiting for a big monolith. AI-Powered Tools In JetRuby.Flow, AI is a productivity partner. JetRuby leverages AI task automation to handle repetitive tasks.  For example, AI scripts can generate initial code templates or suggest test cases, cutting prototyping time by as much as 80% (internal data). The more AI training data it ingests, the smarter and more powerful it gets. Static analysis tools and predictive models scan code for bugs or security gaps before an engineer even runs tests. This frees developers to focus on creative problem-solving.  Continuous Delivery Pipeline Every project at JetRuby uses automated CI/CD pipelines. When a developer pushes code, it is immediately built in a staging environment, run through tests, and deployed to a demo site. This means new changes are visible to the team and even to clients within minutes.  Developers fix bugs before they pile up. The result is a reliable, always-updating product. This practice also encourages innovation: if you know you can test a new idea quickly, you’re more likely to experiment. JetRuby.Flow’s pipeline includes chat-based notifications of build status, so the whole team stays in sync. Transparent Metrics and Reviews JetRuby.Flow tracks data rigorously. Teams measure cycle time, code churn, test coverage, and customer satisfaction for each sprint.  And everyone can see these metrics. In regular sprint review meetings, developers themselves interpret the numbers and set targets.  For example, if the velocity drops, the team discusses root causes and decides how to improve. By giving engineers access to real metrics, JetRuby ensures continuous improvement is data-driven.  According to industry research, companies that openly share performance data gain trust and accountability in their teams, which drives innovation. Iterative Collaboration with Clients Under JetRuby.Flow, clients are part of the loop. Developers demo working features after each sprint, and clients provide immediate feedback that developers then implement quickly.  This close collaboration transforms developers into partners, as they directly experience the business impact of their work. When a developer sees a client’s reaction, they can suggest the next features or optimizations.  Over time, this partnership mindset leads to co-innovation, where the developer suggests entirely new product directions based on technical insight.  It’s not uncommon for a JetRuby developer to propose a creative solution to a client’s problem, one that goes beyond the original scope. This is encouraged by the culture, but only if the project or client allows it. In sum, JetRuby.Flow is a lean, iterative, and AI-augmented engineering workplace standard. It eliminates red tape and allows developers to work at top speed.  At the same time, it builds in checks and communication points to keep everyone aligned. The effect is that projects finish faster and developers remain engaged.  As a simple comparison, teams using traditional waterfall might fix one big bug at the end. JetRuby teams catch dozens of small issues early thanks to AI automation. Investing in Talent: Personal Growth and Engagement The company invests heavily in each developer’s growth and satisfaction. This makes devs feel valued and encourages them to be fully committed partners.  Personalized Development Plans (PDPs) A PDP outlines short-term and long-term goals, training courses to take, books to read, and new skills to acquire. It also sets career milestones, such as moving from a mid-level to a senior role or exploring a team lead path.  Managers and mentors review the plan quarterly. This framework ensures that every developer knows exactly where they are headed and what support they’ll get.  By making growth intentional, JetRuby maintains high motivation. People see a future with the company, not just a job, which boosts retention. Skill Development and Training JetRuby provides resources for continual learning. Each year, engineers get a training budget and paid time to attend workshops or conferences. The company runs in-house tech talks where team members share new knowledge.  Junior developers have assigned mentors for on-the-job guidance. To put numbers to it, JetRuby allocates several hundred hours annually just for learning activities.  This commitment pays off — employees report higher confidence in tackling new challenges. It also fosters innovation — a developer might learn a new database technology at a conference and immediately suggest using it on a project to enhance performance. Ownership of Work Alongside PDPs, developers own their projects.  Early in a project, JetRuby forms each team’s “engineering circle”. Each member in that circle defines success for their area.  For example, a front-end engineer might set a goal to improve user experience by reducing load time. The developer then tracks that metric throughout the sprint. Granting engineers responsibility like this transforms them into mini product owners.  They care deeply about outcomes, not just code style. This ownership mindset fosters innovation — when an engineer feels responsible, they seek creative ways to exceed the goal rather than simply meeting the bare minimum. Talent Management and Engagement JetRuby follows ISO guidelines (ISO 30414 for human capital, ISO 10018 for people involvement) to maintain high standards of talent management.  We hire carefully (only 5–10% of candidates get an offer) and then invest in them. We regularly survey staff to gather honest feedback on management, processes, and culture.  When issues arise, leadership addresses them openly. And engineers know the company is listening and improving.  JetRuby’s internal research has found that this approach pays off quantitatively. Teams working under these well-defined, supportive conditions performed 35% better in mid- and long-term collaboration metrics. In other words, nurturing culture leads to measurable productivity gains. Test-Drive JetRuby.Flow Leave us your contact details, and our manager will contact you shortly! Contact Sales Collaboration and Communication Practices Strong communication is woven into JetRuby’s daily routines. The company believes “innovation is a team sport.” Cross-Functional Teams Product teams at JetRuby also often include QA engineers, UX/UI designers, and sometimes a business analyst or product manager.  This diversity ensures that ideas flow freely between disciplines. Developers discuss design choices with UX, review requirements with analysts, and coordinate on test strategies with QA.  Having multiple viewpoints catches issues early and sparks new ideas. For example, a QA specialist might suggest a performance test that reveals an optimization opportunity before launch. Regular Syncs and Demos Every week, teams hold demo meetings. Developers present their latest work to the client or stakeholders.  This practice serves two purposes: it provides immediate feedback on the product, and it fosters a habit of discussing technology in plain terms.  Developers learn to translate technical accomplishments into business value. In turn, when clients see the progress, they often get excited and share new ideas. This ongoing dialogue enables developers to gain confidence in the client’s vision. Knowledge Sharing Forums JetRuby runs weekly tech forums where anyone can present a topic. A developer might demo a new JavaScript framework they’re experimenting with, or share lessons learned from debugging a challenging production issue.  These forums are informal and conversational. Since the engineers present to their peers (not managers), they use simple language and provide relevant examples.  Over time, this collective learning builds an internal knowledge base. It also keeps developers aware of tools used in other teams, which can inspire improvements in their own projects. Documentation and Transparency The company encourages concise documentation for every project. Product requirements, APIs, and architectural decisions are documented and shared in project wikis.  This transparency means that when a developer suggests a change, other team members (or future hires) can understand the context.  It also helps innovation: if an engineer wants to revisit an older solution or reuse a component, the documentation is there as a starting point. Importantly, JetRuby keeps these docs in shared spaces (like Confluence), so nothing is locked in one person’s head. Tools and Technology for Speed and Quality While culture is central, JetRuby also backs it up with smart tools. Engineers gain access to an advanced toolkit that automates routine work and accelerates development.  Automated Testing and CI Every project comes with tools like Jenkins or GitHub Actions to run automated test suites on each commit. This enables immediate error detection, allowing developers to fix issues promptly.  As a result, the team spends less time firefighting and more time building new features. When developers see the benefits of these tools, such as fewer late-night fixes and fewer regressions, they enthusiastically embrace automation. In-house ERP Platform To ensure our workflow is smooth and efficient, we’ve also developed a custom ERP system.  Course progress, test scores, and feedback live in this training portal. Resource planning, budget, and sprint statistics are all stored in our internal ERP. The system merges Git, HR, and finance data, ensuring everyone sees the same accurate information. Modern Development Stacks JetRuby keeps its tech stack current. For the back-end, developers often use the latest Ruby on Rails versions, and for the front-end, modern frameworks like React. We also have expert consultants who periodically audit projects and recommend upgrades.  Having up-to-date tools means engineers can leverage the latest best practices and libraries. And again, this encourages innovation — if a new JavaScript library can speed up UI interactions, JetRuby teams will try it. AI-powered Code Assistance The company experiments with AI coding assistants (similar to GitHub Copilot or internal tools). These tools suggest code snippets or flag potential bugs as you type. Engineers use them as double-checks to avoid typos or help draft complex code.  Our internal culture around AI tools is pragmatic — they save time, but developers always review the suggestions manually. For example, an AI might scaffold a class or function, and then the developer refines it. The net effect is a faster coding pace without sacrificing correctness. Performance and Security Scanning Building on CI, JetRuby includes tools that automatically scan for security vulnerabilities and performance problems. After the code is merged, these tools generate a report on any issues, such as slow database queries or outdated libraries.  Developers then correct these issues before the next release. By integrating security scanning, JetRuby engineers learn to code with a security-first focus.  In a recent project, a security alert tool detected a missing input validation that could have led to a serious issue. The engineer fixed it immediately, saving many hours of potential debugging time later. Leverage Our Tools as Your Own We are always here to share our expertise and skills to make your business thrive! I'm in! Join the JetRuby Way JetRuby’s engineering culture demonstrates that when a company invests in its people, those people in turn invest in the company’s mission.  By fostering a proactive, transparent, and supportive environment, we’ve transformed our developers into more than mere technical implementers. They have become innovators, problem solvers, and partners who drive projects to success alongside our clients.  For developers, JetRuby offers a place to grow and make an impact. If you’re a software engineer who craves responsibility, continuous learning, and the chance to work on meaningful projects with a talented, energetic team, JetRuby might be the perfect environment for you. For clients and partners, JetRuby’s culture means you get a dedicated team that will think about your project as deeply as you do. Our developers and CTOs will act as your innovation allies — suggesting improvements, adapting to your needs, and ensuring that the technology truly serves your business goals. Contact us today to discover firsthand how our engineering culture can transform the way you develop technology. ### Top 8 Open‑Source LLMs to Watch in 2025 Large Language Models (LLMs) are AI systems that consume vast text sets and then write or read like a person, a process detailed in our guide to understanding AI training data. According to the McKinsey “Open source technology in the age of AI” report, 50% of respondents indicated they use open source tools for data, models, and other tech stack areas. Technical skills and experience affect how people use open source. The technology, media, and telecommunications sectors have the highest usage at 70%. Experienced AI developers are 40% more likely to use open source tools. Among the most popular LLMs, teams rely on these AI systems for chatbots, translation tools, and content drafting. Open-source LLMs allow teams to inspect and adjust the model until it meets target metrics. Open weights remove vendor lock-in and trim license fees. Companies can tailor the model for healthcare or legal text and keep every industry rule intact. Cutting costs, protecting data, and creating AI that actually meets your needs... sounds like a corporate dream, right? But it’s now a reality. Companies now use open-source LLMs instead of expensive, one-size-fits-all AI. And here’s how they’re winning: Self-hosted models like Mistral 7B lower API costs, freeing up budget for other needs. Open-source LLMs enhance data security by keeping sensitive information within the organization and building customer trust. Different open LLMs allow businesses to customize models for specific tasks, like creating tailored customer support chatbots, improving efficiency, and user experience. In this article, we’ll discuss the Best 8 LLMs of 2025 that are changing software development, offering LLM solutions with the accuracy and flexibility your projects need. Let’s explore the latest LLM examples shaping the future of coding. Key Takeaways Llama 3-405B features a context window of 128,000 tokens. The 405B model is the most extensive open-source 'dense' language model available. Meta’s newest Llama 4 series — an advanced AI that works with text and images, helping teams manage complex documents and streamline workflows. Mistral’s Pixtral 12B deciphers charts and PDFs — think faster financial reports or medical diagnoses. The Mixtral 8 22B, released in April 2024, further improves accuracy and performance. Qwen 2.5-72B/Omni masters more than 30 languages, a top open-source LLM for global support. Falcon 180B rivals Google’s PaLM-2 in accuracy, perfect for high-stakes fields like law or finance. Open-source LLMs need expertise: JetRuby’s engineers bridge the gap between potential and real-world results. #1. Best Open-Source LLM for Multilingual Enterprises: Llama 3.1’s AI Mastery Meta’s Llama 3.1 is one of the best open-source language models available in sizes of 8B, 70B, and 405B parameters. It helps businesses and researchers with multilingual tools. Its instruction-tuned models (text-only) excel in multilingual conversations, often outperforming models like GPT-4 in safety and accuracy, thanks to supervised fine-tuning (SFT) and human feedback (RLHF). Llama 3.1 is licensed under a Community License, allowing commercial use while promoting responsible AI practices. Llama 3.1 is great for developers and organizations around the world. It can be used for simple regional chatbots or complex systems across languages. Built for conversations in many languages, it uses over 15 trillion tokens of text and code data (current through December 2023), and Meta’s custom NVIDIA infrastructure. It took 39.3 million GPU hours to train it. Meta used renewable energy to cover all emissions, supporting its commitment to be net-zero. Businesses can use it for free under specific license terms, but it cannot be used for illegal activities or risky areas like developing weapons. Use it for multilingual chatbots, coding support, synthetic data generation, or AI safety research. It supports 8 languages (English, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Hindi, Spanish, Thai) and features a 128k-token context window with Grouped-Query Attention (GQA). Developers may need to refine outputs for low-resource languages. Download via Meta’s repository under the Llama 3.1 Community License, with smooth integration for Hugging Face and PyTorch. #2. Latest LLM Models from Meta: Llama 4 Scout & Maverick (Meta). Balancing Scale and Transparency The latest LLM models in Meta’s lineup (April 2025) introduce Scout and Maverick, leveraging expert architectures for parameter efficiency. While excelling in multilingual/multimodal tasks, their reliance on Meta user data sparks transparency concerns. Scout is designed for long tasks like legal analysis, handling 10 million tokens with 40 trillion training tokens and 17 billion activated parameters. Maverick focuses on fast code generation, featuring 17 billion activated parameters, 400 billion total parameters, and 22 trillion training tokens. Both models process text and images and are trained on public data. Scout excels in multilingual support and long context, while Maverick uses expert activation for efficiency but needs special hardware. Claims about their performance matching GPT-4 have not been independently verified, and there are ethical concerns about Meta’s use of user data. Meta restricts access to these models for EU users and limits commercial use to organizations with fewer than 700 million monthly active users. #3. Pixtral 12B: Top Open-Source Multimodal Solution for Text and Vision Pixtral 12B is a top open-source LLM, a 12B-parameter multimodal model that excels in text and vision tasks without compromising Mistral’s text prowess. Trained on interleaved image-text data, it sets a benchmark for open-source large language models under Apache 2.0. Mistral has released a new AI model that combines a 400M vision encoder and a 12B Mistral Nemo decoder, supporting up to 128,000 tokens. It is available for commercial use under the Apache 2.0 license. This model scores 52.5% on the MMMU benchmark, outperforming competitors in some areas and improving instruction-following by 20%. It excels in chart analysis, OCR, diagram interpretation, and math. The AI can handle various image sizes and supports document QA and chatbots. While developers promise transparency, only some resources are available now. The model requires more computing power for high-resolution images and may not match GPT-4o in certain tasks. It can be accessed through La Plateforme and Le Chat, and it is free for businesses to use. Mixtral 8 22B (released in April 2024) is a new model version known for its performance and efficiency. It uses 39 billion active parameters out of 141B, making it cost-effective. The model supports multiple languages and excels in mathematics and coding. It features native function calling and has a 64k token context window for recalling detailed information. Released under the Apache 2.0 license, it allows unrestricted use and offers a strong performance-to-cost ratio, making it ideal for fine-tuning applications. #4. Qwen 2.5-72B: Leading the Latest LLM Models in Multilingual AI Alibaba’s Qwen 2.5-72B (2025) is a 72.7 B-parameter dense decoder-only LLM that reaches 128 K tokens of context when the YaRN patch is enabled (ships at 32 K by default). It combines broad multilingual coverage (29 + languages), high-fidelity JSON/table formatting, and domain-tuned offshoots for coding, math, and document vision (VL-72B). For fully multimodal work, the lighter Qwen 2.5-Omni 3 B/7 B adds any-to-any text ↔ image/audio/video capabilities, but the core language breakthroughs lie in the 72 B checkpoint. Qwen 2.5-72B posts 85 + MMLU, ≈ 85 % HumanEval and near-GPT-4-class DocVQA scores, outpacing open-weight peers such as Llama-3.1-70B and Mistral-Large-V2. These gains stem from an 18 T-token pre-training run and architectural upgrades — RoPE with YaRN/Tiled extensions, SwiGLU activations, and 64-head grouped-query attention (8 KV). The model can create sequences up to 8K long. It shows much stronger structure than earlier Qwen versions because of better training for long contexts and improved handling of biases. The instruction-tuned versions are more reliable when prompts change or in role-play situations. Additionally, the 4-bit AWQ/GPTQ packages make it possible to experiment with a single GPU. Running the full 128 K window typically needs ≥ 4 × H100 80 GB (or 8 × A100 40 GB), while everyday ≤ 32 K tasks fit on 2 × A100 80 GB — or one card via the available 4-bit quantised weights. Smaller siblings (0.5 B – 14 B) share the same tokenizer and outperform Qwen 2 on sub-8 K workloads. Ultra-long 1 M-token experiments are in beta under Qwen 2.5-1M 7 B/14 B. Top use-cases include cross-lingual report automation, high-accuracy JSON extraction and legal/financial document analysis; add an Omni-7B front-end when raw images, audio or video enter the pipeline.   Swift Scaling Solutions Scale fast with our AI-powered Ruby on Rails experts in 2-3 weeks. Boost efficiency by 30%, with no long-term commitments and a satisfaction guarantee. Boost efficiency   #5. Falcon 180B: Top Open-Source LLM for High-Stakes Business Tasks TII’s Falcon 180B is a popular open-source LLM with 180B parameters, trained on 3.5T tokens. In 2023, it topped Hugging Face’s Open LLM Leaderboard, rivaling GPT-3.5 and PaLM 2 Large in reasoning and coding. In January 2025, other models of the Falcon3 family featuring enhanced multi-modal capabilities, including image, video, and audio support, and a full technical report covering our methodologies, were released. As of 30 April 2025, several newer open models (e.g., Yi-34B-Chat, Mixtral-8×22 B, Llama-3.1-405 B) have overtaken it on several of the leaderboard’s composite metrics. It now sits in the upper group but is no longer the single top model. Yet, it’s still a flexible LLM solution under Apache 2.0, ideal for businesses avoiding vendor lock-in. Falcon 180B is a powerful open-source AI model with 180 billion parameters, making it the biggest dense LLM available. It efficiently handles tokens and competes with proprietary models like Google’s PaLM 2 Large, particularly in coding and knowledge tasks. The Falcon 180B remains a strong open-weight model, but falls short against the Gemini 1.5 and Mixtral 8×22B on the latest benchmarks. Released under the Apache 2.0 license, it allows unrestricted commercial use, but large-scale hosting requires approval from the Technology Innovation Institute (TII). Its strengths include high performance and strong results in benchmarks, but it needs significant computational resources. #6. Mixtral 8x7B: Best AI LLM for Speed and Multilingual Efficiency Mistral AI’s Mixtral 8x7B (December 2023) is a sparse mixture-of-experts (SMoE) model offering top-tier performance under Apache 2.0. Public benchmarks show this current LLM leader clearly beats Llama-2 70 B, closely matches GPT-3.5 on MT-Bench (8.3), and delivers ≈6× faster inference than dense 70 B models. The model features a unique architecture with 8 expert groups, activating 2 for each token, totaling 46.7 billion parameters (12.9 billion active per token). It supports a context length of 32,000 tokens and performs well in multiple languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian. It also excels in code generation, with a fine-tuned version scoring 8.3 on MT-Bench, comparable to GPT-3.5. Its strengths include reduced bias, multilingual capabilities, and coding skills. It's suitable for low-latency chatbots, code automation, multilingual apps, or further fine-tuning, balancing cost and efficiency. However, it lags behind GPT-4/Claude in complex reasoning, needs optimization for full context use, and depends on open web data quality. Processing remains efficient at 12.9 billion parameters, focusing on cost-performance balance. #7. BLOOM (BigScience): Open-Source LLM Solution for Global Language Support Developed through the BigScience initiative, BLOOM is a 176B-parameter multilingual model trained via unprecedented open collaboration. Prioritizes transparency and accessibility for underrepresented languages. Released in July 2022, BLOOM was the largest open-source language model before being surpassed by Falcon-180B. It was developed by over 1,000 researchers from 70+ countries and supports 46 languages, including Arabic and French, along with 13 programming languages. Trained for 117 days on France’s Jean Zay supercomputer, BLOOM emphasizes transparency by providing open access to its weights, checkpoints, and training data. BLOOM excels in supporting low-resource languages and offers easy integration with Hugging Face. However, it requires high-end hardware, may fall short in specialized English tasks compared to GPT-3.5/4, and its RAIL license restricts commercial use. BLOOM is ideal for research on AI bias, localized NLP tools, and further fine-tuning in academic or industrial settings. It is available on Hugging Face under RAIL compliance, focusing on ethical use. #8. MPT-30B (MosaicML): Cost-Effective LLM Solution for Small Businesses MosaicML’s MPT-30B (June 2023) is a 30B-parameter decoder transformer optimized for training and inference efficiency. Pretrained on 1T tokens of English text and code, it balances performance with deployment on a single GPU (e.g., A100-40GB). It includes innovations like ALiBi for long-context handling and finetuned variants for instruction and dialogue tasks. It also uses FlashAttention and FasterTransformer for efficiency. This 30-billion-parameter AI model is designed for single-GPU use and offers a cost-effective solution for businesses under the Apache-2.0 license, allowing unrestricted commercial use. It has been trained on 1 trillion tokens, more than datasets like Pythia and OpenLLaMA, and can handle contexts up to 8,000 tokens with options for further finetuning. The model excels in long-text handling and coding tasks, and is open-source, making it suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises. However, it is smaller than Llama 2-70B or GPT-3.5 models. Note that the chat version has commercial use restrictions, and creative task benchmarks are unverified. Comparative Analysis of Modern LLMs This LLMs comparison highlights key players such as Meta’s Llama, Pixtral, Falcon, and Mixtral. For example, BLOOM excels in multilingual capabilities, while Qwen2.5 handles large documents effectively. Licensing varies from open-source to more restrictive options. If you need speed, consider Mixtral. Pixtral is a great choice for multimodal tasks. We've summarized size, benchmarks, and use cases to help you select the best tool for your needs. So, which LLM is the most advanced today? Hopefully, the mentioned examples of large language models will help you decide. When evaluating, consider this comparison: [table id=50 /] JetRuby Offers Staff Augmentation Services to Help with Projects that Use LLM Technology. Our Staff Augmentation service helps companies quickly add experienced developers to their teams. Unlike freelancers, JetRuby offers cohesive teams that require minimal adjustment, leading to immediate productivity. This is especially useful for organizations using open-source Large Language Models (LLMs), where speed and expertise are crucial. Key Benefits for LLM Implementation & Customization include: Quick Project Launch Using large language models (LLMs) requires expertise in fine-tuning, API integration, and prompts. Our skilled teams, hired through a strict selection process, help clients launch products faster, bypassing lengthy hiring and onboarding, which speeds up MVP development and scaling of existing solutions. Flexible Team Scaling LLM projects often change, such as when training initial models or adding new features. We at JetRuby help clients adjust their team size each month to fit their current needs. For example, a client may need more developers during data preparation, but can reduce the team after deployment to save money. Bridging Skill Gaps Many teams lack the in-house skills to adapt open-source LLMs (like GPT-Neo or Llama 2). Our developers help fill these gaps in natural language processing, cloud setup, or security — skills, often honed through personalized development plans (PDPs). They ensure the models meet business needs and maintain good performance. Quality & Accountability We keep track of each developer's time with monthly logs showing project progress. This reporting is especially important for LLM projects because they require careful testing and must follow data privacy laws. Our developers usually use Cursor IDE and GitHub Copilot, but we let them choose their preferred tools. Right now, they often use: OpenAI's newest models (for general programming and automation) Anthropic’s Claude (when we require more nuanced reasoning) Interplexity (for client research and market trends) Ruby on Rails frameworks, ideal for SaaS development, to streamline backend workflows. Top Rails hosting providers for scalable deployment. Rails 8’s latest features for improved performance. However, we don’t just connect to APIs and stop there. We create real value by customizing these tools for our workflows.   We’ve built our custom ERP system! Discover the reasons behind this decision, the process we went through, and the benefits we’ve seen so far.   Why It Works for LLM Challenges A go-to team speeds up model deployment and fine-tuning. No need for long-term hires for temporary LLM projects, reducing turnover risks. Established processes and AI-powered code review tools minimize mistakes in model training and API security. JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation helps quickly implement different open-source LLMs for faster results. Engineers who care, aligned with a CTO’s strategic vision. Costs that respect your budget, leveraging AI task automation to optimize workflows. Speed with a heartbeat Open-source LLMs are about freeing us to focus on what matters: creativity, empathy, and connection. Whether you need the best AI LLM for coding (Mixtral 8x7B), multilingual support (BLOOM), or long-context analysis (Qwen2.5-1M), open-source LLM models empower innovation without vendor lock-in. This list of LLMs exists to serve you. You don’t have to do this alone. Reach out to JetRuby today. Let’s build solutions that reflect your values and empower your team. ### Meet Your New AI Personal Assistant: Why AI Assistant Matters and How to Build One Last year’s McKinsey “State of AI” survey revealed that 78 % of companies deploy artificial intelligence tools in at least one business function, up from 55% the prior year. Including those called AI assistants. At the same time, Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index reports that three out of four knowledge workers already rely on an AI assistant during their workday. These numbers show a big change in how organizations create value, solve problems, and compete for talent. Leaders soon realized that publicly available AI assistant tools and chatbots often do not meet the specific needs of internal policies, specialized language, or connections with older systems. Custom AI assistants are especially effective in filling this gap. AI personal assistants are designed to meet specific needs, follow rules, and fit smoothly into daily work routines. If your organization relies on unique expertise, a personal touch is what you need. In this guide, you’ll discover a proven eight-step roadmap to build an AI assistant: Setting measurable objectives Choosing the right architecture Data curation Model training UX design Deployment Lifelong improvement Key Takeaways Vision before code. Tie every feature to a KPI. Architecture choices (cloud APIs vs. self-hosted models) dictate cost, privacy, and scalability. "Garbage in, garbage out": if you want a good AI assistant, you need to give it good data. (Learn more about how AI training data impacts model performance.) Expect multiple test-refine loops before production. Change management and training drive adoption as much as technical polish. Ongoing monitoring keeps answers fresh and secure. What is an AI Assistant? An AI personal assistant is a smart software program that understands human requests, usually in natural language. It can carry out tasks on its own or provide information. It uses machine learning models, rule-based logic, or both. AI voice assistants (e.g., smart-speaker skills) understand spoken commands, answer questions aloud, or control IoT devices. Text-based chatbots are AI-powered tools that integrate seamlessly into platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or embedded web widgets. Virtual agents combine text, voice, and API triggers to book meetings, pull sales metrics, or open IT tickets. For example, Unilever has an AI assistant called Una/Unabot. This single, multilingual bot, along with a clear knowledge base, can replace scattered HR portals. It reduces wait times and allows HR to concentrate on important, human-centered tasks while complying with strict EU governance rules. Una/Unabot is Unilever’s digital Azure-hosted HR assistant. It operates in 106 countries and speaks 32 languages. It answers over 7 million employee questions each year. This helps reduce the time HR advisors spend on routine tasks by up to one hour every day. In pilot tests, it has received an 85% satisfaction rating from users. The bot uses Microsoft Bot Framework, MuleSoft, and an internal knowledge system called “Una Hub”. It helps with HR, payroll, and IT questions. It guides new employees, directs complex issues to human staff, and records every interaction to ensure fairness, protect privacy, and comply with EU-AI-Act regulations. Below is a step-by-step deep dive on how to create a personal AI assistant from scratch for a similar impact. Step 1. Set the Vision — Define Objectives and Use Cases of Your AI Assistant Effective projects begin with a crystal-clear “why” and “what for”. You need to hold a workshop with Human Resources, Marketing, Operations, IT, and frontline staff representatives. In this session, ask everyone to share common problems they face in their work. This will help identify repeatable issues and promote teamwork across departments. Translate those headaches into measurable goals such as: “Cut average help-desk first-response time from 8 hours to 2.” “Automate 35 % of onboarding FAQs within six months.” “Generate daily campaign-performance briefings for marketing managers in under one minute.” For example, an HR AI assistant can answer policy questions around the clock, sparing HR specialists dozens of daily emails. A marketing analyst assistant can pull omnichannel metrics and draft weekly reports. A developer helper can surface code-review reminders or link to relevant internal libraries. Document each scenario by including the following details: the target user, the communication method (such as chat, voice, or email), the data needed, and how to measure success. This plan will guide decisions about technology, privacy protections, and your budget. Pro Tip: Struggling with employee retention? Check out our Top 13 Steps to Reduce Employee Turnover to create a more engaging workplace. Step 2. Architect the Solution — Plan Architecture and Choose the Right Tech Stack for Your Personal AI Assistant Building an AI assistant requires mapping four foundational layers: [table id=48 /] The design of your AI assistant will affect how it works, its security, and its ability to grow. Each decision point connects to the layers described in the Step 2 table, ensuring your technology matches your goals and limitations. Key decision forks: Cloud vs. on-prem models. Cloud APIs slash ramp-up time, but sensitive domains (healthcare, defense) may require self-hosting to satisfy compliance. Buy vs. build. Frameworks like Rasa or Microsoft Bot Framework jump-start intent detection and multichannel delivery. Proprietary requirements might mandate custom microservices for fine-grained control. Security from day one. Plan OAuth scopes, single-sign-on, rate limits, and encryption early; untangling them later is costly. Budgeting note: reserve line items for GPU or API token usage, logging infrastructure, and observability dashboards. Need help choosing the right hosting? Here’s our guide to the 8 Best Ruby on Rails Hosting Providers.   For rapid prototyping, no-code tools like n8n.io, Make.com, and Dify.ai help teams create chatbots and automated processes without advanced coding skills and provide: Pre-built connectors for popular apps (Slack, Calendar, CRM). Built-in logging, error handling, and observability dashboards. Save money by relying less on specialized developers. For sensitive data, n8n offers on-prem deployment, balancing ease-of-use with data control, though local setups can have scalability tradeoffs. To optimize cost, accuracy, and security, design a pipeline where requests pass through multiple stages: Request classification Use lightweight LLMs or classical ML to categorize inputs (text, image, code) and route them to the most cost-effective AI model. Context enrichment Automatically inject internal policies, role-based guidelines, or historical context into prompts to improve relevance and compliance (e.g., redacting sensitive data). Security layer Add safeguards to filter malicious prompts, especially when using public APIs. Response generation Chain microservices or specialized models (e.g., code generation vs. customer support) to refine outputs. Retain full conversation history to: Analyze user needs for future improvements. Build a memory-enhanced context for richer interactions. Audit responses for compliance and accuracy. Step 3. Fuel Your AI — Collect and Prepare Data Data powers your personalized AI assistant. Sources include: Identify and list sources that match the use cases: Historical conversations from chat tools and ticket systems are valuable for training on user intent. Knowledge bases like Confluence, SharePoint, and SOP PDFs provide useful organized information. Process documentation and internal wikis contain important details about workflows and best practices. Follow a disciplined preparation pipeline: Cleaning Start by removing signatures from documents to protect privacy. Next, hide any personal information to keep sensitive data safe. Ensure that text is encoded consistently across the dataset. Finally, correct any obvious typos to make the text clearer. Deduplication Combine near-identical entries into one. This is important because duplicates can distort the statistical analysis and lead to incorrect results. Labeling Tag each entry with a clear intent, such as “Vacation Policy” or “Password Reset.” Alternatively, specify actions needed, like “Create Ticket.” This helps organize the data and makes it easier to find what you need later. It's important to classify data by access level to keep it secure. Use simple labels like "HR Only," "Confidential," or "Restricted Access" to show who can view or change the information to protect sensitive data and reduce unauthorized access. For example, a ticket labeled "Payroll Inquiry — Finance Team Only" clearly states its purpose and who can access it. Different data types require specific preprocessing methods. Structured data (e.g., spreadsheets, knowledge bases). Standardize formats, like dates and currency symbols, to ensure smooth integration with vector databases. Unstructured data (e.g., chat logs, emails). Parse conversational contexts to identify intents, gather important details like decisions and deadlines, and keep track of who is involved. For example, when the tech team chats, you can label messages such as “Feature X Approval – Finalized by Design Lead on 10/05” to help easily search workflows using AI. Documents that have time limits need dates to show when they are valid. For example, “Vacation Policy 2021” and “Vacation Policy 2025” can have different rules. Adding dates helps the AI show you the right information for the time you are asking about. This way, old rules from 2021 won't confuse answers for 2024 questions. Balancing Make sure less common intents are still represented and not overwhelmed by more frequent ones. To do this, add new examples of underrepresented categories using different wording. This helps ensure a fair and effective dataset. If data is scarce, consider synthetic generation (human-validated) or leverage public datasets that match your domain. Remember: every hour spent refining data multiplies downstream model quality. Want to automate tedious tasks? Discover how to make a voice assistant that streamlines your workflow with 20 Routine Tasks AI Can Automate! Step 4. Build the Brain — Develop and Train the AI Model With objectives, architecture, and clean data, it’s time to create the cognitive core. Two paths to create your own AI assistant: Use services like OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Anthropic Claude, or Google Gemini to fine-tune a foundation model. These services let you upload specific examples from your industry to match your brand's voice. The provider handles complex tasks like managing GPU clusters, tokenization, and model checkpoints. You can train an open-source model in-house using tools like Hugging Face Transformers and vLLM. These tools allow you to start with a pre-trained model, such as Llama 3, and then continue training it with your data. You must handle data splitting, manage GPU scheduling, adjust hyperparameters, and monitor performance. If you're wondering how to make an AI assistant, these approaches offer flexibility depending on your technical expertise and resources. When you build a virtual assistant, keep these key points in mind: Overfitting. Monitor validation accuracy versus training accuracy — a widening gap signals memorization. Hallucinations. Introduce a factual-consistency evaluation set and establish confidence thresholds. Low-confidence answers should trigger a graceful fallback (“I’m not sure, let me escalate”). Expect iterative cycles: adjust prompts or hyperparameters, retrain, and retest until the assistant’s precision and recall meet the KPIs from Step 1. Did you know? Exploring AI assistant capabilities can even enhance Ruby on Rails code reviews for better efficiency. CTO as a Service Advance your product with CTO as a Service! Build, attract investors, and confidently report progress. Get in touch Step 5. Craft the Experience — Design the UI and Integrations A brilliant model chained to a clumsy interface still fails. Use human-centered design principles to improve user interactions: Start with a friendly greeting that explains what you can help with, like “I can assist you with HR policies and vacation requests.” Offer simple, quick-reply buttons like “Benefits” and “Leave Policy.” These buttons reduce typing and help users understand what services you offer. If there’s a misunderstanding, respond with empathy. Say something like, “I didn’t understand that — could you rephrase it or pick a category?” This makes users feel supported. Aim for almost immediate responses, ideally under one second. If there’ll be a delay, a “typing…” indicator informs users that you are processing the user’s request. Integrations help turn answers into actions. If the assistant schedules meetings, connect it with Google Calendar or Outlook and follow the existing permission guidelines. Use the Jira or ServiceNow APIs to create tickets. Encrypt tokens, log activity for audits, and enforce role-based access controls to meet security requirements. Did you know? AI assistant capabilities vary by interface, too — chatbots, voice assistants, and productivity tools. They all need unique designs. Text-based AI, like chatbots and coding tools, features a simple chat layout that emphasizes text input and responses, often using syntax highlighting. Their minimal design helps users focus. Voice-controlled AI assistants like smart speakers and car systems rely on audio signals and visual cues like waveform animations to indicate activity. Their interfaces support hands-free use, with fewer text elements. Productivity AI assistants, like writing tools and task managers, integrate into workflows with inline suggestions and floating buttons. They provide real-time help without interrupting the user's work. Creative AI tools for images and videos have interactive interfaces with prompt boxes, live previews, and sliders. These features encourage experimentation by allowing users to generate and revert to different versions. In robotics and AR/VR, embodied AI uses a mix of digital and physical elements. It includes 3D visuals, gesture controls, and touch feedback to create an immersive experience. Memory and Proactive Automation Consider enriched environments that incorporate memory models and automated workflows to elevate AI assistants beyond reactive tools. These systems do not treat each question as separate. Instead, they remember information from past interactions. This allows them to provide more personalized and continuous support. For example: Keep track of recent questions like “vacation policy.” This helps you prepare for follow-up requests. Use a greeting like, “Welcome back! Should I update your PTO request?” to create continuity. Connect model control protocol (MCP) servers to automate tasks. When a user asks, “What is my project status?” the assistant will get data from Jira, summarize the progress, and provide buttons like “Notify Team” or “Extend Deadline” without needing any manual input. Recognize users using their Slack ID and adjust replies accordingly. For HR, it could say, “Hi [Name], you have 8 days of leave left. Would you like to submit a request?” while providing already filled-out forms. Visual and Functional Enhancements User-friendly interfaces combine smart design with automated backend processes. Dynamic Buttons: Show shortcuts for recent activities, like "Resume Budget Report" after you upload a file. Audit Trails: Let users review past interactions (“Last week, you approved Task #45”) with options to replay or modify actions. Secure Automation: Use MCP to execute tasks like ticket creation or data pulls, keep things safe by using codes, and make sure that only the right people can see it. Did you know? Advanced AI business assistants combine memory with automated tools to work effectively with people. For example, a support bot can identify unresolved issues by checking past tickets. A sales assistant can gather customer information before meetings. They do all of this while keeping data safe and secure. Learn about Personalized Development Plans (PDPs) at JetRuby, our engineer growth opportunities! Step 6. Test, Tune, and Refine Your AI Assistant Before opening the floodgates company-wide, stage a multi-layer test program: Functional Testing Run many scripted queries that cover all user requests and possible edge cases. Check that the answers are correct and that API calls work as expected. User-Acceptance Testing Gather a pilot group of about 30 employees from various departments. Let them use the assistant naturally for a week. Afterward, survey them to find out their satisfaction levels, any confusion they experienced, and features they wish it had. Load Testing Simulate busy times, such as lunchtime HR questions or spikes during product launches. This will help ensure the system can handle high demand without crashing or slowing down. Security Review Conduct penetration tests to identify any weaknesses. Ensure the assistant does not reveal sensitive information when faced with tricky prompts. Every discovered gap feeds back into prompt refinement, training data augmentation, UI tweaks, or rate-limit adjustments. Plan for two to five iterations before the “go-live” milestone. Step 7. Deploy and Empower Your New AI Personal Assistant — Launch and Adoption Deployment is as much psychology as technology. Best practices: Turn the bot on for a limited audience first, then expand by department. Host 30-minute drop-in sessions, share cheat sheets, and record video walkthroughs. Enlist enthusiastic early adopters to coach peers and share success stories on internal channels. For at least two weeks post-launch, maintain a rapid-response squad to squash bugs, adjust throttles, and reassure nervous users. Address the elephant in the room — job security. Emphasize the assistant augments human expertise, freeing people from drudgery rather than replacing them. If you are looking into how to make your own AI assistant for free, open-source models and cloud-based APIs are available. Each requires more or less data and more or less development work. Struggling with team alignment? See how AI assistance can streamline operations with custom ERP systems. Step 8. Monitor and Improve — Ongoing Maintenance A tailored AI assistant is never “done.” To keep your AI assistant performing at its best, check on it and provide guidance regularly. Use these monitoring practices to maintain quality and find ways to improve. AI Performance Dashboard: Key Metrics for Success [table id=49 /] During quarterly reviews, analysts compare these metrics to the established KPIs. New business rules, product launches, or regulatory changes require fresh training data or prompt tweaks. Autoscale GPU back-ends or migrate to more efficient quantized models as user count grows. Keep an R&D budget line for experimenting with next-generation architectures because progress in AI moves faster than annual planning cycles. Why Build an AI Personal Assistant? Key Benefits for Your Business Businesses should work smarter, not harder. Reducing costs and improving customer service matter, but employees also need time for valuable tasks. An AI assistant can handle repetitive work, speed up decisions, and provide 24/7 support. Nearly 63% of employees say automation tools let them focus on higher-value work. 1. Turbocharged Productivity AI can take care of repetitive tasks like look-ups, data entry, and filling out forms. This allows people to focus on more creative and valuable work. 2. Consistency and 24/7 Availability Policies change, and humans forget. An AI assistant updates instantly, delivering uniform answers across time zones without overtime costs. 3. Data-Driven Insight Every interaction yields structured intent and sentiment data — fuel for process optimization and product-roadmap decisions. 4. Cost Efficiency Organizations that automated their processes on a large scale reported saving 27% on costs. 5. Talent Magnetism Developers value internal code assistants, HRs value reduced burnout, and leadership values the innovation halo that helps recruit top technologists. Rails 8 brings powerful upgrades. (New Features & Benefits) Challenges and Limitations — Overcoming Hurdles in Development 1. Technical complexity: Model training, vector databases, and MLOps pipelines demand niche expertise. Solution: Leverage external specialists or mature frameworks instead of reinventing the wheel. 2. Data privacy and compliance: Training on internal emails raises GDPR flags. Solution: Mitigate with anonymization, encryption, and data-processing agreements. 3. Budget uncertainty: GPU clusters or API usage may balloon costs. Solution: Build usage caps and granular dashboards before rollout. 4. Model fallibility: Large language models occasionally hallucinate. Solution: Counter with confidence thresholds, curated knowledge retrieval, and clear escalation pathways. 5. Human adoption barriers: Skepticism and fear hamper usage. Solution: Combat with transparent communications, hands-on demos, and reward programs. Ruby on Rails is perfect for SaaS development. (9 Reasons Why) JetRuby: Your AI Development Partner When we build AI-powered solutions, we pay attention to every detail, from planning to execution. When creating AI assistants, many businesses struggle because they lack expertise or clear plans. JetRuby can help you with our skilled team and tested methods. We ensure faster development and lower risks. Need inspiration? See how to make a voice assistant that transforms industries, like farming (case study below). Farmers often struggle to balance their time between fieldwork and office tasks. Manual data entry is slow, can lead to mistakes, and takes time away from important work. We’ve developed an AI Voice Assistant for smarter farming and proved that building virtual assistants can transform industries. As a result: Farmers describe crop conditions, pest sightings, or equipment issues by speaking naturally (e.g., "Corn leaves are wilting in the northeast plot"). The system turns speech into searchable text, sorts the information, and identifies trends. The algorithms check weather, soil, and market data to suggest specific actions (e.g., "Increase irrigation, check for fungal infection"). This AI-driven system speeds up reporting by 50% and removes manual logs, saving farmers hours each week. It gives farmers data-driven insights to make better fertilizer choices, which can reduce costs by 15 to 30 percent. The platform also alerts farmers to problems like diseases or irrigation issues, which helps avoid yield losses. Plus, it offers expert advice 24/7, so farmers can get support whenever they need it. CTO as a Service — Your Challenges, Our Tech expertise Our CTO-as-a-Service offers immediate tech leadership and access to a team of 350 engineers. With 15 years of experience serving over 250 organizations, we provide expert support, strategic planning, complete project management, and real-time visibility through our custom ERP platform. And you stay in control without vendor lock-in. What you get: A skilled tech team — access experienced engineers and architects without the hassle of internal hiring. (Learn about our hiring process!) Our CTO aligns technology plans with your business goals and ensures every step drives progress. We handle everything — planning, building, launching, and supporting your product so your team can focus on customers. JetRuby is your partner in turning your AI ideas into reality. We offer coding help and tech leadership. Let’s create an efficient AI assistant tailored to your needs. Please contact us anytime you see fit! ### AI Adoption Skyrockets: The New Business Norm The year 2025 marks a pivotal moment in the business world as Artificial Intelligence moves from the realm of potential to widespread implementation.  In this article, we delve into the current state of AI adoption, revealing the impressive surge in its integration across industries. We gathered hard numbers from Microsoft, McKinsey, Forbes, and Exploding Topics to map clear lessons for CEOs, CTOs, and business leaders. Key AI Stats 78% of organizations use AI in at least one function (2024). 71% of companies use generative AI in at least one function. 83% of companies claim AI is a top priority. 92% of companies plan to raise AI budgets over the next 3 years. Only 1% of leaders call their organizations “AI mature”. Global AI market: ~$391 B today, set to reach ~$1.8 T by 2030 48% of employees consider AI training essential, yet ~50% feel under-supported. Millennials are 1.4× more likely to use AI than other age groups AI Adoption and Usage: Large Companies Leading the Charge The integration of Artificial Intelligence into business operations has experienced a notable surge in recent years. In 2024, 78% of organizations reported using AI in at least one business function, up sharply from 55% a year earlier. Generative AI tools are spreading quickly — 71% of firms now use gen AI in one or more functions.  Most businesses treat AI as strategic: roughly 83% say AI is a top priority. In short, AI has moved beyond pilots to become core to business planning.  Enterprises are leading the charge, but smaller firms aren’t far behind. High-revenue companies (>$500M in sales) adopt AI faster than mid-sized ones. Executives at large firms report more AI projects and dedicated teams. In contrast, many mid-market companies have only limited proof-of-concept or pilot programs. Even so, growing numbers of small businesses and startups are embedding AI from day one. Overall, AI use is gaining ground across sectors and company sizes. Investment and Market Scale: Big Bets on AI McKinsey finds that 92% of companies plan to increase their AI investment over the next three years. Tech industry giants alone will spend $371 billion on data centers and computing resources by 2025 (e.g., Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta​).  Worldwide, the AI market has swelled to roughly $391 billion in 2024​ and is projected to exceed $1.8 trillion by 2030. Growth remains blistering: the market is expanding at ~37% CAGR. Despite heavy spending, few executives feel fully mature on AI. Only 1% of leaders say their company is “mature” in AI deployment.  Most projects remain in early stages. The big opportunity looms: McKinsey estimates a $4.4 trillion productivity boost from AI in the coming years, but capturing that value requires scaling pilots into production. Enterprise AI Maturity and ROI Large enterprises report high returns from AI. In surveys, most leaders investing in AI (over 90%) report positive ROI.  However, many still struggle to move beyond pilot projects. McKinsey’s analysis shows less than one-third of firms follow best practices like tracking KPIs or establishing AI governance teams.  Larger companies are twice as likely as smaller ones to use clear roadmaps and dedicated AI teams. This means enterprises often build and scale faster, while smaller companies lag. ROI is strong when AI is deployed at scale. For example, Netflix earns ~$1 billion annually from AI-driven recommendations. About 97% of firms that heavily invest in AI report seeing gains.  Leaders should note that converting AI experiments into value demands investment in people and processes as much as technology. Workforce Readiness and Skills Shift The human side of AI adoption is shifting fast. Employees are eager to use AI tools. One McKinsey study found that three times as many workers use generative AI for a third or more of their tasks than leaders realize.  Over 70% of employees believe AI will transform 30% or more of their work within two years. By contrast, executives often underestimate workforce readiness. This gap means workers may drive change faster than expected. However, skill and training gaps remain a top concern. Nearly 48% of employees say training is the most important factor for AI adoption, yet about half feel only “moderately” or less supported. To close this gap, companies must invest in upskilling. Younger workers lead the charge: Millennials are 1.4× more likely than other age groups to know gen AI tools and expect near-term workflow changes. In practice, organizations are hiring for new AI roles. The McKinsey State of AI survey shows firms are adding data scientists, ML engineers, and AI governance specialists.  For example, 13% of companies have hired AI compliance experts in the past year. Overall, more than half of U.S. employees using AI report management actively encouraging its use, underscoring the top-down push. Sector Snapshots: Enterprises, Mid-Sized, Startups AI adoption depends on the company level, too. Let’s look at the difference. Enterprises Large corporations lead in formal AI programs. As noted, nearly 80% use AI in some functions. Many have designated AI governance (sometimes CEO-led​) and centralized Centers of Excellence.  These companies focus AI on IT, marketing, sales, and operations. The largest see the most applications: companies above $500M revenue deploy AI “throughout more of their organizations” than smaller peers.  Yet enterprises often move cautiously. In McKinsey’s U.S. CxO survey, 47% of C-level executives said their firms were developing AI tools “too slowly,” even though 69% had started investing over a year ago. That frustration drives urgency: 92% plan to boost AI investment. Mid-Size businesses Mid-market firms are catching up. Many began AI initiatives only recently, but surveys show strong interest.  For example, about 33% of companies have implemented limited AI use cases (e.g., automating specific tasks)​. Another 21% have promising pilots, while 25% have one or more fully AI-enabled processes.  These firms tend to use AI for efficiency (chatbots, CRM analytics, manufacturing sensors). Key barriers are budget and talent: smaller teams must often share data-science roles across projects.  Executives here should note that employees often lead adoption: empowering staff with tools can jumpstart progress faster than waiting for a centralized strategy. Startups and innovation Many startups are AI-native. Generative AI, in particular, fuels new product models (e.g., content automation, healthcare diagnostics, FinTech). We see rapid venture funding into AI-first companies.  Even hardware and telecom startups spin up AI services — one Gartner report found 52% of telecom firms now use chatbots for customer support.  Across industries, roughly 9 out of 10 organizations expect AI to give them a competitive edge​.  That sentiment drives startups to build on AI as a core differentiator. For startup leaders, the mandate is clear: leverage open-source AI (nearly 50% of adopters do so) to accelerate development, while also planning for compliance and ethics up front. AI-Enhanced Efficiency Transform your business! With AI as a powerful support tool, our skilled engineers work more efficiently and effectively, enhancing outcomes and driving profitability! Get in touch Strategic Imperatives for Leaders The data points to several clear priorities for executives. Governance and oversight Assign senior sponsorship of AI programs. McKinsey finds that when CEOs or boards own AI governance, organizations capture more value.  Establish clear metrics (KPIs) and roadmaps. One survey shows nearly 50% of tech leaders regard AI as fully integrated in strategy, but only ~30% see it embedded in everyday operations. Closing this gap requires formal planning and accountability. Talent and training Scale up skills fast. Companies with dedicated AI training see quicker adoption. Given that millennials and Gen Z are already AI-proficient, older workforce segments may need extra support.  When trained properly and in time, employees shouldn't fear of AI taking jobs. About half of employees feel they lack adequate training​ and remedying this with workshops or vendor programs is crucial. Also, hire or partner for scarce roles (data engineers, ML engineers, ethics officers) to accelerate progress. Speed and agility Move fast but safely. Data shows most employees trust their company to deploy AI responsibly (1.3× more than they trust regulators). Leaders should capitalize on this trust by piloting bold use cases. At the same time, address concerns: 47% of orgs reported at least one negative AI incident (e.g., hallucination or IP issues). Mitigate risk with oversight protocols (some firms review all AI outputs​). ROI focus Prioritize use cases with clear business impact. Marketing, sales, and customer service remain hot areas, but consider operations (maintenance prediction) and R&D too.  An example: automating routine tasks can reclaim over 40% of time for knowledge workers.  Track ROI meticulously: early adopters report that ~97% of AI investments yield returns, provided they scale pilots into full projects. Executive dashboards on AI KPIs help keep initiatives on track. Summary and Executive Takeaways The 2025 AI landscape is one of widespread adoption and rapid growth. Surveys show most companies are using AI now, almost all plan to invest more, and a vast market (hundreds of billions) is maturing into the trillions.  At the same time, a large portion of the workforce remains untapped (up to ~80% of workers not yet using AI tools). The AI stats reveal an urgent adoption gap: employees are ready for AI-driven change, but many organizations need to accelerate and scale up. Embed AI into strategy with clear governance and metrics.  Invest in training and cultivate an AI-literate culture, especially empowering employees eager to innovate.  Track ROI aggressively and be willing to pivot toward high-impact projects.  Finally, balance rapid deployment with risk controls — doing both well will turn AI investment into a competitive advantage. In 2025’s AI-driven economy, leaders executing these priorities will keep their organizations ahead of the curve. We at JetRuby Agency have extensive expertise building AI-driven solutions from scratch and integrating them into existing systems.  If you need more information on recent AI trends or you require professional advice, please contact us. Additional Sources Used McKinsey — The State of AI McKinsey — Empowering people to unlock AI’s full potential Exploding Topics — 54 New Artificial Intelligence Statistics McKinsey survey — Superagency in the Workplace McKinsey — The economic potential of generative AI ### Tired of Slow Development? Learn How JetRuby Uses AI Task Automation to Deliver Projects Faster We at JetRuby leverage AI task automation, making every stage of product development more efficient. A prototype that used to take a week to create is now delivered to clients much faster, showing how productivity improves with automation. What is the main benefit of using AI in automating tasks? The answer is clear: saving time = saving money. Developers can shift their focus from boring routine AI tasks to more creative problem-solving. The main benefit of using AI for task automation is clear: saving time = saving money. Developers can shift their focus from boring tasks to more creative problem-solving. Market analysts agree on the potential for growth. McKinsey reports that generative AI could add between $2.6 trillion and $4.4 trillion to the global economy yearly, with automation and productivity as key factors. Businesses want to use AI because it has great potential. But how to use AI to automate tasks effectively? Let’s break down the key advantages. Key Takeaways AI Helps Productivity as it automates repetitive tasks and speeds up delivery (for example, prototyping is cut from 1 week to 4 days). AI supports human expertise, but it does not replace it. Human validation = quality and security. Security Comes First: Strict protocols, like data anonymization and access controls, prevent leaks and breaches. Knowing how to use AI to automate tasks is now a key skill. Training helps with effective adoption. We invest in custom AI models to fit our company’s standards and workflows. Responsible adoption matters more than hype. We focus on measurable improvements (like speed and cost) while managing risks. What are the main benefits of using AI in automating tasks? In early 2022, when AI tools started being trendy, we at Jetruby realized this was a major change in how software would be built. The choice was clear: we could either lead this change or risk falling behind. This insight turned out to be very accurate. We adopted a clear and careful strategy for using AI, so we can complete projects faster while keeping high-quality standards. The secret? A balanced approach that combines: Selective automation of routine development tasks Enhanced human oversight where it matters most Continuous upskilling of engineering teams through personalized development plans After 10+ years of refinement, we know what success looks like for our teams. Our education system teaches these methods from the beginning, helping new hires build skills that fit our workflows. For AI tools and new workflows to work well in our production cycle, they need to be based on the same foundation of knowledge and standards we have created. Without this foundation, we would end up with the same generic outputs as other companies that use only basic AI solutions. Let’s be honest — responses from standard agents miss distinct details and personal experience. This is why the real change isn’t about the AI itself, but about improving our training programs. We need to teach our teams how to use these tools effectively by setting best practices and consistent methods for implementation. In the long run, we will create processes where AI tools will be smoothly integrated throughout the entire software development life cycle (SDLC). As for back-office operations, there's significant potential for automating business tasks. This includes data classification, entry, compliance checks, and analyzing meeting effectiveness from transcripts. We are focusing our efforts on these areas right now. When we look at our production cycle, one important focus is security. AI tools are becoming widespread and are often used carelessly, which leads to serious risks. Issues like using questionable third-party tools or accidentally breaching NDAs can lead to sensitive data being exposed. Our approach is different from the industry norm. We aren’t adopting AI to save time. We are building something more valuable: a reputation for using AI responsibly. Junior team members cannot use AI tools without supervision. They must first receive proper training on how to use AI to automate tasks and check their results. We only use AI for suitable tasks and keep human oversight where needed. We continuously improve our models to ensure high quality. We have strict rules to track what client data is shared and which AI systems receive it. Here’s a key truth: nobody fully understands how today’s large language models work. We can’t ensure that confidential data put into these systems won’t leak to competitors. That’s why we invest heavily in AI security now, before major breaches occur. While others rush to use tools like Copilot without considering risks, we focus on: Custom security protocols Model vetting processes Data flow monitoring This careful approach reduces risk and gives us an edge in the market. Enterprise clients value working with a partner that prioritizes data integrity alongside speed.   Startups navigating change can learn from our guide on pivoting strategies.   How JetRuby Uses AI to Automate Tasks and Boost Productivity At JetRuby, we integrate AI where it makes sense, always balancing innovation with practicality. We do not mindlessly chase trends, we try to find where AI can actually improve how we work: speeding up development, refining research, or automating repetitive tasks. The AI Tools We Rely On Daily We use ChatGPT with strict anonymization for business analysis to quickly parse data and generate insights. Our developers often work with Cursor IDE and GitHub Copilot, though we encourage them to pick the models they’re most comfortable with. Right now, that usually means: OpenAI’s latest models (for general coding and automation) Anthropic’s Claude (when we need more nuanced reasoning) Interplexity (for digging into client research and market trends) But we’re not plugging into APIs and calling it a day. The real magic happens when we tailor these tools to our workflows. Customizing AI with Model Context Protocol (MCP) One of our most promising experiments is Model Context Protocol (MCP), a way to run small local servers that feed our own standards, best practices, and project context into AI responses. Think of it like giving ChatGPT a JetRuby playbook before it answers. We’re testing MCP in a few key areas: Backend: Helping engineers write smarter database queries. Frontend: Turning Figma designs into cleaner, more accurate code. QA: Automatically generating test cases from JIRA tickets. Documentation: Transforming loose requirements into structured specs, much like our deep dive into AI code review enhancements. Internally, we’re trying two approaches: A full AI pipeline — where each step in development flows into the next with AI assistance. Surgical AI boosts — focusing only on bottlenecks where AI makes the biggest difference. The big question — which one gives us the best return on effort? We at Jetruby strongly believe AI should solve problems, not add complexity, so we’re careful not to overengineer. AI is not a quick fix for every problem. Today, a skilled developer can often do complex tasks faster than AI. However, AI excels at automating repetitive tasks and speeding up research. So, AI tools help us, but they don’t replace skill. Some engineers face a funny problem: they feel less driven to dig deeper when they don't see big improvements. Most AI models, like OpenAI and Claude, work similarly, so the real difference comes down to how you use AI to automate tasks. Our view? Today's AI is like early Photoshop. It is powerful when used correctly, but it is not a simple shortcut. We encourage our team to develop their skills now because these tools will improve. Open-Source vs. Paid Models: Where Things Stand Open-source options like Llama are getting better, but they still can’t match the reliability of paid solutions. We are watching their progress, but for now, fully integrating AI throughout the development process, where business analysts, developers, and quality assurance teams can easily share AI-processed work, is still in progress. Where AI Already Shines: Automating the Routine While dev work is still a balancing act, back-office tasks are where AI delivers clear wins today. We’re already using it for: Transcribing meetings (video → audio → searchable text) Checking compliance (automated text analysis against standards) Generating reports (pulling data into digestible summaries) These aren’t flashy, but they save real time, exactly the kind of low-effort, high-return use cases we love. We’re excited about AI, but we’re not handing over the keys. The best results come when smart people use smart tools, not when tools try to replace people. So we’ll keep experimenting, measuring, and refining. Because at the end of the day, AI should work for us, not the other way around. For teams looking to reduce inefficiencies, our guide on reducing employee turnover complements AI adoption strategies. AI-Enhanced Efficiency Transform your business! With AI as a powerful support tool, our skilled engineers work more efficiently and effectively, enhancing outcomes and driving profitability! Get in touch AI Task Automation: Implementation Journey At JetRuby, we’ve taken a deliberate approach: no reckless experimentation, but no hesitation either. Instead, we’ve integrated AI the same way we handle any major tech shift: through structured discipline, real-world testing, and a focus on measurable impact. Our engineering teams have always been organized into practice groups, each specializing in a core technology stack. These groups, led by senior engineers, continuously refine our approaches to problem-solving, tools, and training. We didn’t tear down this structure when AI started gaining traction. Security was (and still is) a top concern. The tech industry tends to swing between two extremes: some companies dive headfirst into AI with little regard for data risks, while others avoid it entirely out of fear. We chose a middle path: cautious but proactive adoption. Right now, we’re handling security in two ways: Strategic vendor partnerships. We only work with AI providers that meet strict data protection standards, backed by airtight agreements. In-house tool development. We're building our solutions to automate IT tasks in cases where external tools don’t cut it. We know stricter policies are coming, and we’re already preparing for them. But in the meantime, we do not wait around and implement AI with the right safeguards. When we first introduced AI tools, reactions were mixed. Some engineers were excited, others were hesitant, preferring tried-and-true manual methods. We didn’t force the issue. Instead, we showed, rather than told. We gave developers small, concrete tasks: "Try building this feature with AI assistance." or "Use this tool to automate part of your workflow." The results spoke for themselves. Even the biggest skeptics started seeing the value, not because AI solved everything perfectly, but because it saved real time on repetitive tasks. That said, we’re also realistic about the future. AI is no longer a nice-to-have — it’s becoming a core skill. Soon, engineers who don’t leverage AI will struggle to keep up with those who do. That’s why we’re gradually factoring AI proficiency into performance reviews. Yet, it doesn't mean we force adoption, but rather staying competitive. With multiple teams working across different tech stacks, consistency is key. To make sure AI adoption wasn’t fragmented, we set up regular discipline lead meetings where teams share: What’s working — Which tools deliver the best results for specific tasks How to implement them — Best practices for integration How to train effectively — Onboarding strategies that actually stick We also updated our skills matrix to include AI competencies, making it clear that it’s part of how we work now. Some companies obsess over metrics like "percentage of AI-generated code." We don’t. Why? Because today’s benchmarks might be irrelevant tomorrow. Instead, we focus on real-world improvements. For example, prototyping used to take a week. Now, with AI-assisted workflows, we’re delivering in 3-4 days. That’s the difference that matters, not abstract numbers, but tangible speed and quality gains. AI isn’t magic. It’s a tool, one that’s constantly evolving. Our approach reflects that: stay flexible, prioritize real impact over hype, and make sure adoption happens in a way that’s sustainable, secure, and genuinely useful. The tools will keep changing, but our goal won’t: building better software, faster. And right now, AI is helping us do exactly that. Considering Ruby on Rails for SaaS? Here’s why it’s a perfect match: 9 Reasons Why Ruby on Rails is Ideal for SaaS. Measuring Success: Achieving Faster Delivery So, what tasks can AI perform? As we at Jetruby started integrating AI into development workflows, we've seen measurable performance gains, particularly in prototyping and reducing time-intensive tasks. One standout example comes from a complex eCommerce project with a highly intricate database architecture. Even senior developers found crafting efficient queries for product reports challenging. After multiple experts spent considerable time optimizing a billing data query, they turned to ChatGPT for assistance. The AI generated a fully functional SQL query in just 30 minutes. Previously, similar tasks would have taken hours or even days. AI performs well in structured environments like SQL, where requirements are clearly defined. But the efficiency gains extend beyond database optimization. In another case, a non-developer on our team created comprehensive time-off dashboards in a single evening using AI. He simply described the data structure and requirements to AI and bypassed the need for deep SQL expertise. As a result, he connected Superset BI tools to the company’s internal ERP system with minimal manual coding. The productivity improvements have impressed clients, but they’ve also sparked some industry misconceptions. With AI’s ability to generate functional code snippets, some non-technical stakeholders assume developers are becoming obsolete or that teams not using AI are already at a disadvantage. We emphasize that this isn’t the case. Current AI tools still heavily require skilled human oversight. However, when clients see tangible results, they immediately recognize the value. Rapid dashboard development and database reporting have been particularly persuasive, and showcased the main benefit of using AI in automating tasks and how AI can cut costs and maintain quality. We developed a Farming Management System (FMS) that closely tracks each cow, without manually logging weights and milk quantities. Small IoT sensors on collars and smart scales in the milking parlor collect data. This data goes into a Spark-powered system, which stores everything in a PostgreSQL database. Then AI models analyze this data. A simple neural network and a support vector machine (SVM) predict drops in milk production or early signs of illness. A simplified YOLOv4-Tiny model monitors barn videos to spot unusual behavior, like bulls pacing or cows being isolated. Since everything runs in Docker on Amazon Web Services (AWS), these processes happen in real time. When the AI detects a problem, like a predicted decrease in milk yield or a stressed cow, it sends SMS and email alerts and can adjust feeding plans automatically. This ongoing cycle of sensing, analyzing, and acting has led to a 28% increase in milk yield and a 35% reduction in veterinary costs, while automating about 95% of routine monitoring tasks. AI in the Farm Management System (FMS) makes checks quicker and easier using data instead of manual work. This helps farmers take better care of their animals, saves them time, and increases their productivity. Our decision to integrate AI now was a forward-thinking move, as we recognize that organizations without hands-on experience will struggle to catch up as AI evolves. By embedding AI into workflows today, we are future-proofing our teams’ capabilities, so our company remains competitive when the technology matures. Pre-sales engagements have seen some of the most dramatic improvements too. With the help of generative AI, business analysts now rapidly refine client ideas, create prototypes, and clarify requirements much faster. But of course, the human element remains irreplaceable.   Need hosting for Rails apps? Compare the best Ruby on Rails hosting providers.   Challenges & Lessons Learned At JetRuby, we have learned that we get the most value from AI when human experts guide its use. This principle shapes our work in presales and development projects, and it will soon affect our project management systems. At first, we struggled with inconsistent output quality and a lack of standard processes. These issues stemmed from our company culture and our technology. Although we have made progress, we understand that as we expand AI across the company, we'll have new challenges. One major challenge in managing workflows with AI assistants is that human oversight can be unreliable. We have seen this with clients who rely on in-house development teams. Developers, pressed for time or overly trusting, often accept AI-generated code without checking it properly, despite knowing how to use AI to automate tasks. The consequences are stark: Poor Quality Visibility — Flaws become glaringly obvious upon review. Unprofessional Output — Sloppy or nonsensical implementations damage credibility. Security Risks — The most dangerous pitfall of all. The risks go beyond just being inefficient. AI models, especially those that generate code, can create false information, like fake package names, APIs, or even entire libraries. This is dangerous because malicious actors can quickly take advantage of these mistakes; that’s exactly why we emphasize how to use AI to automate tasks responsibly. There are cases where hackers watch AI-generated code, find these made-up dependencies, and then publish harmful packages with the same names. When developers, especially those who skip checking their code, use these infected dependencies, the results can be disastrous: Cryptocurrency miners can silently drain resources Data breaches expose sensitive information Reputational and financial damage far exceeds the cost of the project itself At JetRuby, we have learned that we need clear guidelines for using AI. While AI can speed up development, it can also pose risks if we don’t have human oversight. As we increase our use of AI, we are focusing on: Mandatory review protocols for AI-generated outputs Developer training to combat complacency Security-first dependency management The path to effective AI adoption is augmenting human judgment. Stay ahead with Rails 8’s latest features! Future Outlook The way we build software is changing. At JetRuby, we see AI task automation tools as a helpful partner for developers, not a replacement. This collaboration will reshape our work, favoring teams that use it effectively. In the coming years, most coding will likely be done with help from AI, and engineers will take on more strategic roles. Two important job types will emerge: Code Refiners. These developers focus on details and improve AI-generated code to ensure it meets high performance, security, and maintainability standards. System Architects. These planners design how complex systems work together. They create the frameworks that allow AI-generated parts to function smoothly. Imagine applications that are built from smart, self-adjusting modules. These can be updated using natural language prompts instead of manual coding. While we aren't there yet, our current focus is on integrating AI into our existing workflows, from the first idea to the final launch. The main challenge is to ensure the switch between human and machine contributions is smooth across all teams. We also look at how AI can improve project leadership and team management. AI can help us identify risks sooner, allocate resources more effectively, and keep projects on track — something we’ve already started implementing in our CTO advisory services. Today’s AI tools can write good code. However, they struggle with context. Even the best models find it hard to understand large, complex projects. The real breakthrough will happen when AI can fully understand: A project’s entire codebase (not just snippets) Up-to-date business requirements The full suite of tests and quality checks All the subtle, unwritten rules that make our solutions unique When AI can reach this level of awareness, developers will focus mostly on time guiding the process, like conductors leading a group of smart tools. Where JetRuby Is Heading In the next two to three years, we will focus on two main goals: Building Our Own AI Advantage We have a vast collection of high-quality code that we will use to train AI models. These models will think like us and generate code that meets JetRuby's standards and best practices. Letting AI Handle the Heavy Lifting AI will soon help with writing code and quality control. It will automatically check reports, logs, and outputs. We are already testing AI in training and development, and we have seen some exciting early results: Instant training videos. AI helps create polished instructional videos from slide decks in minutes instead of days. Smarter onboarding. AI will generate learning materials tailored to our internal processes. AI presenters. This allows experts to focus on their knowledge while AI handles the presentation. The key idea? Humans focus on the "what" and "why". AI handles the "how." The AI field changes daily, and we’re ready to adapt. One thing will always stay the same: JetRuby's commitment to leading the way. Our CTO as a Service is about empowering your team with the right leadership, structure, and vision. If you are new to AI or want to improve your existing solutions, our experienced team is here to help you as trusted partners. We take the time to understand your unique challenges, then roll up our sleeves to: Simplify the Complex We assess your current workflows, team dynamics, and tech stack, cutting through the noise to focus on what matters. Build with Confidence From strategy to execution, we help implement AI initiatives smoothly and ensure they align with your business goals. Grow with You We don’t set things up and leave. We stay to refine, adapt, and future-proof your team. Think of us as your tech leaders who are ready to help. We combine AI’s accuracy with the knowledge of skilled professionals. That’s a future we can create, where you can seamlessly automate business tasks and leverage AI for everything from presales to project delivery. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you need professional advice. ### Why You Shouldn't Fear of AI Taking Jobs Fun fact: In 2023, AI adoption grew by 270%, yet unemployment hit a 50-year low. Nevertheless, headlines about AI destroying jobs or AI stealing jobs dominate the media. The fear of AI taking jobs comes from predictions of machines outsmarting humans or robots making entire skill sets obsolete. That naturally sparks anxiety: Will your job be at risk in a year, or even six months? Will entire professions vanish overnight? It’s easy to see why people worry about AI. However, the fear of artificial intelligence and such apocalyptic scenarios often ignores history, real-world data, and the fact that humans are incredibly adaptable. Let’s break it down. Key Takeaways AI automates tasks, not roles: AI will not take over jobs, but enhance them. Emotional intelligence cannot be replaced. Jobs that require empathy and understanding, like therapy, leadership, and customer service, still depend on humans. The World Economic Forum's report predicts that new "jobs of tomorrow" will be created faster than the number of jobs that will be lost. Critical thinking > automation. In fields like law, medicine, and research, people should use AI as a tool to support their own judgment, not as a replacement. Upskilling is key for the future. The future rewards those who combine technical skills with human abilities. Collaboration > competition. AI excels at tasks that need speed, like reviewing documents. Meanwhile, Humans focus on strategy and creativity, showing how AI and humans can work well together. AI in the Workplace: Adaptation, Not Replacement Recent findings from McKinsey’s 2024 report shed some light on the true state of AI in the workplace. An impressive 71% of companies now employ artificial intelligence in tasks such as AI task automation for routine work, administrative help, and even preliminary decision-making. Yet, many of these businesses don't fear of AI taking jobs. They believe AI won't replace us because a lot of jobs require human connection. That’s a major disconnect from the constant drumbeat warning about “AI taking jobs.” In reality, jobs evolve and shift rather than just vanish. Why the discrepancy? A big part of it comes from the nature of AI itself. AI excels at well-structured, predictable tasks, like analyzing massive datasets at unimaginable speeds for human employees. But it’s still limited regarding emotional intelligence, moral reasoning, and genuine creativity. Think of a chatbot that can answer basic customer questions. It can parse keywords in a query, pull from a script, and spit out a response. But it can’t truly grasp the emotional context behind someone’s frustration or tailor a response with heartfelt empathy. These are qualities that remain uniquely human. The demand for AI-related skills in general is truly on the rise. But if we look back through history, from the industrial revolution to the digital age, new technologies haven’t eradicated the workforce but reconfigured it. The key, it seems, is to adapt rather than resist. Therefore, focus on improving skills in areas where AI has difficulty. This will help you succeed in a world that is becoming more automated. Creativity and Emotional Intelligence: Why AI Can’t Compete One of the most significant differences between humans and artificial intelligence is our capacity for creativity and emotional depth. AI can generate a high volume of ideas in a fraction of the time it takes a human. In fact, generative AI models can produce anything from blog posts to digital art, and some look pretty convincing. AI does not truly get “inspiration.” Instead, it looks at data patterns from existing content to create something new. This new content may seem original, but it is really based on statistical chances. For instance, let’s say you ask an AI image generator to create a concept for a futuristic automobile. It will analyze countless images of cars, identify patterns (like shapes, textures, angles), and then combine those elements into something that seems novel. While that might appear creative, it lacks the emotional or cultural context that a human designer brings. One might say, “I’m getting ideas from nature,” or “I want this design to bring back memories of 1960s muscle cars.” AI alone doesn’t create that. It can only mix existing patterns with little to no emotional context at the moment. This difference matters even more when you factor in emotional intelligence. AI can be trained to recognize facial expressions or words that show someone is upset. However, it doesn’t truly feel empathy. It analyzes data like expressions or phrases and gives them a probability label, such as “this user is 78% likely to be angry,” and then provides a set response. In contrast, humans can pick up on subtle cues, like a quiver in someone’s voice, signs of frustration in their body language, or even the context of that person's emotional history. Example: Ad agencies often use tools like Midjourney or DALL·E to create concept sketches and brainstorm different layouts quickly. However, the emotional appeal, such as a tagline that connects with a specific cultural moment, usually comes from a person. While machines can make educated guesses, only humans can truly understand those emotions. Emotional marketing raises the chances of conversion by 70%. While AI can provide relevant images or even write a basic draft of marketing copy, truly connecting with people’s emotions requires understanding cultural values, personal experiences, and local context. These are areas where AI still struggles. Instead of seeing AI as something that will replace jobs, we should view it as a tool that makes work faster. AI can help with the early stages of generating ideas, allowing creative professionals to focus on refining their work and developing deeper concepts. So, creative industries are not as threatened as some might think. In fact, they can benefit from using AI to improve efficiency while keeping the important human elements that connect emotionally with people. Critical Thinking: The Human Edge Critical thinking means combining different types of information to make a decision. This information can be based on data, context, or intuition. Computers analyze data, but they struggle with nuance and ambiguity. When they face conflicting information or need to make moral decisions, AI cannot think creatively. It follows rules or patterns from past data and cannot adapt without reprogramming or retraining. Think about legal tasks. AI can quickly analyze thousands of case files and laws to provide a lawyer with relevant precedents, saving time. However, creating a legal strategy, predicting the opposing lawyer's moves, reading jury reactions, and understanding local culture still rely on a lawyer’s experience, emotional intelligence, and creativity. AI can help you find the right cases and suggest possible arguments. However, it doesn't have the deep understanding of human conflict and resolution that an experienced lawyer gains from years of practice. For example, in large law firms, lawyers use AI tools more often to review documents. While AI can identify patterns and highlight specific phrases, lawyers still need to understand the details. If evidence is unclear, AI cannot think through its own “thoughts” or guess the context. A human lawyer, however, can catch subtle hints and understand the underlying messages. Researchers at the University of Toronto pointed out that making decisions usually involves predicting the results and figuring out if those results are good. This finding highlights the unique value of humans in problem-solving roles, such as strategic planning and conflict resolution. Rather than just following scripts, we can question, modify, or create new strategies. AI + Humans = Stronger Outcomes Instead of seeing AI and humans as competitors, consider them a strong team. AI is great at quickly sorting through large amounts of data, finding unusual patterns, and making suggestions. Humans can review these suggestions thoughtfully, consider emotions and ethics, and create well-rounded solutions that machines can't come up with on their own. GitHub Copilot shows how AI can assist developers. It analyzes public code to suggest lines or blocks, saving time on repetitive tasks. A human engineer must then review these suggestions to ensure they address the problem, follow security rules, and align with the organization’s coding standards. The 2024 Stack Overflow developer survey found that over 80% of developers believe AI tools make them more productive. This is a big jump from 33% in 2023. Additionally, 62% said AI helps them learn faster, and 59% said it makes their work more efficient. AI takes care of routine tasks, so employees can focus on generating new ideas, improving user experiences, or working on more complex tasks that require strategic thinking.   Want to retain your best people while introducing AI? Read JetRuby’s guide on the 13 ways to reduce employee turnover.   The best results come when AI and people work together. Companies that effectively use AI while valuing human insight outperform those that rely on old methods or automate carelessly. The key is to use AI for efficiency while maintaining the qualities that make us valuable decision-makers. Fear of AI Taking Jobs — Will It Take All of Them? The fear that new technology “kills jobs” has been around for centuries. From the textile mills of the Industrial Revolution to the dawn of the Internet, every leap forward is met with predictions of unemployment crises. And while some jobs do become obsolete, new roles usually emerge in tandem, often higher-skilled, better-paying roles that leverage the new technology. So, should you be worried about AI taking your job? Look at bank tellers as an example. After the widespread adoption of ATMs, many assumed bank teller positions would vanish. Indeed, they declined by 30% over the years. However, BLS shows that more complex financial advisory roles, such as personal financial advisors, are expected to grow by 17% from 2023 to 2033. Similarly, jobs that won't be affected by AI will evolve into higher-value tasks. What happens is that the nature of banking is changing. Many bank employees have moved away from just doing basic transactions. They now focus more on helping customers, managing relationships, and selling financial products. These tasks require empathy and judgment, which are more important than simple counting. And this cycle happens in many industries. Grocery store checkout lines now have self-service kiosks, but this doesn’t mean retail jobs will disappear. Instead, the focus shifts from scanning items to helping customers, managing inventory, or taking on more specialized tasks that need human attention. People often forget that when tasks are automated, companies usually move human workers to tasks that create more value. Workers can do well in roles that require flexibility and personal interaction, like cross-selling new services or providing better customer care. Meanwhile, businesses gain from the efficiency that automation brings.   If your business needs to adapt, here's how to pivot effectively without losing direction.   Let’s look at doctors and pharmacists. AI is already helping diagnose diseases, predict patient risks, and even recommend medications. Some fear this means machines will replace human clinicians. But the reality is more nuanced. Doctors won’t lose their jobs to AI. Instead, AI will handle routine tasks like analyzing lab results or flagging anomalies in scans. Here's the thing about healthcare — it shows why some jobs just can't be automated. Think about it: you don't just grab medicine off a shelf when you're sick. You see a doctor who listens to your symptoms, checks your history, and makes a judgment call. Then a pharmacist double-checks everything to make sure you get exactly what you need, in the right amount. And it’s not about bureaucracy at all because we need to keep people safe. Some decisions need human judgment: understanding nuances, weighing risks, and making ethical calls. A computer can't look you in the eye or pick up on subtle cues that something's not quite right. And that's why certain professions, especially in fields like healthcare, aren't going anywhere. You can't shortcut the system because the system exists for good reason. For all the amazing things AI can do, there are some areas where we'll always need that human touch, at least for the foreseeable future. The same pattern holds across healthcare. Nurses might spend less time on paperwork and more on bedside care. Radiologists could rely on AI for initial image analysis but still make the final call. The core of medicine, like listening, empathizing, and making judgment calls, remains deeply human. Debunking the “Economic Apocalypse” Myth Some media outlets say robots will take all the jobs, leaving humans unemployed. However, history and current data show a different story. Technology can change traditional jobs, but the economy usually adapts by creating new jobs that didn’t exist before. New jobs appear for everyone AI displaces, according to the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2023. That might look surprising, but it aligns with past technological shifts. For example, the Internet eliminated certain “offline” roles (think of travel agents or video store clerks), but simultaneously spawned jobs in e-commerce, digital marketing, social media management, and more. What about wage stagnation or growing inequality? That is a valid concern. Technology can lead to wealth concentration if our policies and education do not keep up. However, we should not stop progress — we must invest in workforce training. Governments, businesses, and individuals should ensure that training in AI-related fields is available. This will help employees move into new roles as old ones become less relevant. People fear an “economic apocalypse” because they think more jobs will be lost than created, but the data does not support this idea. Instead, it shows that proactive steps like education, skill development, and supportive laws can help the workforce grow with technology. The bottom line? Should we fear of AI taking jobs? No, because AI transforms jobs, not eliminates them! How to Future-Proof Your Career Concerned about keeping up in the AI economy? Balance technical skills with soft skills that AI can't easily replicate. Learn about AI Tools: A basic understanding of machine learning, prompt engineering, and data management can help you stand out. Websites like Coursera, edX, or coding bootcamps offer easy ways to get started. Learning the basics will help you understand where AI can help and might not work well. Focus on Soft Skills: Emotional intelligence, communication, leadership, and negotiation. These are skills and jobs AI can't replace. They take years to develop and are in high demand because AI struggles to replicate them. Understanding feelings, resolving conflicts, and making thoughtful decisions are things only humans can do well. Invest in personal development courses, workshops, or hands-on experiences to improve these skills. Keep Learning: Technology is changing quickly, and it won't slow down. Treat your education and training as an ongoing journey, not a one-time event. Regularly update your skills. Look for new certifications, stay updated with industry trends, and be open to changing your career path if a new opportunity comes up. Want to see how top-tier companies assess talent? Here’s a look inside JetRuby’s hiring process for high-performing engineers. Use AI as a Helpful Tool: If you are a marketer, let AI examine customer data to find patterns. This gives you more time to create your marketing message. If you are a project manager, let AI take care of scheduling so you can focus on your team and planning. For instance, JetRuby built a custom ERP system to help businesses automate scheduling, reporting, and operations without losing human oversight. Using these strategies shows that you can use AI's efficiency while still providing the personal, creative, and ethical insights machines cannot offer. Should we fear A.I.? Only if we ignore how humans adapt. So, should we worry about AI? Maybe a little, but worry should drive action, not paralysis. Why JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot Is Your AI Ally Integrating AI can seem daunting for midsize businesses, especially if you don’t have a large tech team. You might think you need to hire a whole data science team or overhaul your entire infrastructure. JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot can simplify this process. We develop tailored AI solutions to meet your business needs, like automating parts of your sales process, improving logistics, or speeding up software testing. We recently helped a client in the Engineering & Construction sector make their code reviews faster and more consistent using AI solutions. Instead of sifting through thousands of lines of code manually, developers could quickly review only the flagged parts, saving hours of repetitive work. As a result, the team had more time to build new features, improve user interfaces, and connect with customers to understand their needs better. JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot goes beyond simple task automation and enhances your team's work. We often implement AI in Ruby on Rails SaaS platforms, where stability, speed, and scale matter.   If you're deploying AI apps with Rails, here are the best hosting options for speed and reliability.   When you see headlines about AI taking jobs, it’s normal to feel anxious. Yet, the facts reveal a brighter future — most jobs will change, not disappear. Our creativity, empathy, and ability to adapt cannot be easily copied by machines. Ready to see how AI can streamline your processes without replacing the people who make your business special? Contact JetRuby today to explore custom AI integrations tailored to your goals. ### Optimizing Engineer Allocation at JetRuby: How We Strategically Distribute Talent Across Projects At JetRuby, we keep engineer allocation at the forefront of our strategy. We believe that our success depends on our ability to match the right talent to the right project. Our internal data shows that well-assembled teams boost efficiency by up to 20% at the start of a new project.  We rely on well-defined metrics and precise planning to assemble high-performing teams. Our transparent engineer allocation process gives clients a clear view of how talent directly aligns with project needs. Meanwhile, engineers can focus on tasks that match their expertise. Learn more about how our custom ERP system supports this process. Our model also protects against overstaffing, which can lead to miscommunication, higher costs, and wasted resources. Our approach emphasizes that a lean team, built on a strong philosophy, generates better software outcomes, enhances customer satisfaction, and maintains a motivated workforce. This transparent narrative sets the stage for our projects. So there are 4 key pillars here: Better teamwork: Open, efficient communication enhances collaboration. Faster deliverables: Clear responsibilities shorten delivery times. Cost savings: Clients pay only for necessary roles. Client satisfaction: Transparency builds trust and confidence. In this guide, we’ll explain our strategy from start to finish, illustrate the process, and share expert insights. JetRuby’s Engineer Allocation Philosophy: No Unnecessary People, Only the Right Talent JetRuby works with a precise philosophy: we assign only the people who add value. We reject the idea of loading projects with extra staff. Instead, we choose the best individual for each task based on personalized development plans and invest in training when we lack a required skill. Advantages for Clients and Projects Below is a table that highlights the main benefits our clients and projects gain from our allocation philosophy. Putting Philosophy into Practice The following table explains how we implement our philosophy through clear role alignment, skill verification, and resource investment. Our philosophy differs from many competitors. We do not split an engineer’s work time among several projects. We focus on providing each project with a dedicated, high-performing team.  And we believe this clarity and precision result in projects that reach completion faster and meet quality standards consistently. Assessing Project Talent Needs at the Start (Scope, Roles, and Skills) At the start of every project, we define the talent needs in exact detail. JetRuby’s process begins with a full evaluation of technical requirements.  We consider project scope, complexity, and timeline. This stage lays the foundation for a team that meets every project requirement without excess staff. Evaluating Existing Code and Architecture See how we analyze existing technical foundations before launching projects. Gathering Detailed Client Requirements Learn how we precisely define the client's needs and project requirements. Mapping Tasks to Expert Roles Discover our method for aligning specific tasks with the right expertise. Aligning Roles with Project Timeline Find out how we synchronize talent allocation with project timelines. The thorough upfront analysis allows us to detail exact roles. This process emphasizes that we plan every project step before starting work, which reduces confusion and increases success rates. Matching Engineers to Projects: Selecting the Best Person for Each Role The core of our allocation strategy is choosing the correct engineer for each role. We can’t rely on generic assignments. Instead, we base every decision on a combination of technical skills, past project experience, and current workload.  Our method answers two vital questions: “What exactly makes an engineer the best choice?” and “How exactly do we make that selection?” Evaluating Engineer Fit Criteria The following table summarizes our selection criteria for choosing the best engineer for each role. Step‑by‑Step Matching Workflow Below is a table that outlines the steps we follow to match engineers to projects, from role confirmation to review and adjustment. Using these exact steps, we guarantee that each project receives the right person for every role. This careful matching process leads to teams that complete projects faster and with higher quality. Find out more about our hiring process for top engineers. Avoiding Overstaffing: Lean Teams and Efficiency in Practice At JetRuby, we view lean teams as a strength. Our internal surveys show that reducing team size optimizes communication, speeds up decision-making, and saves project costs. We steer clear of adding extra engineers “just in case” by focusing on exact project needs. Benefits of Lean Team Structures The table below demonstrates why lean teams work by breaking down the benefits of direct communication, faster progress, and cost efficiency. Preventing Overstaffing with Safeguards Below is a table outlining the safeguards we use to prevent overstaffing. Our approach provides clarity and fosters a culture of responsibility, where each engineer has a specific mandate that contributes directly to success. It also helps reduce employee turnover. How We Decide: The Allocation Process and Safeguards Our decision-making process covers every step from project initiation to team formation. We use a consistent and transparent framework that makes our allocation both deliberate and adaptive. And our in-house CTO controls and guides the process. The steps below highlight our approach from project kickoff to final approval. Detailed Allocation Workflow The following table provides a step-by-step overview of our allocation process, from initiation to implementation. Allocation Governance Measures The next table describes the safeguards we use to maintain effective engineer allocation and address conflicts. Learn more about how AI code reviews enhance Ruby on Rails development. Upskilling from Within vs. Hiring New Talent (Filling Skill Gaps) JetRuby faces a dynamic market where required skills change quickly. We rely on a dual strategy to meet project demands: developing internal talent and recruiting new experts when necessary. Our plan avoids skill gaps and keeps our teams competitive. Criteria for Internal Upskilling This table explains our approach when we opt for upskilling. Process for Recruiting New Experts The next table details our process for hiring new talent when internal skills are insufficient. Combined Approach JetRuby employs a flexible approach that adjusts to project demands. We balance internal growth and external recruitment by: Monitoring Skill Gaps. Regular reviews of the skills matrix reveal specific areas that need improvement. Setting Training Targets. We form training programs that address clear market needs. Launching Recruitment Drives. In cases of urgent requirements, we recruit new talent with targeted hiring plans. This balanced strategy maintains a robust and competitive engineering team. The company always secures the right mix of talent to meet client expectations. Boost Your Team With 15 years of Ruby on Rails expertise. Accelerate development, integrate seamlessly, and receive full support. Get in touch Considering Team Fit and Individual Growth in Allocation At JetRuby, we treat every engineer as an individual with unique skills, career goals, and team preferences. We assess technical ability alongside cultural fit and personal growth plans. This approach builds stable and motivated teams that produce high-quality results. Balancing Personal Growth with Team Fit The table below outlines how personal growth and cultural fit influence our allocation process through regular one-on-one meetings and compatibility checks. Practical Allocation Process Below is a table summarizing the practical steps we follow in allocation, including evaluating work styles and planning for personal development. This human-centered approach makes our teams robust and agile. By aligning technical needs with personal goals, JetRuby builds a workforce that feels connected and empowered. Metrics and Feedback: Continuously Improving Allocation Decisions JetRuby does not set allocation decisions once and forget them. We track key performance indicators (KPIs) and continuously collect feedback to adjust our strategies. Our rigorous metrics guide every decision and help us evolve our methods over time. Essential Engineer Allocation Performance Metrics The table below highlights the key metrics we monitor to ensure continuous improvement in our allocation decisions. Leveraging Feedback for Continuous Improvement This table explains how we use feedback to continuously refine our allocation strategies. Every allocation decision finds support in hard data and expert input. Client Benefits: How Optimal Engineer Allocation Enhances Project Outcomes Clients see firsthand the benefits of our structured allocation approach. At JetRuby, every decision translates into clear value.  Our clients enjoy projects that are delivered on time, within budget, and with a focus on quality. We detail below the advantages that stem from our tailored team assignments. Core Advantages for Clients Explore the direct benefits our clients enjoy through our strategic talent distribution. Demonstrating Engineer Allocation Value See the evidence we provide to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. JetRuby’s allocation strategy improves internal efficiency and helps directly contribute to positive client experiences. Our process creates clear, measurable value that fosters long-term partnerships. Conclusion: Allocation as a Commitment to Quality and Efficiency JetRuby commits to strategic engineer allocation as a fundamental element of our service. We craft teams that produce higher efficiency, improved quality, and clear cost control for every project. We always assign the right expert to the right task and invest in growth when skill gaps occur. The process starts with thorough project assessments and carries through every stage of execution. Our transparent philosophy and dedicated internal tools allow us to manage team composition actively.  We track performance metrics, gather detailed feedback, and adjust strategies for each project to succeed. JetRuby looks ahead with a focus on innovation and continuous improvement. We see promising trends in the use of Artificial Intelligence to refine talent allocation further.  Our clients benefit from: Timely project delivery Superior work quality Cost transparency Clear, responsive communication We invite potential clients and industry peers to discuss our methods further. We believe that thoughtful, strategic talent distribution is key to future success in software projects. Please contact us if you have any questions or need professional advice on optimizing your development team. ### How Smart Team Composition Helped Backbase Save 15% While Maintaining Quality When companies need to grow their tech teams, they often choose to hire Senior engineers. This makes sense because more experience usually leads to better results. However, not every task requires a Senior's skills. For example, paying a top chef to make a sandwich may result in a fantastic sandwich, but it may not be worth the high cost. Many businesses make this mistake, hiring expensive senior talent when a development team optimization could achieve the same results more efficiently. At JetRuby, we wanted to change this mindset. We focused on matching the right skills to the specific tasks. Based on the smart team composition approach, we can deliver high-quality work without charging a high price. We demonstrated this approach with our project for Backbase, and the results showed the benefits clearly. Key takeaways: Senior ≠ Always Better. Paying for senior talent on mid-level tasks wastes budget without adding value. Skills > Titles. A well-trained mid-level engineer can outperform an unmotivated senior. Right-sizing roles saved Backbase 15% without sacrificing quality. Pre-vetted teams integrate faster (2 weeks vs. 4-6) and reduce risk. JetRuby Academy’s <1% acceptance rate ensures high-caliber mid-level hires. Internal career paths boost loyalty and cut long-term hiring costs. You need to pay for actual needs, not impressive job titles. Why Staff Augmentation Was the Perfect Fit Before diving into the Backbase case, let’s talk about why smart development team optimization via staff augmentation was the right solution. What Staff Augmentation Really Means? When clients come to us with hiring needs, they’re usually stuck in one of these frustrating situations: "We need more hands, but hiring takes forever." (And let’s be real, good engineers aren’t just sitting around waiting for job offers.) "Our current team is great, but they don’t have the specific skills we need now." "We’ve tried freelancers, but it’s a gamble; some are great, others disappear mid-project." That’s where JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation based on the smart team composition technique comes in. We don’t just throw random developers at a problem. Most importantly, we ensure every engineer we assign is the right fit for the work needed. How We Build Skilled Professionals At JetRuby, we recognize that technical excellence transcends job titles. A highly skilled Middle engineer with the right training and mindset can deliver superior results compared to an underperforming Senior professional. That's what we call a smart team composition. This principle is the foundation of JetRuby Academy, our rigorous program designed to cultivate top-tier engineering talent. Our Approach to Professional Development: Highly Selective Admissions: With an acceptance rate of less than 1% out of 200+ applicants per position, we ensure that only the most promising candidates join our program. Real-World Project Experience: Academy participants work on active client projects, gaining practical skills that extend far beyond theoretical knowledge. Expert Mentorship: Our seasoned engineers provide personalized guidance, helping students navigate complex coding challenges while fostering professional growth. Proven Readiness for the Workforce: Graduates must successfully defend their final projects, demonstrating their ability to deliver immediate value in a professional environment. By combining selective admissions, hands-on experience, and expert mentorship, we prepare developers to excel from their first day at work. The Backbase Challenge: Growing Quickly Without Going Over Budget Backbase was growing fast. As a leader in digital banking solutions, its tech team was stretched thin. Development was moving quicker than they could hire, and they needed skilled SDETs to automate testing and speed up releases. The budget was tight, but delays weren’t an option. Like most companies in their position, their first instinct was to hire senior engineers across the board. It made sense: critical projects demanded top-tier expertise, and they didn’t want to cut corners. But when we managed to dig deeper, we found a smarter way. JetRuby’s team ran a skills assessment and spotted an opportunity: Yes, they needed senior talent, for example, for complex system design and deep debugging. But a lot of the work? Feature implementation, test scripting, and routine reviews could run smoothly with strong mid-level engineers. The problem? They were paying premium rates for tasks that didn’t always require that level of experience. The fix? A smart team composition! Instead of an all-Senior team, we suggested: Seniors for critical leadership & high-complexity tasks. Middles for execution-heavy work (where deep experience wasn’t mandatory). Why this worked: Our Middle engineers aren’t "junior Seniors." Thanks to JetRuby’s Personalized Development Plans (PDPs), they’re constantly upskilling. Many have Senior-level technical skills, just less "big picture" project experience. 2. ISO-certified grading means no guesswork. No inflated titles. If someone’s a Middle, they’ve proven they can deliver at that level. The Results: 15% Savings Without Compromises What Changed? Thanks to a smart team composition, a change in talent deployment led to significant improvements, and the client did not have to sacrifice quality or innovation. By removing its strict focus on seniority, Backbase saved money, boosted productivity, and improved team interactions. More than just numbers, this transformation reshaped perspectives: Costs dropped by 15%: Simply by not overpaying for seniority where it wasn’t needed. Faster onboarding: Our engineers were productive in 2 weeks (vs. 4-6 weeks for external hires). Better test automation: Our SDETs improved coverage, reducing manual QA bottlenecks. Beyond numbers, this shift mattered because: Backbase’s PMs stopped worrying about "expensive idle time." (No more guilt about assigning simple tasks to highly paid Seniors.) Our Middle engineers got to prove themselves on a global project — career growth in action. The client realized seniority is about right-sizing solutions, not titles Building a strong engineering team is about having a smart structure. Create senior-led squads, delegate tasks wisely, and promote from within. This approach helps work continue smoothly when team members leave and builds loyalty, which reduces employee turnover in the long run. Here’s how to design a team that improves over time rather than weakens. For a mid- to large-sized team looking for long-term success, it’s best to set up a balanced structure from the start. It also helps to split the team into smaller sub-teams, each led by senior engineers. This method offers several benefits compared to the original setup. First, assign simple and repetitive tasks to junior team members while giving senior members the more interesting and complex tasks. Next, create a clear path for career growth within the team. Lastly, if a senior member leaves the team (some turnover is normal and even healthy), it will be easier to manage their tasks for the next release because the whole sub-team has been working on them together. When a senior engineer leaves the team, you promote a standard engineer to take their place and then promote a junior engineer to fill the standard position. After that, you just need to hire another junior engineer, which is much easier. Plus, it’s great to have the “We promote from within” approach in your company values. Additionally, engineers who start as juniors and grow through promotions to senior positions tend to be more loyal. This loyalty means you can optimize costs while maintaining high performance (because new hires often require more resources and money), something especially valuable when considering app development costs in 2025. This approach gives you benefits all around. Could This Work for Your Team? "We’re burning budget on Senior devs doing work a Mid could handle." "Hiring takes too long, and freelancers are hit-or-miss." "We need flexibility, so scale up now, maybe down later." If any of these sound familiar, let’s talk! JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation is not about filling positions. Here, our mission is to provide you with the right people for the right tasks at the right time. The Backbase case proved something important: Throwing money at "Senior" labels doesn’t guarantee success. Smart team composition design does. Maybe it’s time to ask: "Are we paying for what we actually need — or just what sounds impressive on paper?" Let’s optimize your team together: contact us! ### Top 20 Routines to Automate With AI Every company faces daily operational tasks that limit employee creativity, and today, AI is the only tool to free staff from repetitive work. Some companies deploying AI task automation have reported achieving 30–50% cost reductions by streamlining processes and cutting down manual labor. Key benefits include 80-90% time savings on tasks and 60-70% reduction in client wait times. This improvement results from intelligent AI workflow automation orchestration and reduced human error, leading to significant overall efficiency gains. In this guide, we’ll reveal twenty critical workflows across six departments where AI automation drives measurable efficiency gains, error reduction, and strategic advantage. Let’s dive in! Key Takeaways AI tools redefine work by shifting routine operations into strategic value creation. Instead of merely speeding up existing processes, deploying AI task automation encourages employees to reallocate their expertise toward innovation and customer-centric strategies. The integration of AI automation tools demands a thoughtful approach that balances machine efficiency with human oversight. Successful digital transformation relies on a joint strategy where AI-enhanced analysis informs decisions rather than replacing critical thinking. Embracing AI workflow automation helps reduce errors and create a transparent data environment. By converting raw operational data into actionable insights, companies can foresee trends and pivot their strategies before issues become critical. Custom-tailored AI solutions help transform customer and employee experiences simultaneously. When businesses deploy intelligent systems that adapt to specific needs, they build trust and engagement, which often drives long-term loyalty and more resilient organizational cultures. Successful integration of AI automation tools demands ongoing training and change management efforts, ensuring teams can fully harness the new technology. AI Task Automation for Marketing and Sales Marketing and sales teams waste 23 hours weekly on repetitive tasks. According to the survey, reps spend 70% of their time on nonselling tasks. Companies tend to use AI to automate tasks and free staff to work on strategic decisions and creative approaches instead. Plan Social Media Posts and Create Content Social media management requires a constant and organized plan for posts. AI automation tools examine audience activity to decide when posts appear on timelines. They also suggest topics to keep users interested. This is what AI has to offer: Analyzes engagement data and recommends content ideas. Sets a consistent plan that saves manual effort and provides a steady brand presence. Determines peak audience times. Suggests topics based on user behavior Analyzes historical engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares) and predicts the best time slots for each social channel. Proposes draft text or visual ideas based on audience interests. A manager then adjusts or approves these posts to ensure brand alignment. Natural Language Generation (NLG) modules rely on massive datasets of brand voice examples, keywords, and synonyms. They produce short captions or hashtags tailored to each social network. They also reference competitor data to recommend unique angles.   For more insights on leveraging AI for effective content planning, check out our article on understanding AI training data   Personalized Email Campaigns Email campaigns target subscribers with a message that suits each segment of the audience. AI automation software reviews subscriber data and crafts emails to match interests.  This approach supports email campaigns that feel customized to each reader: An AI-based system eliminates manual segmentation and builds messages that drive higher customer response. The system splits the audience into segments based on interests and demographics. It then drafts tailored emails that match the unique needs of each segment. Marketers review these emails for accuracy before distribution. Machine learning models (often gradient boosting or random forest algorithms) crunch large sets of customer data to identify patterns. These patterns inform the dynamic generation of content blocks, such as recommended items in the email body. Lead Scoring and Qualification Sales teams work with many leads and need a method to pick promising ones. An AI task automation tool reviews lead data such as customer behavior patterns, demographic details, and past interactions. It assigns a score that indicates which leads show strong potential. The system uses algorithms to compare past customer behavior with current leads. It ranks leads and sends prioritized lists to the sales team, thus assigning clear scores for quick decision-making The sales team follows up with high-ranking leads first and spends less time on low-priority leads. Predictive lead scoring often relies on logistic regression or neural networks. The model trains on previous successful deals to learn which attributes correlate with a closed deal. It then applies that knowledge to new leads in real time. Ad Campaign Optimization Online advertisements require constant review and adjustments to reach target audiences effectively. AI automation platform takes control of budget distribution, bid adjustments, and ad placement. The system monitors key metrics like click counts, conversion rates, and spending.  It makes quick decisions based on viewer behavior that improve ad performance in real time: The system examines real-time metrics from ad platforms. It adjusts the campaign settings based on pre-set thresholds. Marketing teams receive reports on campaign performance to plan their next moves. Reinforcement learning algorithms adapt to changing user behavior. They tweak ad parameters (keyword selection, device targeting, budget allocation) after each performance cycle. The system learns from historical campaign data to handle dynamic audience segments. AI Workflow Automation for Finance and Accounting Finance departments handle many documents and work with invoices, generate reports, and check transactions for errors. AI automation tools reduce manual entry and increase data accuracy for all financial routines. Invoice and Expense Processing Manual processing of invoices and expenses consumes a lot of time. AI automation software uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to extract data from invoices, receipts, and expense forms. It extracts key info such as totals, dates, and vendor information.  Accounting systems update the records automatically, which speeds up payment approvals and expense reimbursements. The system uses optical character recognition (OCR) to read printed text. Algorithms identify and pull essential details and dates, and input the data into accounting systems. Staff then verify the data for record accuracy. Advanced OCR engines use convolutional neural networks to identify text from scanned documents. They then parse the text into structured data fields. Some solutions incorporate natural language understanding to handle multi-page invoices or unusual layouts. Financial Reporting and Analysis Compiling financial reports takes days when done manually because you have to gather data from several sources and format it into useful summaries. AI collects and processes data from multiple systems. It produces reports using standard templates. The system identifies trends and outliers, which helps management make faster, data-driven decisions. AI-based platforms gather financial data across company databases like sales records, expense logs, ledgers, etc. It then merges the data into readable formats. Analysts receive easy-to-use reports with summary insights. Many organizations use a data lake or warehouse architecture (Snowflake, BigQuery) combined with an AI-driven query layer.  This layer runs anomaly detection algorithms and presents daily or weekly snapshots. Tools often use exponential smoothing or Holt-Winters forecasting for trend analysis. Fraud Detection and Risk Alerts Finance staff must identify suspicious transactions early, and doing so manually can’t provide a 100% guarantee. AI studies transaction patterns and account behaviors. It spots potential fraud or errors early. The system alerts teams so that they can take prompt action. AI fraud detectors learn from historical data and pick up unusual trends. It flags anomalies that might signal fraud or errors. Finance staff receive detailed alerts to investigate further. Some financial solutions use graph-based algorithms (for example, network analysis) to spot links between accounts, especially for money laundering. They also use advanced classification techniques to model normal financial flows. Deviations from that baseline trigger alerts. Customer Support: Faster Responses at Scale Customer support teams face large volumes of repetitive inquiries and answer questions that repeat every day. And customers expect prompt answers without long wait periods.  AI can handle common questions while staff address issues that require human judgment. This method cuts down response time and increases overall customer satisfaction. AI Chatbots for Instant Support AI chatbots answer common customer questions 24/7. They handle queries about order status, product details, and basic troubleshooting. Chatbots reduce the workload on support agents and let customers receive answers instantly. AI-based chatbots leverage natural language processing (NLP) to understand user inputs. It then matches each question with the correct answer in its database. Support teams review the chatbot responses regularly to update content. Chatbots that integrate with large language models or domain-specific NLP frameworks often rely on an intent-entity classification approach. The chatbot determines the user’s intent and extracts relevant entities (order ID, account info) to generate an answer. Automated Support Ticket Sorting High volumes of support tickets require smart distribution. AI sorts tickets based on issue type and urgency. It directs simple inquiries to the database and directs complex issues to experts. This method avoids backlogs and speeds up resolution times. AI scans ticket text for keywords. It uses predetermined rules to distribute tickets across teams. Teams then address each issue based on the assigned priority. It saves time by letting the support team start with the most critical issues first, while sending routine issues to FAQs Text classification algorithms, such as naive Bayes or transformer-based models, classify tickets by analyzing historical tickets. The system also references knowledge base articles. This ensures accurate routing without manual filtering. Customer Sentiment Analysis Customer feedback shows product strengths and weaknesses and provides insights into user satisfaction.  An AI tool examines reviews, comments, and social media posts. It identifies the tone behind each piece of feedback. The system helps companies spot issues before they escalate and find areas that deserve attention. AI tools use algorithms to scan large volumes of text for word choice, context, and emotional cues and classify them accordingly. Customer support teams receive early alerts to potential issues and use these insights to make service improvements. Many sentiment analysis solutions use natural language processing (NLP) pipelines. These pipelines convert text into embeddings (vector representations of meaning), then classify sentiments (positive, negative, neutral) with a supervised model.  Some advanced systems can identify sarcasm or domain-specific jargon. Human Resources: Hiring and Employee Onboarding Simplified by AI Tasks Automation HR managers carry a heavy load when they screen resumes, schedule interviews, and help new employees get started.  They can leverage AI to automate tasks and let AI take on administrative steps and lighten the load. This way, human staff have enough time to focus on personal interactions and decision-making. Resume Review and Candidate Shortlisting Recruiters scan hundreds of resumes for the right candidate. AI automation tools review application details, rank candidates by fit, and direct attention to top prospects. It reads candidate applications and compares candidate skills with job demands. HRs get a sorted list of promising candidates for further review, which saves hours of work. AI tools swiftly process large volumes of resumes and reduce human error and oversight. AI typically uses keyword extraction plus semantically aware matching. Some solutions use word embeddings (Word2Vec, GloVe) to match synonyms. They also factor in intangible metrics, such as overall career progress or relevant project experience.   Learn more about our approach to streamlining recruitment in our post on the inside JetRuby hiring process for top engineers.   Interview Time Coordination Assistant Coordinating interviews means matching the calendars of candidates and staff. AI workflow automation system offers a scheduling assistant that finds common free slots. It automatically sends calendar invites and reminders, reducing email overload and manual coordination. AI checks available time slots across multiple calendars and proposes meeting times. It eliminates lengthy email exchanges and quickens the scheduling process for interviews, ensuring a faster meeting setup and organized calendar management. Most scheduling assistants integrate with Outlook or Google Calendar APIs. They fetch real-time availability data and use a rules engine to ensure that required participants are not double-booked. Employee Onboarding System Bringing a new employee on board comes with several standard steps. New hires receive documents, training materials, and access credentials.  AI onboarding platforms guide new employees through each step. This process reduces confusion and speeds up the adaptation of new staff. An AI onboarding tool creates a step-by-step onboarding process with checklists and automated responses. It streamlines administrative work and helps new hires join a company without delays. It provides an automated checklist for new hires and offers answers to frequent questions It also tracks progress through onboarding tasks. AI-driven onboarding portals often rely on user provisioning scripts that auto-generate email accounts, set up role-based access, and assign mandatory training courses.  Chat elements may run on an NLP engine that references an internal knowledge base with general corporate details. CTO as a Service Advance your product with CTO as a Service! Build, attract investors, and confidently report progress. Get in touch AI Task Automation for Software Development and Quality Assurance: Work Smarter, Not Harder Developers and testers spend hours on code checks, test creation, and system reviews. AI lightens the load by handling repetitive checks and test executions. Developers use AI to automate tasks, catch mistakes faster, and release updates with confidence. AI-Assisted Code Review and Quality Assurance Developers leverage AI automation software to analyze code and flag potential bugs or inconsistencies. Human reviewers then address these flagged issues. It examines code for errors and deviations from team standards and checks adherence to coding guidelines, enhancing the overall code quality. It identifies potential bugs in early stages, shortens the code review cycle, and reduces mistakes before code merges occur Tools like DeepCode or SonarQube incorporate pattern matching plus machine learning to detect common vulnerabilities (SQL injection, buffer overflows) and style issues. Some platforms integrate with GitHub or GitLab for a seamless workflow.   For more details on the benefits of integrating AI into code reviews, see our article on how AI code review enhances Ruby on Rails projects   Intelligent Test Automation AI workflow tools automatically generate tests based on product descriptions and interface documentation. They execute these tests, flag errors, and document results for review. This automation saves time and detects issues before releasing software updates. An AI testing tool uses product documentation to list expected outcomes. It then simulates user actions and checks whether the software behaves as expected. QA teams review the test results to pinpoint problematic areas. Test automation frameworks often integrate with model-based testing solutions. These parse requirements documents and produce relevant test flows. They run them on real or virtualized environments, then deliver pass/fail results for each scenario. Proactive System Checks and Alerts AI automation solutions monitor server health, error logs, and resource usage. They send alerts when a system shows early signs of trouble. This proactive approach prevents outages and maintains service quality. AI reviews real-time data from servers to spot abnormal behaviors before issues occur. It reviews system performance parameters in real time, identifies trends that signal upcoming problems, and sends alerts before critical issues develop. DevOps teams often rely on advanced anomaly detection algorithms. These algorithms look at time-series data for memory usage, request latency, and error counts. If the current pattern deviates from typical usage, the system flags it. AI-Driven Bug Triage Bug reports flood software projects after a release. AI sorts these reports by grouping similar issues and assigning priority levels. Developers focus on critical bugs first, improving turnaround times and software stability. An AI-based system categorizes bugs by grouping similar issues and ranking their importance. Developers receive a prioritized list to address the most pressing bugs first. Natural language processing plus clustering algorithms help the engine identify similar bug reports. Some tools link crash logs to source code modules, so the triage step includes recommended owners based on file history. AI Automation for Office Administration: AI as Your Personal Assistant Every company handles daily tasks that require routine management. AI takes charge of these simple tasks. Employees gain time to work on strategic projects and creative work. Meeting Coordination and Calendar Management AI automation tools check calendars and propose time slots that suit everyone. They dispatch invitations and reminders automatically. It reviews calendars, suggests optimal meeting times, and sends notifications. It cuts down coordination emails and reduces scheduling delays. Checks all participant calendars in real time Reduces manual coordination of meeting times Sends out meeting invitations with reminders Calendar management tools often rely on rules-based engines with integrated APIs for each participant’s calendar. They also handle international time zones automatically through dynamic offset calculations.   For additional tips on streamlining office operations, consider our article on why we built a custom ERP system.   Data Entry and Document Processing AI automation software uses OCR to extract details from paper forms, PDFs, and images. It inputs data into digital records accurately. It scans documents and converts printed information into digital text. It minimizes errors and speeds up the record-keeping process, freeing staff for higher-level tasks. Reads printed text with high accuracy Transfers data to databases promptly Frees employees from repetitive data entry tasks Modern OCR tools incorporate morphological analysis to parse text in multiple languages. They also use confidence scoring for each extracted field. If the confidence score dips below a threshold, the system requests human validation. Email Management and Summarization AI tools prioritize messages and create short summaries of lengthy exchanges. They also draft reply suggestions based on context. It sorts emails by importance and crafts concise summaries for busy staff. It saves time by allowing employees to focus on responding to top-priority messages. Highlights key emails first Converts long email threads into digestible summaries Offers draft replies that employees can adjust if needed Some assistants use BERT-based models for text summarization. Others rely on a simpler approach with text extraction, key phrase analysis, and context identification. Users can customize the rules for classification. Summary AI tasks automation tools bring immediate benefits when they address routines in multiple departments. Experts reclaim time for high-level goals while machines handle repetitive duties with near-zero error rates. Marketing teams save time with social media calendars and personalized emails. Financial teams rely on AI to check invoices and produce financial reports.  Customer support teams benefit from instant answers and automated ticket sorting.  HR teams improve candidate screening and streamline onboarding.  Software developers cut down on manual checks through AI-driven reviews, testing, and monitoring.  Office staff use AI to manage meetings and organize information. Many tools and platforms exist, each targeting a specialized niche. In our next article, we will share recommendations on specific AI services for social media scheduling, predictive lead scoring, invoice data extraction, and more. And we’ll explain how to use AI to automate tasks and enhance your daily workflow. We at JetRuby offer CTO as a Service approach for businesses that want expert guidance. Our veteran team has in-depth experience with AI solutions and system optimization.  We provide: A technology roadmap that aligns with your strategic goals. Implementation of AI-driven processes without disrupting daily operations. Ongoing support with updates on new trends in AI automation. This approach ensures seamless integration of AI into your existing workflows. Our experts handle architecture design, custom integration, and post-launch analysis.   For a broader perspective on leadership roles and technology strategy, check out our article on what is a CTO — the CTO meaning in business. If you have any questions or you need professional assistance, please feel free to contact us! ### Success Story: How Construction ERP Software helped BuildSourced Transform Construction Material Management Did you know the construction industry generates about 30% of global waste, making it one of the most significant contributors to waste streams worldwide? This fact highlights the inefficiencies in construction practices. Intelligent construction asset management ensures that materials are available in the right amounts and quality at the right time to prevent unnecessary waste and delays in construction. This includes planning for the needed materials, finding sources to buy them at fair prices, storing them properly to prevent damage, and distributing them to where they are required. For contractors like BuildSourced, manual processes meant lost time, wasted budgets, and chaotic workflows until they implemented construction ERP software designed for their needs. Construction accounts for 30% of global waste, highlighting the need for better material management. Key Takeaways Focus on having the right materials, at the right time, in the right quantities, at the correct cost, and from the right sources. Inaccurate forecasting, cost control, supply chain complexity, quality standards, and storage issues. Automation Benefits: - Real-time tracking cuts search time drastically. - Centralized supplier management and interactive maps reduce retrieval times. - Automated alerts prevent overordering, saving around $8K/month. - Unified tracking of owned and rented equipment minimizes errors. JetRuby offers MVP development, staff augmentation, and custom ERP solutions to streamline operations further. When One Doesn't Have Management Automation: Key Issues Construction companies face several key challenges with materials management: Inaccurate Material Forecasting Poor planning leads to costly imbalances. Overstocking ties up capital while shortages cause delays - problems solved by equipment tracking solution features in modern ERP systems. Cost Control Managers must balance project needs with costs. They must keep the right amount of inventory, get the best prices from suppliers, and manage shipping costs well. Modern supplier management platforms help negotiate better pricing, while automated tracking prevents waste— key features of quality construction management software. Supply Chain Complexity Managing the supply chain can be difficult. Managers must work with project teams, suppliers, and subcontractors to ensure materials arrive on time, especially when project needs change. Maintaining Quality Standards Materials must meet quality requirements. Managers must work closely with suppliers to ensure materials meet the necessary standards. Built-in compliance checks in construction technology solutions ensure materials meet specifications before they reach your site. Delivery Schedule Alignment Matching material deliveries with construction schedules is essential. Delays can slow the project, while early deliveries can waste labor time and cause damage. Improper Storage Materials that arrive too early may not be stored safely. If exposed to the weather, they can be damaged or stolen. Data Management Managers face a major challenge in handling large amounts of data about materials, suppliers, and logistics. The main objective of materials management is to ensure the availability of the right materials at the right time, in the right quantities, at the right cost, and from the right sources. Key points include five important R’s: The Right Materials: Ensuring the correct specification and quality of construction materials. The Right Time: Optimizing lead times and delivery processes to have materials available when needed. The Right Quantities: Determining ideal inventory levels to minimize shortages, delays, and storage costs while enhancing efficiency. The Right Cost: Negotiating better prices with suppliers and implementing cost-saving measures to reduce waste. The Right Sources: Identify reliable suppliers and develop strong relationships to ensure quality and timely materials delivery and reduce the risk of defects and delays. The fix? Contractors who automate gain real-time visibility, accurate inventories, and supplier control, turning chaos into predictable profit. Good material management helps avoid delays, keeps costs down, improves safety on site, and supports the sustainable use of materials. The struggles of manual material tracking aren’t inevitable; they’re just a problem waiting for the right solution. That’s why we built an intuitive construction ERP system designed for contractors, by contractors. Our client no longer wastes time chasing paperwork or scrambling for suppliers. Instead, they: ✅ Track every material in real time - no more lost equipment or surprise shortages. ✅ Manage suppliers in one place - with interactive maps and smart search to find the best options instantly. ✅ Slash costs - automated alerts prevent overordering, while data-driven insights lock in better deals. This wasn’t just a fix, it was a total transformation. The result? Projects run smoother, budgets stay lean, and teams focus on building—not babysitting spreadsheets. About BuildSourced The client, BuildSourced company, tracks mixed fleets on a unified platform, which gives contractors more control over their operations. The platform provides visibility at every level, from individual machines to complete projects and the entire company. They had a construction-focused total equipment management solution for contractors who own, operate, and maintain a construction equipment fleet. It tracks heavy machinery and its parts, mid-sized equipment, heavy trucks, fleet vehicles, and smaller items like tools, materials, and consumable inventory. The client needed to improve its systems for managing construction materials and suppliers. The goal was to develop a user-friendly interface for the construction materials accounting system. Another request was a new supplier search system to help users quickly find supplier information. Their goals were clear: Replace scattered spreadsheets and paper logs with a single source of truth for inventory, orders, and supplier contacts. Enable instant search for materials, tools, and vendors - no more digging through emails or outdated lists. Track equipment and stock on a live map to prevent losses and optimize logistics. Manage both owned and rented equipment in one system, with clear status updates (e.g., maintenance, availability). As for the challenges, they were the following: Big Data Integration Consolidation of 12+ legacy data sources with 500,000+ inventory records Reconciliation of conflicting data formats from ERP, IoT sensors, and manual logs User Experience Design Development of field-friendly interfaces requiring <3 clicks for critical functions Context-aware workflows adapting to user roles (site managers, procurement, foremen) Asset Lifecycle Management Dual tracking systems for owned vs. rented equipment with automated cost allocation Maintenance scheduling integrated with lease expiration alerts JetRuby’s Solution: ERP Software That Works as Hard as Contractors Do As we've helped companies understand the key differences between web apps and websites, we specialize in creating tailored solutions that address specific operational challenges. We built a web-based ERP platform focusing on speed, visibility, and simplicity. Here’s how it tackles each challenge: Full-Text Search: Find Anything in Seconds Why? Contractors waste hours searching for part numbers or supplier emails. How it works: Type any keyword, such as material name, supplier location, or project ID, and get filtered results instantly. Impact: Reduced search time from 15+ minutes to under 10 seconds. Interactive Maps with Leaflet Why Leaflet? Lightweight, customizable, and works offline, critical for remote sites. How it works: - View all equipment, warehouses, and suppliers on a live map. - Click any pin to see status (e.g., “Excavator #12 – Available at Dock 3”). Impact: Cut equipment retrieval time by 40% and reduced loss incidents. Automated Inventory Tracking Why? Manual counts led to overordering or last-minute scrambles. How it works: - Barcode/QR scans update stock levels in real time. - Low-stock alerts trigger automatic reorder emails to pre-approved suppliers. Impact: Eliminated $8K/month in emergency purchases. Unified Fleet Management Why? Mixing owned and rented gear caused billing errors and downtime. How it works: - Assets tagged as “Owned,” “Rented,” or “In Maintenance” with cost tracking. - Calendar syncs rental periods and service schedules. Impact: Reduced rental overages by 22% and improved maintenance planning. Shared Event Calendar Why? Missed deliveries or inspections derailed timelines. How it works: - Color-coded entries for deliveries, inspections, and equipment returns. - Syncs with team mobile apps for on-site alerts. Impact: Fewer scheduling conflicts and 95% on-time deliveries. BuildSourced now confidently tracks every nail, supplier, and excavator. But this isn’t just their story; your team could automate the chaos, too. Results & Business Impact After implementing JetRuby’s ERP system, BuildSourced saw immediate, measurable improvements across its workflow. Here’s what changed: Optimized Workflows - Contractors now spend 80% less time searching for materials and suppliers. - What used to take 15+ minutes per request now takes under 30 seconds with full-text search and map visualization. Fewer Errors, More Accuracy - Automated inventory tracking eliminated manual data entry mistakes. - Discrepancies in material counts dropped by 95%, reducing costly reorders. Real-Time Visibility & Control - Every piece of equipment and material is tracked live on the map. - Losses due to misplaced or stolen assets decreased by 60%. Faster Response to Shortages - Low-stock alerts trigger one-click reorders from pre-approved suppliers. - Emergency purchases dropped by 75%, saving thousands monthly. Financial Transparency & Savings - Precise tracking of owned vs. rented equipment reduced unnecessary rentals by 22%. - Budget overruns due to poor inventory management vanished entirely. Building Your Next Product with JetRuby At JetRuby, we solve real business problems. With 15+ years of experience across industries, we’ve helped startups and enterprises alike create, refine, and scale their digital solutions. Whether you need to: Launch a new product fast with our MVP Development service. Scale your team seamlessly with Staff Augmentation. Modernize legacy systems for better efficiency. …we’ve got you covered. 1. MVP Development: Test Your Idea Fast What it is: A lean, functional version of your product with only core features. Why it matters: - Validate your idea before making a heavy investment. - Gather user feedback early to avoid costly pivots later. - Launch 3–6x faster than traditional development. Perfect for: Startups and businesses testing new concepts. 2. Staff Augmentation: Flexible, Expert Talent What it is: On-demand developers who integrate directly with your team. Why it matters: - Fill skill gaps without long hiring cycles. - Scale up/down with monthly flexibility. - Get dedicated, vetted professionals, not freelancers. Perfect for: Teams needing extra firepower for deadlines or specialized tasks. 3. Custom ERP Software & Business Solutions What we do: Build systems that automate chaos, like we did for BuildSourced. Why it matters: - Turn operational pain points into competitive advantages. - Gain real-time insights to cut costs and boost productivity. BuildSourced’s transformation is just one example. Whether you need an MVP, a stronger team, or a full-scale digital overhaul, JetRuby delivers results. Ready to transform your operations? Book a consultation or explore more about our approach: Why Rails is perfect for SaaS Our hiring process for top talent The role of a CTO in modern business ### Understanding AI Training Data: What It Is, How It Works, and Where to Find It People generally make decisions based on their past experiences, which come from different situations and interactions. In simple terms, situations and people provide data that our minds use. As we gain more experience, our minds learn to make quick and smooth decisions. This shows that data is essential for learning. Just like a child needs to learn the alphabet to understand letters, a machine needs to learn to understand the data it receives. This is the main idea behind training Artificial Intelligence (AI). A machine is like a child that has not yet learned. It cannot tell the difference between a cat and a dog or a bus and a car because it has not seen or learned what they look like. When people refer to “training” an AI, what does that actually mean? What are the mechanics behind it? Is it an automated process? The answer becomes more apparent when we consider how innovation and responsibility in AI development drive progress, ensuring that each new model is built ethically and robustly. So let's find out what AI training data is. Key takeaways: AI learns patterns from examples, just like people use experiences to make decisions. Networks adjust internal weights through labeled examples, gradually improving accuracy. Collecting diverse, high-quality data and carefully labeling it is crucial for success. Bias, privacy, transparency, sustainability, and scaling are major hurdles to overcome. Bias-free, transparent systems that respect privacy must guide AI development. JetRuby optimizes data and code processes, ensuring accurate, efficient, and forward-looking AI solutions. How Neural Networks Learn from Training Data Every AI system uses a neural network of artificial neurons linked by numerical weights. These weights determine how strongly signals move between the neurons. Initially, the weights start as random values. The real work happens during training, where the network adjusts these weights by learning from labeled examples. For example, if you want to teach a neural network to recognize cats in photos, you show it thousands of images — some with cats and some without. At first, the network makes guesses that are no better than random. With each mistake, it changes its internal weights to lower errors, while correct guesses reinforce helpful connections. This ongoing adjustment, called backpropagation, is key to machine learning. Training requires a lot of computer power, often using many servers together. However, once the network is fully trained, it can make quick decisions, like identifying a cat, using much less energy than during training. This efficiency is why well-trained AI models are so valuable; they take all the knowledge gained during training and can operate effectively at scale. A key point is that the quality of training data matters a lot. If you feed the system poor data, it produces poor results. Consistent, well-labeled examples help the network identify real patterns instead of noise or biases. To see how AI might evolve shortly, check out 14 exciting AI developments coming in 2025 to understand where this technology is heading. The most fundamental AI training data challenges Building effective AI goes beyond advanced algorithms; it requires tackling key data challenges. Success hinges on addressing practical issues in how these systems learn. The process is complex. What may seem like a technical problem often reveals deeper issues like ethics, operational limits, and environmental effects. These factors directly influence whether an AI system adds value or causes unintended issues. Data acquisition If training data is the foundation of AI development, then data acquisition is one of the most fundamental AI training challenges (exacerbating many of the other challenges). AI training requires vast amounts of good-quality, relevant data to deliver an AI application that meets users' increasingly high expectations. Even before considering data quality, the first challenge is sourcing enough of it. Especially for niche applications, the required volume of data may not even exist. It may be challenging to acquire if it does due to privacy or legal restrictions. Privacy AI training often requires datasets that include personally identifiable information (PII) such as names, phone numbers, addresses, or sensitive information such as health data, financial records, or confidential business information. If you have no choice but to use such data, you must do so without compromising the privacy of individuals or organizations. This AI training challenge is ethical and legal since, beyond the principles of responsible AI, data protection laws must be complied with. Data quality The well-known concept of 'garbage in, garbage out' really does sum up the relationship between the quality of training data and the performance of your AI model. So how do you ensure you're doing the opposite, namely 'quality in, quality out'? This is one of the toughest AI training challenges because of the volume of data involved and the many aspects of AI training data quality. Bias As our separate blog on data quality makes clear, bias-free data quality is one of the most crucial characteristics of AI training. I've called it out here because it's an essential and specific AI training challenge. If the training data includes biases, consciously or unconsciously, the AI model will likely replicate them in its predictions. For example, a facial recognition system trained on a dataset that predominantly features people of one ethnicity may struggle to recognise individuals of other nationalities accurately. Transparency Too often, AI applications have a black-box problem, making it impossible to understand how the AI model processes data, generates its output, or explains its decisions. This is a real problem for combating bias and perhaps the most critical AI training challenge to solve if we want people to trust AI. Keeping pace with change The more AI is embedded in our lives, the more important it becomes for applications to adapt to changing environments and learn from new data in real time. Otherwise, they will inevitably 'fall behind', producing predictions and decisions that become increasingly less relevant. Sustainability Training modern AI models takes a huge amount of time, computing power, and energy. This has obvious implications for the sustainability objectives of individual organizations and society in general. AI training challenges? Or opportunities? AI training challenges are not easy to solve. However, we should see each challenge as a chance to promote innovation. This innovation is crucial for developing AI that is ethical, effective, and beneficial to everyone. Preparing Data for AI Model Training Preparing data for training is a crucial step in developing AI. It involves careful work across several key steps. Well-organized and processed data affects how well the model works, so it’s important to pay close attention to detail during these processes: Data Collection Training effective AI requires a variety of datasets that cover different situations. When training samples lack diversity, the model's ability is limited. For example, an image recognition system that only learns from pictures of still animals cannot accurately identify them when moving. Different applications have different data needs. When real data is missing or insufficient, using generated data can help. Data Annotation Accurate labeling of training samples is necessary for supervised learning to create reliable references. This means humans must identify and tag important features in datasets. They do this by outlining objects in images, categorizing text, or classifying audio samples. The labeling process requires skilled people and takes a lot of time and resources in AI development. Data Validation Quality assurance protocols must check that datasets are accurate by using both automated systems and human reviews. This step helps identify and fix different potential problems, including: - Incorrect or inconsistent labeling - Unrelated or duplicate samples - Biases that distort representation - Missing or incomplete data points Data Preprocessing Before training a model, we need to prepare the datasets by making several important adjustments: 1. Normalization: We should scale numerical features to fit into consistent ranges. 2. Cleaning: We must remove any corrupted or unusual samples. 3. Augmentation: We can artificially increase the dataset's variety when needed. 4. Stratification: We need to ensure balanced representation across different categories. To evaluate the model effectively, we should divide the finalized dataset into separate parts for training, validation, and testing. This separation helps avoid overfitting and allows us to accurately measure how well the model performs on new data. Data preprocessing is crucial for how well an AI model performs. If there are mistakes in this step, it will lead to problems in the AI system once it is in use. How is AI trained? Once you have prepared your training data, you can begin the training process. This means using your data with AI algorithms that learn in specific ways. There are three main approaches to this, which are often combined. In supervised learning, an AI algorithm learns from labeled data. These labels show the output that the AI should produce. This process is similar to a teacher guiding a student. The model, acting like a student, learns from the examples given by the teacher.For instance, if you show an AI model images labeled 'dog,' it learns to recognize the features that make up a dog. Over time, the model improves its ability to identify an unlabeled image of a dog and correctly produce the output 'dog.' In unsupervised learning, an AI model works with unlabelled data. It looks for patterns and structures in the data without any guidance. This type of learning is useful when we don't know the outcomes or want the model to understand the data better than what is obvious or labeled by humans. We can uncover hidden patterns by letting the model group similar data or find unusual items.For example, an AI model using unsupervised learning might spot unusual patterns in patient health data that could signal potential health issues. This can help with early diagnosis and personalized treatment plans. In reinforcement learning, an AI model learns by trying different actions and getting feedback through rewards or punishments. This feedback helps the model understand the results of its actions and improve its decisions over time. A typical example is an AI model that learns to play a game. It plays many times and changes its strategy based on whether it wins (reward) or loses (punishment). Over time, it discovers what works well and what does not. Understanding how AI is trained shows an important truth: good data leads to good decisions, whether by people or machines. The article explains the core steps of AI training: collecting, labeling, validating, and preparing data so models can learn effectively. It discusses significant challenges like privacy, bias, transparency, and sustainability. These issues are not just technical problems but also ethical and operational challenges. To see how real-world AI pipelines are complemented by efficient development practices, explore how AI code review enhances Ruby on Rails projects. This shows how code optimization and AI training work together to deliver robust solutions. JetRuby’s Approach to AI in Practice JetRuby not only talks about AI - we use it. Their development strategy uses AI to solve many issues with training data mentioned in the article: Detecting Anomalies & Ensuring Data Accuracy: JetRuby’s AI checks for and reports data problems in real time, building trust and reliability in their applications. Quality Testing Automation (AiQA): They use machine learning to speed up and improve quality assurance processes—changing tests over time, finding defects more quickly, and lowering market risks. Optimizing Coding with AI: By giving developers real-time suggestions, preventing errors, and improving workflows, JetRuby makes coding up to 40% faster, even in strict industries like HealthTech and FinTech. In short, AI training needs high-quality, diverse, and well-organized data. JetRuby uses this data effectively with AI systems that improve development processes, ensure accuracy, and enhance long-term efficiency. This mix of theory and practice makes JetRuby a leader in creating AI systems and using them to develop better software. ### Our Custom ERP System: Why We Chose to Build Our Own Over Off-the-Shelf Solutions Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are essential for businesses to coordinate various aspects, like human resources, finances, project management, and data analytics. While many companies find that off-the-shelf solutions like SAP or NetSuite meet their needs just fine, we at JetRuby found that these options didn’t quite hit the mark for us. Our work environment is fast-paced, client-focused, and innovation-driven. We realized that instead of forcing ourselves to work with rigid, one-size-fits-all software, it made a lot more sense to create our own ERP system tailored specifically to how we operate. We want to share the reasons behind this decision, the process we went through, and the benefits we’ve seen so far. Why We Steered Clear of Off-the-Shelf ERP Solutions From the get-go, it was obvious that off-the-shelf ERP platforms just wouldn’t cut it for us. While these systems work well for businesses with standard operations, JetRuby has a unique blend of hybrid workflows and changing needs. When we started exploring these ready-made solutions, three major problems stood out: Rigid workflows: The predefined processes offered by these platforms clashed with our agile sprint cycles and unique client billing setups. High customization costs: Even simple integrations came with hefty price tags that started over $50,000 and took ages to implement. Vendor lock-in: We found ourselves at the mercy of external vendors for updates and fixes, which created delays and introduced various risks. It became clear we were not interested in a generic ERP system. What we really needed was a system that could evolve as our needs changed. What We Were Really Looking For: Flexibility and Control Rather than settling for what was available, we decided to build our own solution. This meant that we needed to keep in mind three essential features that we absolutely needed: Tailored functionality: We aimed to create tools specifically designed for mood tracking, time logging, sprint monitoring, and even a gamified reward system we named JetCoin. Deep integration: We wanted to ensure that our system could sync in real-time with tools we already used like Jira, Slack, Pyrus, and Superset BI, without relying on middleware. Scalability by design: The architecture of our system had to be modular, allowing it to grow with us, while also including built-in security through KeyCloak and maintaining control on-site. The end result was a system that truly fits our people, our processes, and the pace at which we work. From Idea to Blueprint: Planning Our ERP During the ideation phase, we focused on defining what success would look like, gathering input from different parts of the company, and designing our solution with growth in mind. We kicked things off by pinpointing the key challenges we wanted the ERP to address. Three objectives quickly emerged: Streamline operations: We needed to simplify time tracking, payroll, and admin tasks that were slowing down our teams. Support employee engagement: The well-being of our employees was a priority, and we wanted to track mood, recognize achievements, and gather feedback efficiently. Enhance decision-making: Management required unified dashboards that showcased real-time data covering projects, personnel, and financial aspects. And our goal wasn’t just to automate existing tasks. We were focused on creating tools that genuinely helped our employees perform at their best. Gathering Input and Aligning Goals To ensure that our project represents everyone's needs, we involved key stakeholders from the very beginning: Delivery managers highlighted issues in project tracking and resource planning. HR focused on automating tasks and improving employee satisfaction. Department heads helped us prioritize features based on the everyday challenges their teams faced. This collaborative approach allowed us to outline clear value streams, such as: Harmony: For improving employee satisfaction. DataPulse: For financial insights. Delivery clarity: For enhanced project visibility. OmniOps: For standardized processes across all teams. One Platform, Not Two Originally, we considered splitting the ERP into two separate systems: one for internal operations and another for client-facing tools. Let’s call it both sides of the same coin — the Core and Hub. However, as we brainstormed, we noticed a lot of overlap. That’s why we decided to pivot. The Hub transformed into a space for employee collaboration and knowledge sharing. We combined both teams to create a single, cohesive system. The result was a seamless experience where internal workflows and collaboration features integrated easily. How We Built It: Core Modules and Connected Systems With our plan in place, we got down to building. We took an agile, modular approach, starting with essential internal tools and later broadening our focus to cross-platform integrations and features that put employees first. Building the Foundation: Core and Hub We launched two parallel paths: Core: Focused on automating internal tasks like payroll, time tracking, and handling support requests. Hub: Initially aimed at external collaboration, it evolved to foster internal communication and team interaction. Eventually, we merged both components into a unified ERP. Features That Made a Difference Every feature we developed served a clear purpose. Here’s what we created: Smart forms: Automated requests for things like sick leave, financial support, and IT help. Mood and heat maps: Visual tools that provided insight into team morale, performance, and engagement. KeyCloak integration: For secure identity management and controlled access across the platform. We crafted everything with a focus on reducing friction, saving time, and providing our teams with more freedom to work effectively. Integration: Connecting Existing Tools Instead of starting from scratch, we aimed for seamless connections: Jira: For syncing tasks, time logs, and sprint information in real-time. Superset BI: For creating custom dashboards and accessing real-time analytics. Pyrus and Project Stage Analysis: To automate project updates and minimize manual work. Our objective was to create one unified ecosystem where data flows naturally and insights are served up easily. Prioritizing People Above all, we genuinely wanted our people to enjoy using the system: JetCoin marketplace: A fun rewards (in-house currency) system for acknowledging mentorship, extra contributions, and overtime. Feedback tools: For recognizing peers, conducting team check-ins, and fostering continuous improvement. Personalized workspaces: Ensuring that each employee sees the information that matters most to them right away. With real-time analytics, managers could easily monitor contributions and spot signs of burnout early on. Challenges We Faced — and How We Overcame Them Building a custom ERP offered us flexibility, but it wasn’t without challenges. From aligning the team to scaling the system, we encountered a variety of hurdles. Here’s what we learned throughout the journey. Merging Two Teams, Two Visions We had two separate development teams working on the Core and the Hub, each with its own goals and coding practices. Merging them was challenging. To bring everyone together, we: Established common coding standards and CI/CD pipelines. Held joint retrospectives and sprint planning sessions. Invested in cross-training and regular syncs. This took time, but it ultimately led to a stronger, more cohesive team. Scaling as We Grew As our ERP platform grew, so did its complexity. We realized we needed to future-proof our system without hindering our delivery speed. Here’s how we tackled that: With a modular design, we were able to add new features without disrupting existing ones. Optimization tools helped identify bottlenecks early on. We built time into our roadmap for necessary revamps and cleaning up tech debt. By planning for growth from day one, we sidestepped painful rewrites down the line. Keeping Data Secure With sensitive information flowing through our system, we couldn’t compromise on security. Our focus areas included: KeyCloak for secure authentication and controlled access. Ensuring TLS encryption for data being transmitted. Encrypting stored data in our databases. Regular audits and patching to keep vulnerabilities in check. We remained engaged with security communities to stay updated on new threats. What Our Team Had to Say This whole system was shaped by the people who use it every day. And here’s how different teams experienced the shift. “Before this, managing time tracking across Jira and our payroll system was a nightmare. Now it’s synced, automated, and I don’t spend Fridays chasing updates.” — Project Manager “The Jetcoin Marketplace is actually fun. I’ve used my tokens for extra days off and book credits. But more importantly, it made mentorship feel visible and valued.” — Senior Developer “Our HR processes used to be buried in spreadsheets and Slack threads. Now we have dashboards that show mood trends, feedback, and engagement—all in one place.” — People Ops Lead “I used to feel like I had no visibility into how other teams worked. Now I can see what’s happening across the company, find the right people to talk to, and share what I know.” — Designer For us, these are signals that the platform is actually helping people work smarter, stay connected, and feel more empowered day to day. What We Achieved: Positive Impact Across the Business After months of building and fine-tuning, our custom ERP is up and running, and it’s already bringing about noticeable benefits. From smoother processes to improved employee engagement, it’s clear we’ve made the right move. One Platform, Built Just for Us We replaced a mix of scattered tools with a centralized system that caters to our specific work styles. And we now have: Core modules that manage time tracking, payroll, and admin tasks. Hub features that enhance internal communication and resource management. Tools focusing on employee engagement like mood maps, JetCoin rewards, and feedback loops. We automated payroll calculations based on live time logs and leave tracking. Admin requests can now be self-serve, dramatically cutting down on back-and-forth communication and creating time savings. Additionally, we’ve set up project updates that sync automatically from tools like Pyrus and Jira, freeing our teams to focus on the more critical aspects of their work. Happier, Engaged Employees The mood-tracking and recognition tools we put in place have fostered a more supportive feedback culture. Our JetCoin Marketplace offers rewards for going above and beyond, promoting engagement and camaraderie among our staff. Personalized workspaces ensure that every team member has a clear view of what they need to focus on. The outcome? Increased employee engagement, better retention rates, and a more connected workplace. Smarter Decisions Backed by Data With data consolidated from various systems and visualized using Superset BI, our leadership now enjoys the ability to: Keep an eye on project health and efficiently allocate resources. Make quicker, informed decisions regarding staffing, budgets, and timelines. Monitor essential financial metrics and performance trends without relying on manual reporting. Information that previously sat in separate silos is now just a few clicks away. Build or Buy? How We Made the Call When we first recognized the need for a better system, building our own ERP wasn’t the obvious choice. Like most companies, we started by exploring what was already on the market. We evaluated leading solutions like SAP, NetSuite, running product demos, reading case studies, and even piloting trial accounts. On paper, these platforms offered the basics — payroll, time tracking, dashboards. But the more we explored, the more we realized how much we’d need to customize just to meet our everyday needs. We broke down the decision using a few key criteria: Flexibility: Could it adapt to our hybrid workflows and evolving structure? Speed to change: How quickly could we roll out updates or fixes without vendor delays? Integration: Would it play well with our existing stack—Jira, Slack, Pyrus, Superset BI? Ownership: Could we fully control our data, processes, and user experience? We also looked at cost. And not just licensing fees, but the long-term costs of workarounds, custom dev, and delayed decisions. Over five years, building our own platform proved more cost-effective and better aligned with how we actually operate. Once we presented the trade-offs to leadership (with projections, mockups, and a phased build plan) the decision was unanimous: custom was the way forward. What’s Next: Looking Ahead The next steps bring more initiatives and enhancements. We are committed to refining our ERP based on genuine feedback and performance metrics. We’re excited to expand current value generators like OmniOps for standardizing processes and DataPulse for financial insights while also introducing new features such as: ClientSuccess: For tracking client feedback and project satisfaction. InnovationHub: For encouraging internal ideas, hosting hackathons, and enabling training opportunities. We plan to run additional A/B tests and gather user feedback to ensure that we’re prioritizing what adds the most value. We have also started connecting AI tools like ChatGPT via API, and we’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible. Our ideas include: Automating reports and summarizing data. Offering AI chat support for common HR or policy inquiries. Utilizing predictive analytics for planning resources and forecasting demand. Performing sentiment analysis on team feedback to address potential issues early on. As AI technology advances, we’re keen on incorporating it into our ERP system in a thoughtful way. Conclusion: Why Building Our Own ERP Was the Right Decision While off-the-shelf ERP systems might suit companies with standard operational patterns, JetRuby is different. We operate quickly, using hybrid teams and an approach that marries internal innovation with client service. We needed a platform that reflected our pace, priorities, and the character of our people. By creating our own ERP, we gained the ability to: Automate the aspects of our work that matter most. Develop tools that truly mirror our way of operating. Access real-time insights that influence better decision-making. Make the employee experience a fundamental part of the system—not an afterthought. Was it more labor-intensive upfront? Definitely. But the benefits — more efficient workflows, happier teams, and improved business outcomes. If you have any questions left, please don’t hesitate to contact us and discuss your disruptive ideas! ### Product Development Life Cycle Explained in 8 Key Steps What Is the Product Development Life Cycle (PDLC) in the first place? Let’s start with the basics.  The product development lifecycle is the process of turning an idea into a real, tangible product. It’s a step-by-step approach that helps you plan, design, build, and launch your product in a sensible way. You might have also heard the term product life cycle before. That’s different.  The product life cycle is about what happens after your product is launched, meaning how it grows, matures, and eventually declines.  On the other hand, the product development life cycle is all about the journey from idea to launch. 8 Key Stages of the Product Development Life Cycle In this article, we’ll walk you through each step of the product development cycle.  We’ll explain what happens at every stage and why it matters. Let’s dive in. Step #1. Ideation Every great product starts with an idea. The ideation stage is where you brainstorm and explore possibilities.  When brainstorming, focus on these four key areas to get the most out of your discussion:     1. Strengths What makes your product special? Think about its unique features and why people would care.  Does it solve a problem better than anything else? Is it affordable, eco-friendly, or super convenient? Highlight what sets it apart.     2. Weaknesses Be real about the downsides.  Are there flaws in the design, high costs, or usability issues? What might turn customers off? Acknowledging weaknesses early helps you tackle them head-on.     3. Opportunities Can your product do more than you originally planned? Maybe it fits into a new market or aligns with a trending topic (like sustainability or AI). Could partnerships or add-ons create extra value? Think outside the box!     4. Risks What could go wrong? Maybe the market isn’t ready, competitors copy you, or production hits a snag. Are there financial or legal hurdles? Identifying risks early helps you plan around them. Quick tips for brainstorming: Include diverse voices — different perspectives spark better ideas. Keep it open — no idea is too wild. Focus on solutions — turn weaknesses and risks into opportunities. Write everything down — even odd ideas might inspire something great later. Step #2. Validation Once you have an idea, you need to make sure it’s worth pursuing. That’s where validation comes in. This stage is all about testing your concept to see if it has potential.  You might: Create a simple version of your product (called a prototype) to show to people. Run surveys or focus groups to get feedback. Test different versions of your idea to see which one works best. Consider hosting providers at the early stages. Validation helps you avoid wasting time and money on something that might not succeed.  To test if your idea works, think like a user. What challenges might they face?  Michael Skok’s 4U framework is a great way to evaluate this: Unavoidable: Is the problem unavoidable? Can your product succeed without solving it? Urgent: How urgent is the problem? Is it blocking other parts of your product? Unworkable: Is the problem too costly or impractical to fix from a business perspective? Undeserved: Is this a common issue in similar products? How can you solve it to stand out? This approach helps you refine your product by focusing on real user needs. If you come up with an understanding your solution doesn’t work as it planned, you can always pivot your startup. Step #3. Product mapping After validation, it’s time to plan out your product in detail. This is called product mapping. Think of it as creating a blueprint for your product.  You’ll: List all the features your product needs. Break the project into smaller tasks. Set deadlines and milestones. A good product map keeps everyone on the same page and helps you stay on track.  Step #4. Additional market research Before you start designing and building your product, it’s a good idea to dig deeper into your market. This stage of PDLC involves: Understanding your target audience:who they are, what they need, and how they behave. Figuring out what makes your product special (this is called your unique value proposition). Planning how you’ll promote your product, including SEO and sales strategies. Not every product needs this step, but it’s especially helpful for the competition analysis to find gaps in the market.  Step #5. Product design and prototyping Now it’s time to bring your product to life visually. The design stage is where you create the look and feel of your product.  You’ll: Sketch out the layout and user interface (UI). Build a clickable prototype that people can interact with. Get feedback from stakeholders and make adjustments. A prototype lets you test how your product will work and make improvements before you start building the real thing.  Step #6. Development and testing This is where the magic happens. The development stage is when you build your product.  You’ll: Write the code and add all the features. Test the product to make sure it works as expected. Fix any bugs or issues. Testing is a big part of this stage. You want to catch problems early so they don’t cause bigger issues later.  Step #7. Launch After all the hard work, it’s time to share your product with the world. The launch stage involves: Releasing your product on the right platforms (like app stores or websites, including alternative app stores). Creating marketing materials to spread the word. Monitoring the launch to make sure everything goes smoothly. A successful launch takes careful planning.  Step #8. Post-launch support and improvement Your work isn’t done after the launch. The PDLC post-launch stage is about making sure your product continues to succeed.  You’ll: Listen to feedback from users. Make updates and improvements based on what you learn. Provide support to keep the product running smoothly. For example, after launching a mobile app, you need to keep an eye on how users interact with it. Their feedback can help make updates and fix bottlenecks. Startup Growth Accelerated Accelerate your startup's growth with expert tech leadership! We guide your team, refine strategy, and guarantee timely, high-quality results. Get in touch Who Is Part of the Product Development Team? Creating a product is a team effort. Here’s who you’ll need: Product/project Managers: They keep everything on track and make sure deadlines are met. Designers: They create the look and feel of the product. Developers: They build the product and write the code. QA engineers: They test the product to make sure it works well. Marketing specialists: They help promote the product and reach the right audience. Senior management: They make the big decisions and guide the overall strategy. Each person plays a key role, and their teamwork makes the product successful. Product Development with JetRuby At JetRuby, we help businesses bring their ideas to life for over 15 years. We’ve worked with clients at every stage of the product development cycle, from the first spark of an idea to the final launch and beyond.  Our team combines technical expertise with a deep understanding of what users need so we can create products that truly make a difference. JetRuby’s CTO as a Service provides you with seasoned technical leadership to guide and manage your IT  processes. Our in-house experts will also help develop your entire IT team and build personalized development plans (PDPs) for their sustainable growth. The product development lifecycle is a powerful tool for turning ideas into reality. By following the listed steps, you can create products that people love and that stand the test of time. If you’re ready to start your product development journey, we’re here to help.  Reach out to us today, and let’s create something amazing together! ### Food Delivery App Development: How to Build a Great App Like Uber Eats It’s a rainy evening after work, and cooking feels like too much effort. So, you take your phone, open a food delivery app, and your favorite meal is on its way to your place within minutes. That’s the magic of apps like Uber Eats: they’ve made ordering food super easy. Food delivery apps like Uber Eats have reshaped how we access and enjoy our favorite meals. In January 2025, Uber Eats had about 4.2 million downloads. The mobile traffic for the U.S.-based food delivery company reached its highest point in April 2020, with around 8.2 million downloads globally. Food delivery services and food delivery app development itself have become increasingly popular, particularly among younger consumers, who value the convenience and variety of options available. Have you ever wondered what it takes to develop an app like that? In this article, we'll share some thoughts and our expertise in food delivery app development. We’ll cover everything from the business model to designing user-friendly features. Uber Eats Business Model Understanding Uber Eats' business model requires understanding how its segments work together. The company has three main parts that help it grow: consumers, restaurants, and delivery partners. Uber Eats works with many restaurants to offer different types of food. Users can look at menus and place orders through the app. Users can track their delivery drivers in real-time using GPS (and if you’d like to explore working with local map providers for certain regions, check out our guide on Navigating Chinese Map Providers). Here’s how the Uber Eats’ business model works: The Uber Eats app lets users see menus from local restaurants and filter them by different options. Customers can select meals and add them to a cart. They can then check delivery and service fees before paying. They can use promo codes and choose how to pay, like cash, card, or UPI. Once the payment is complete, the restaurant gets the order and starts preparing the food. The delivery driver is then notified to pick up the order, and the restaurant confirms that the food is on its way. Both the customer and the restaurant can track the delivery in real time until the food arrives. If you’re exploring how to develop an app or need broader assistance, take a look at JetRuby’s general App Development services for extra guidance. Uber Eats features Uber Eats is popular among food delivery apps because it does more than just take orders and deliver food. Let's look at how Uber Eats has become the industry's leading food delivery service. Uber Eats has a broad network of restaurants and delivery partners, allowing easy growth. Its efficient processes help offer competitive prices to customers. Users can schedule meals for delivery at their chosen time and place. The restaurant manager app lets vendors quickly check performance indicators. Uber Eats invites users to share food photos and reviews on social media. Customers can opt for priority ordering for faster delivery. Multiple search filters help users find their favorite meals easily. To create a food delivery app like Uber Eats, focus on making the experience personal, easy to use, and straightforward for everyone — customers, restaurants, and delivery drivers. Here’s a simpler look at the features that can help your app stand out. [table id=47 /] A good food delivery app should create a personal, reliable, and fun experience. Whether someone is ordering a quick lunch or planning a big dinner, your app needs to make the process easy and enjoyable for everyone. If you’d like a deeper dive into modern app development approaches, explore our take on Vue vs React: What’s Best for App Development? A step-by-step guide to building an app like Uber Eats To build a food delivery app like Uber Eats, you need careful planning, suitable technology, and a strong focus on user experience. Here is a step-by-step guide that covers all the key aspects. Market Research and Business Model Before you start developing your app, it's important to understand the market and decide on your business model. If you’re exploring multiple distribution methods beyond the usual app stores, check out the Best 15 Alternative App Stores for 2025 to broaden your reach.   Choosing the Right Tech Stack The technology you choose will determine your app’s performance, scalability, and security. If you’re considering Ruby on Rails for reliability and speed, learn about 9 Reasons Why Ruby on Rails Is Perfect for SaaS, which applies to many startup projects. UI/UX Design for a Seamless Experience A well-designed app keeps users engaged and coming back. For clarity on different approaches to front-end and back-end structures, read one of our latest guides on Web App vs Website: What’s the Key Difference? Development and Testing The development phase brings your app to life, while testing ensures it’s bug-free and reliable. Launch and Marketing Strategies A successful launch and marketing plan will help you attract users and grow your app. Cost of developing an Uber Eats clone app Building a delivery app like Uber Eats is an exciting venture, but the real challenge lies in creating an ecosystem that works seamlessly for customers, restaurants, and delivery drivers. Let’s break it down. Development costs vary based on app complexity, features, and your chosen team. A basic MVP focuses on core features like user registration, restaurant listings, order placement, and payment processing, which can keep costs low. On the other hand, advanced features like real-time tracking, AI-driven recommendations, or multi-language support will increase expenses. The budget is also impacted by the tech stack, design complexity, and team structure (freelancers, agencies, or in-house). Ongoing costs like server hosting, maintenance, and updates add up over time. Once the app is ready, the real work begins. And that means tackling some tough challenges. Getting Restaurants on Board Restaurants are the backbone of your platform, and convincing them to join isn’t always easy. Many restaurants are already working with trusted players like Uber Eats, and they might be hesitant to add another platform to their list. You’ll need to offer them something compelling, such as lower commission rates, better visibility, or unique features like advanced analytics or promotional tools. Building trust and showing them the value of your platform is key. Building a User Base Even the most beautifully designed app won’t succeed without users. Attracting customers in a crowded market is no small feat. You’ll need a solid marketing strategy that includes social media campaigns, influencer partnerships, and maybe even old-school tactics like flyers or local events. Discounts, referral bonuses, or free delivery for first-time users can help attract users, but retaining them is another story. You’ll need to deliver a great experience to keep them returning consistently. Recruiting and Managing Delivery Drivers Delivery drivers are the bridge between your app and the customers. Finding reliable drivers, especially in competitive markets, can be tough. You’ll need to offer fair pay, incentives, and a user-friendly app for drivers to manage their orders and routes. And don’t forget about safety, features like an SOS button or real-time support can make a big difference in keeping drivers happy and secure. Scaling and Staying Competitive Once the basics are in place, scaling the business is the next big challenge. Expanding to new cities, adding more restaurants, and keeping up with customer demands require careful planning and resources. You’ll also need to stay ahead of competitors by constantly innovating - adding new features, improving delivery times, or offering unique perks. While the app itself is important, the ecosystem around it will determine your success. It’s about building relationships, solving problems, and creating value for everyone involved. That’s where the real work and the real reward lie. Ultimately, the cost of building the app is just the starting point. The real question is: are you ready to take on the bigger challenges that come with it? Monetization Strategies for a Food Delivery App Let’s discuss the money side of things. Building a delivery app is one thing, but making it profitable is a whole different game. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to monetize your app. You just need to find the right mix for your business model and users. Here are some of the most effective strategies: [table id=46 /] Subscription Plans Subscription models are gaining popularity in the food delivery space. Think of them as VIP passes for your most loyal customers or restaurants. For Customers: Offer a monthly or yearly subscription that gives users perks like free delivery, exclusive discounts, or early access to new features. For Restaurants: Provide premium plans with better visibility, advanced analytics, or lower commission rates. Why it works: Subscriptions create predictable, recurring revenue and encourage customer loyalty. Monetizing a food delivery app is finding the right combination for your business and your users. The key is to balance revenue generation with user experience. After all, if your app feels too transactional or pushy, you risk losing customers. Get that balance right, and you’ll have a sustainable, profitable business. Plan for Success Visualize your product, define architecture, avoid early mistakes, and ensure clear requirements, while getting accurate budget and timeline estimates for better resource planning Get in touch Food delivery app development with JetRuby Starting with a simple and functional MVP helps you quickly test your ideas, get feedback, and improve your product over time. This approach works in any industry, whether healthcare, e-commerce, or food delivery services. If your product vision shifts along the way, you can adapt by learning to pivot before you start developing an MVP. The key steps to creating an MVP are clear: provide value from the beginning, listen to your users, and be ready to make changes. At JetRuby, we often work with businesses that already understand their needs and markets. In these cases, the MVP is about offering a ready-to-go solution that supports immediate goals such as sales growth, efficient customer management, or streamlined internal processes. We also believe in building strong teams. If you’re curious about our approach to finding top engineers, read our article "Inside JetRuby Hiring Process for Top Engineers." And for broader insights on leading tech within a company, see What Is a CTO? The CTO Meaning in Business. Of course, keeping your team happy is crucial, so you might also find tips in Top 13 Steps to Reduce Employee Turnover useful. Our approach typically includes Every business needs quick solutions. We focus on speed and quality and deliver tangible results within 3-4 months. We focus on developing core functions and then expanding them. The MVP is a foundation for future features like data analytics and customer retention tools. We collaborate with our client’s teams to ensure the MVP aligns with their business goals and systems, helping to improve workflows and long-term vision. We at Jetruby have developed several food delivery services to life. Saffron Cooks, an app for a premium food delivery service bringing a restaurant-like dining experience, is on the list. Our work on this project included: Analyzing the current business model and offering practical solutions for marketing campaigns and technical issues. Improving the existing code. Introducing a loyalty program with gift cards. Fixing code vulnerabilities to protect personal data. At JetRuby Agency, we help businesses quickly turn their ideas into reality. We understand that deadlines can be tight, and this is where we excel. We focus on developing Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) and provide practical solutions that work right away. We build a strong foundation to support your growth in the future. We’re here to ensure you’re ready to take on the market confidently. Feel free to reach out if you have questions or need help building your delivery app. We’re excited to help you create the next food delivery success story. ### Engineer Growth at JetRuby: Personalized Development Plans (PDP) from Start to Finish What’s the cost of stagnation? In the tech industry, it could be your best engineers walking out the door.  More than 70% of high-retention-risk employees say they plan to leave their company to advance their careers elsewhere. On the flip side, 94% would stay longer if their employer invested in their development.  Those numbers highlight a hard truth: fostering continuous growth for engineers is a strategic imperative. Companies that prioritize professional development see tangible benefits, including up to a 58% increase in employee retention. When engineers see a clear path to grow, whether by mastering new technologies or taking on bigger responsibilities, they feel valued and motivated. This effect is mutual: organizations benefit from upskilled talent and often fill senior positions internally, which is more efficient and culturally seamless than hiring externally. We at JetRuby recognize these benefits so we have built a culture where engineers are continually growing.  One key to this success is a Personalized Development Plan (PDP). It’s a structured roadmap that guides each engineer’s career progression. In this in-depth guide, we’ll share how we create and maintain PDPs, highlight the roles different team members play, and explain how progress is tracked and measured. Let’s dive in! Personalized development plans (PDP) explained: Why JetRuby invests in PDPs So, what is a PDP and why does it matter? And how do we see it? A Personal Development Plan (PDP) at JetRuby is a formal document and process that maps out an engineer’s growth trajectory.  In simple terms, it’s a tool for improving an employee’s skills and advancing their career within the company. A PDP encourages continuous learning and adaptation, which is crucial when “you never stop learning” in software development. Moreover, engineers (particularly younger professionals) expect growth opportunities. Surveys show that lack of development is holding back 74% of employees from reaching their potential. And 70% feel they lack the skills to do their jobs efficiently. In short, engineers want to improve, and companies need them to improve. A personalized PDP provides a focused way to make that happen, benefitting both the individual and the organization. In a PDP, an engineer (with input from their manager and others) outlines their career goals, identifies the skills and competencies they need to reach those goals, and lays out a detailed action plan (training, projects, mentorship, etc.) to build those skills within a given timeframe. A PDP takes someone’s career aspirations, say becoming a senior backend developer or transitioning into a DevOps role, and breaks them down into achievable milestones. A comprehensive PDP also considers soft skills, leadership development, and personal interests in addition to technical abilities. How does JetRuby’s PDP approach stand out? While many companies use some PDP forms, JetRuby’s approach carries a unique flavor. Traditional PDPs can sometimes be generic HR checklists. For example, “complete X training modules” or “attend a workshop” without much customization.  At JetRuby, the PDP is personalized and deeply integrated with our day-to-day work. We design each plan around the engineer’s individual interests and strengths and the company’s technology roadmap.  For instance, if one of our developers is keen on cloud engineering and we foresee more AWS projects on the horizon, their PDP will likely include an AWS certification course and a hands-on cloud deployment project.  This alignment ensures the engineer grows in a direction that's fulfilling for them and valuable for JetRuby.  We also encourage creativity. An engineer can propose a custom project or research task as part of their growth, which we readily incorporate into their growth journey. Aside from this, JetRuby’s PDP process is ongoing and iterative.  It’s not limited to an annual review cycle. Engineers and their leads revisit and update development plans regularly (as we’ll detail later), which keeps the plan relevant as projects change or as the engineer achieves milestones. Another distinctive aspect of JetRuby’s PDP philosophy is addressing both horizontal and vertical growth paths. As you can see it in this image, growth isn’t always about climbing a straight ladder upward. It can also be about broadening one’s skill set or shifting into a different track.  Imagine an engineer who joined JetRuby as a Junior Ruby developer. After mastering basic syntax, debugging, and testing, they become a middle developer.  They pick up deeper architectural concepts and show stable performance. At middle-strong, their PDP includes advanced items such as performance tuning, concurrency, or more complex system design. This sets them on track for the Senior level. Once they feel comfortable operating at Senior scope, they have a few potential vertical moves.  As mentioned in the table above, one can lead toward team leadership. They learn about people management, agile methodologies, and project planning. The other can lead toward solution architecture. They shift from daily coding tasks to planning entire systems or reviewing technical proposals.  Both appear on the PDP with specific assignments or goals. The people behind the plan: Who shapes a PDP? Crafting a PDP at JetRuby is a team effort. There are three key players in the process: the engineer, their manager, and the HR team.  The image below outlines who does what when it comes to creating and reviewing a development plan. As the table suggests, the engineer is at the center of their PDP. Their motivation provides the initial spark.  We encourage engineers to take the initiative — after all, it’s their career. They come up with ideas about where they want to go and what they want to learn. The manager plays the role of a coach and sounding board. Rather than dictating goals, JetRuby managers collaborate with engineers to shape the plan.  They’ll suggest what skills might be important for the engineer’s next step or how to tie an individual’s goals into upcoming projects so the learning can happen on the job.  The HR team provides the process and tools to make it all possible. HR’s involvement ensures that everyone is actually taking the time to do PDPs and that the plans align with JetRuby’s career progression framework.  For example, HR might remind a manager when it’s time for an engineer’s semi-annual PDP review or supply a list of recommended courses for a skill that many engineers aim to develop. They keep an eye on the bigger picture of development across the company. Anatomy of a JetRuby PDP: structure and format Now that we know the parties who craft a PDP, what does the plan actually look like?  Each development plan at JetRuby follows a clear, structured format to ensure consistency and thoroughness. But not all PDPs look the same.  They are personalized not only to the individual but also tailored to the engineer’s specialization and level of experience.  A junior engineer’s development needs differ from a senior engineer’s. A backend developer’s needs will differ from those of a QA engineer. And JetRuby’s PDP format accommodates these differences. Our PDP template is typically organized into a few key sections, each serving a distinct purpose. Competencies and goals We start by clearly stating the competencies or skill areas the engineer is aiming to develop. These are essentially the goals of the PDP.  A competency could be technical (e.g. “Deepen expertise in React and state management” or “Learn automated testing practices”) or non-technical (e.g. “Improve team leadership skills”).  Defining specific focus areas sets the direction for all other parts of the plan.  Along with each competency, we often note the current proficiency level and the target level to reach (for example, from intermediate to advanced). This gives a measurable context to the goal. Another unique element of our PDP approach is the long-term development focus we especially apply for what we call middle-strong engineers (solid mid-level developers).  For these folks, we think beyond just the next immediate milestone. We believe that middle-strong employees must explore a vertical track early (management, architecture, or product analysis, for example).  This encourages them to see the bigger picture beyond daily tasks and prepare for future roles. And their PDP might be deliberately planned with a longer horizon in mind, looking at growth over the next year or more. For example, a mid-level engineer’s plan could have staged progression.  First, master a set of technical skills (say, advanced backend development techniques). Next, apply them by leading a medium-sized project. And later, develop leadership capabilities by mentoring a junior colleague on that project.  The idea is to continuously build momentum so that by the time they’re ready for a senior role (or another vertical move), they’ve been steadily preparing for it. Required courses and training For each competency, the plan lists formal learning resources that an expert must complete. This could include online courses, certification programs, workshops, or even structured reading assignments.  The key is that these are mandatory learning activities directly tied to the competency.  For instance, if the competency is mastering cloud deployment, a required item might be “Complete the AWS Certified Developer training module”.  JetRuby’s template often encourages naming a specific course or resource and an expected completion date to create accountability. Timeline and milestones A good PDP assigns target dates or timeframes to the action items and goals. This creates accountability and a sense of progression.  For example, an engineer’s plan might set a milestone to “Deploy a microservice independently by end of Q3” or “Lead one code review session by next month.”  Milestones break the journey into manageable checkpoints. They answer the question: “What progress should be made by the next check-in?”  At JetRuby, typical PDP timelines might run on quarterly cycles for short-term goals, with longer-term goals revisited semi-annually or annually. Success criteria and KPIs To know if development efforts are paying off, the PDP should define how to measure success.  This could be quantitative metrics (e.g., “Achieve 80% or higher on code quality metrics by year-end”, or “Get certified in XYZ”) and qualitative indicators (“Manager observes clear improvement in sprint planning contributions”, “Peers report better communication in team surveys”).  For softer goals, feedback from team members or mentors can serve as a metric.  The key is that both the engineer and their lead have a clear idea of what “improved” or “achieved” looks like for each objective. Hands-on activities Knowledge isn’t very useful until it’s applied.  This section outlines practical, on-the-job activities or projects for the engineer to put new skills into practice.  We prioritize these hands-on tasks heavily at JetRuby. Our philosophy is that practical tasks outweigh theoretical knowledge.  It’s not that theory isn’t important. You need to learn concepts first, but we consider a competency truly gained when the engineer has applied it in a real scenario, and even taught it or shared it.  Examples might be “Implement a new feature using technology X”, “Lead the next code review session to improve code quality”, or “Draft and execute a load testing plan for our application module”.  These activities are where real skill growth happens. The engineer moves from theory to practice.  Often, a hands-on task is directly aligned with ongoing work (so the learning integrates with real project needs). The PDP includes these tasks as a key measure of competency.  These competencies often get tied to certain mastery levels: Doesn’t know about it. Knows the basics. Applied it at least once. Mastered and can teach others. As the engineer moves forward, different competencies shift from “basic knowledge” to “proficient.” Optional resources In addition to the required courses, we provide a list of optional resources for each competency. These could be books, articles, tutorials, or videos that are not mandatory but can deepen understanding.  For example, alongside a required React course, an optional resource might be “Official Redux documentation and advanced patterns blog series”. These give motivated engineers the opportunity to explore beyond the basics at their own pace.  We call them "optional" to differentiate from the must-do items, but many engineers at JetRuby eagerly consume these resources as well, since they're often curated by senior staff who know which materials are high-value. Advance Your Product With CTO as a Service! Build, attract investors, report progress, and secure the right team to achieve your goals. Get in touch Crafting a growth path: How and when JetRuby engineers build their PDPs Now that we know the “what” of a PDP, let’s look at the “how.” The process of creating a PDP at JetRuby is systematic yet flexible. It ensures every plan is well-thought-out and agreed upon, but it doesn’t impose unnecessary bureaucracy or one-size-fits-all timing.  Here’s a step-by-step look at how to create a PDP. Initiation An employee can initiate a development plan at various points. Often, it kicks off during a regular review cycle (for example, as part of a semi-annual performance review).  In other cases, a trigger event prompts a new PDP.  Promotion: An engineer ready for a next-level role. Position change: A shift from QA to analysis or from analysis to management. Performance review: A manager or HR sees that an employee needs a performance evaluation. New hire: After the initial months, a new hire will need their own PDP. The initiation step typically gets the engineer and their manager agreeing that it's time to create or update a PDP.  This can be a Google Sheet or an Excel template. For junior hires, JetRuby has “pre-made” pathways that list typical skill sets for the next grade. Self-assessment & goal proposal Next, the engineer takes some time for introspection and research. They assess their current skills against the expectations of their desired next role or proficiency level.  Based on this, the engineer drafts an outline of goals or competencies they want to develop (as described in the previous section). They might also list some learning activities they’re interested in (e.g. specific courses or projects). At JetRuby we provide a self-assessment worksheet and competency matrix to help engineers think through areas of improvement and interest. Manager feedback & co-design The engineer and manager then meet to discuss the draft goals. The manager brings their perspective on what skills the engineer should prioritize, considering both the engineer’s aspirations and the team’s needs. They might suggest additional competencies (for instance, “You mentioned focusing on backend performance; I think adding database scaling techniques would be beneficial given our upcoming project”).  They also ensure the goals are ambitious yet attainable.  Together, they refine the list of competencies and decide on the most important ones to include in the PDP.  This step exemplifies JetRuby’s flexible yet structured ethos: there’s a clear meeting and review, but it’s a free-form discussion tailored to the individual, not a rigid form to fill out. Drafting the PDP document With the agreed-upon goals in mind, the engineer (often with the manager’s guidance) fills out the PDP template. They specify the competencies, required courses, hands-on activities, and optional resources as finalized in the previous discussion.  They will also set tentative timelines or target completion dates for each item (for example, “Complete Docker online course by end of Q3” or “Lead testing initiative in next sprint”).  The outcome of this step is a written PDP document that both the engineer and manager can review.  Review & approval The manager reviews the completed PDP document to ensure it accurately captures what was discussed and that it aligns with both personal and company objectives.  If something looks off or needs detail, they work with the engineer to adjust it. Once both are satisfied, the manager officially approves the PDP. After approval, the PDP is now active. From here, the engineer begins working on the plan, and the manager will incorporate PDP items into their regular check-ins. Note: Some managers mix four types of conversation: performance scolding, mental well-being check, project updates, and development planning. That can confuse the employee. Instead, separate them. For instance, if someone messed up a deployment, handle that next day in a short call. Save the PDP talk for a dedicated session. Keeping PDPs on track: monitoring progress and making adjustments Creating a plan is only half the process. Monitoring ensures that it does not gather dust. A PDP that no one revisits helps nobody. Our team believes a PDP is “alive,” meaning it changes if the project environment evolves or the engineer decides to explore a new skill.  We at JetRuby suggest a stable “progress slice” at least once per quarter. However, many of our employees address it monthly. These quick updates let them pivot if certain tasks become irrelevant or if new opportunities arise. JetRuby measures PDP outcomes by the ratio of completed tasks plus the performance feedback from managers and team members.  Each PDP lists tasks or courses. The manager can see how many items are done, how many remain, and whether the engineer has partial progress. Besides, an engineer’s growth is not limited to technical items. Soft skill improvements, leadership potential, or creative problem-solving also factor in. According to a hard skill review matrix, there are five employee performance levels: Unacceptable Need Improvement Meet Expectations Exceed Expectations Outstanding We use these performance levels when evaluating the success and impact of PDPs. Now, let’s look at the following metrics that we measure to monitor the PDP progress. [table id=45 /] While we track these metrics, JetRuby is careful not to boil development down to just numbers.  We don’t consider a PDP “successful” only when every single box is checked or when an employee completes an assessment with a high score.  Quality and consistency of growth matter more than quantity.  For example, if an engineer completed all their courses but still struggles to apply the skills in real projects, that PDP might need revisiting.  On the other hand, an engineer might complete 80% of the plan but already exhibit significant improvement in their role — we’d still call that a win. JetRuby’s way of measuring PDP success aligns with our company culture and values.  The big picture: Why do PDPs matter for JetRuby A well-structured PDP program creates a win-win scenario for both engineers and the company. At JetRuby, we’ve seen numerous advantages unfold thanks to our focus on developing people from within. We have a culture that celebrates continuous learning, taking initiative, and helping each other improve. The PDP process reinforces that culture by making growth a shared goal between the company and the individual. One of our core beliefs is “invest in people, and they will invest in you.” Here are some of the key benefits. Faster career growth & satisfaction (engineer perspective) Engineers with PDPs have a clear roadmap to follow, which often accelerates their development. Instead of drifting or learning in ad-hoc ways, they focus on targeted skills that lead to real advancement.  This means a motivated junior developer can reach mid-level competency more quickly, and a mid-level can groom themselves for senior roles systematically.  The effect on morale is tangible — when engineers see themselves hitting milestones and growing, job satisfaction soars. They feel a sense of purpose and direction in their career.  Higher retention & loyalty (company perspective) From JetRuby’s side, investing in our engineers’ growth pays back in loyalty.  People stick around when they see a future for themselves. Our retention rates among engineers who are actively following a PDP are significantly higher than industry averages.  It’s common for talent in the tech industry to hop from company to company looking for the next big opportunity, but at JetRuby, we aim to provide those opportunities in-house.  JetRuby has enjoyed strong retention among our engineering team, and internal analysis shows that those who actively engage in their PDPs tend to stick around and advance within the company.  It makes sense: if you’re growing your career here, you have less reason to look elsewhere.  Robust internal talent pipeline JetRuby’s emphasis on internal development means we rarely need to hire mid-level engineers from outside.  We can promote from within for most openings thanks to our internal academy and training courses. This is a huge strategic advantage.  It can take months to recruit and onboard an external senior developer, and there’s always a risk they won’t mesh with the company culture or processes.  In contrast, an internal promotee hits the ground running: they know our codebase, our tools, our clients, and our values.  Over the years, we’ve built a bench of talent ready to step up when leadership roles open.  Many employees joined JetRuby more than 10 years ago. They started as interns, learned the standards, advanced through Middle and Senior levels, and took on leadership roles.  Their long tenure shows how the PDP fosters loyalty. They also highlight the thorough knowledge of processes that helps them guide new cohorts. Cost savings & efficiency Developing talent internally is also cost-efficient.  Hiring experienced engineers from the market is expensive: recruiters’ fees, higher salary demands, and longer ramp-up times.  Some studies even show external hires get paid more but perform worse for their first couple of years compared to internally grown staff​.  By growing our own, JetRuby reduces those extra costs.  Instead, we channel a fraction of that expense into training courses, conference passes, and mentorship hours for our team.  The result is we get the expertise we need without breaking the bank, and we cultivate a reputation as a company that prefers to “grow our own.”  This approach is sustainable and scalable. As JetRuby takes on new technologies or projects, we upskill our existing people to meet the challenges.  Employee value proposition & employer brand From a broader perspective, our commitment to developing engineers is a key part of JetRuby’s identity.  It’s a selling point when recruiting.  We often hear candidates say they were drawn to JetRuby because they heard about our learning culture or saw that we promote from within.  In a competitive talent market, this is a differentiator.  Internally, it boosts morale and community. Colleagues celebrate each other’s progress, whether it’s someone finishing a certification or moving into a new role.  It creates a positive feedback loop: success stories fuel others to pursue their own growth. That cultural strength translates into better teamwork and commitment, which ultimately benefits every project we undertake. Transform Your Business With CTO & Talent Management as a Service! Streamline IT, boost profits, and drive innovation. Get in touch Staying ahead: adapting PDPs for the future The tech industry never stands still, and neither will JetRuby’s approach to engineer development.  We continuously adapt our PDP program to prepare our team for the skills and challenges of tomorrow.  Here’s a glimpse of how we see our PDP methodology evolving in the near future. Embracing emerging technologies Just as we tailor PDPs to individual goals, we also align them with industry trends.  One big focus area is AI integration.  The idea is that a junior plus AI might match (or even surpass) a standard engineer’s output. Meanwhile, a senior plus AI could excel at tasks that previously took many hours or even days. Software engineers increasingly need to understand artificial intelligence and machine learning, whether it’s incorporating AI features into applications or using AI-driven tools in development.  JetRuby plans to weave AI-related learning into our PDPs. Engineers might have PDP tasks like “Experiment with an AI-based code generator,” or “Use an advanced prompt to produce test coverage.” Over time, this might become mandatory for certain roles, as AI becomes mainstream. Gamification Another future-forward initiative is the gamification of professional development.  We believe we can make learning more engaging by introducing game-like elements and rewards.  To that end, JetRuby has started experimenting with an internal currency called JetCoins. Engineers earn JetCoins for hitting certain development milestones. For instance, completing a course, achieving a certification, giving an internal tech talk, or mentoring a junior engineer. Employees can later redeem these JetCoins for various perks like branded notebooks, cups, equipment, or partial travel sponsorship. Early results are promising: we’ve noticed a spike in voluntary course completions and knowledge-sharing sessions. This fosters a culture of engaged professionals who look beyond their immediate tasks. A PDP might include optional tasks that reward Jetcoins. For example, “Lead 2 external meetups for open-source frameworks.” ERP integration for PDP Currently, managers or employees store PDPs in a spreadsheet or Google Sheet. A future plan includes a specialized module inside our internal ERP system.  This would allow: Easy traceability of tasks. Direct alignment between the PDP and company-level goals. Automated reminders about tasks or deadlines. The possibility for managers to see a consolidated view of all plans in the team. Closing thoughts While we incorporate new tools, technologies, and incentives, the heart of JetRuby’s PDP approach will remain the same. Our mission is to develop top-notch engineers and leaders from within our ranks.  JetRuby’s Personalized Development Plan (PDP) stands out for its balanced approach: It addresses both horizontal growth (Junior → Middle → Senior) and vertical expansions (Team Lead, Architect, Product). It places responsibility on the engineer to define personal goals while giving managers and HR roles to support and guide. It integrates real tasks, not just theory. It remains flexible, adjusting to new project needs or personal interests. It directly ties into the company’s matrix of competencies and underlying values. The table below highlights the summary of our PDP essentials. Everyone reaps the rewards through better collaboration, advanced skill sets, and improved outcomes on projects. The central theme is simple: each person owns their journey, but JetRuby provides the pathways and support that make it a truly collaborative experience. If you have any questions left, please contact us any time you see fit! ### List of 15 Alternative App Stores for 2025 and Beyond Two giants dominate the market for app development and mobile app distribution: Google Play and Apple’s App Store. As of 2023, the Apple App Store hosts about 1.54 million apps, while Google Play offers around 1.68 million.  For developers, these platforms might seem like the obvious choice for launching their apps.  But is that always the case? Let’s see. Google Play is the main app store for Android devices with the same apps often appearing in the top charts, making it difficult to find new options.  However, there are other application stores available. Alternative Android app stores offer many apps and make it easy to install APKs.  These alternative platforms have many active users each month, giving developers a chance to reach more people. They also provide better revenue models and access to regions where mainstream stores don’t operate.  For iOS users, the options are limited, especially with Apple’s strict policies.  However, for Android, the landscape is far more diverse. So, how many third-party app stores are there?  In this article, we’ll discuss the Amazon App Store and other Android app stores. We'll include an Android app stores list and also mention alternative app stores for iOS. And we’ll explain how to use these different app stores. Key Takeaways Alternative app stores often target niche markets, providing opportunities for developers to reach untapped audiences. Some stores offer better revenue-sharing models or lower fees compared to mainstream platforms.  If you’re planning your budget strategically, make sure to review the app development costs in 2025 to stay ahead of the curve. In countries like China, where Google Play is unavailable, alternative stores like Huawei App Store and Tencent Myapp dominate. Third-party app stores are ideal for testing MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) before scaling to larger platforms.  If you’re unsure whether you need an MVP or a POC first, read our post on what is a Proof of Concept (PoC)?  While alternative stores offer benefits, they may lack the security and transparency of Google Play or the App Store. Android Alternative App Stores Android’s open-source nature and flexible ecosystem have given rise to a vast array of alternative app stores beyond Google Play.  From full-fledged marketplaces with curated selections to simple APK distribution platforms, developers and users have numerous options to explore.  We’ve gathered some of the most notable unofficial Android app stores that stand out for their features, reach, and developer-friendly policies. Let's look at these different app stores and the way they work. Amazon App Store The Amazon Appstore is an alternative app marketplace for Android and Fire devices, launched in March 2011.  Amazon has not publicly revealed the exact number of apps available on the Amazon app store. However, according to Statista's report, the Amazon Appstore had 534,026 mobile apps as of the third quarter of 2024,.  This store offers both Android apps and apps designed for Kindle Fire tablets. Exclusive to Amazon's ecosystem, supporting Fire tablets and Fire TV. Amazon Coins for discounts on app purchases. It’s among numerous free app stores, and there are no upfront fees for developers to publish apps, but Amazon takes a revenue share. Unlike Google Play, it requires manual installation on most Android devices but provides unique deals and promotions. Galaxy Store Galaxy Store is Samsung’s official app marketplace, designed primarily for Samsung devices, including Galaxy smartphones, tablets, and wearables. It offers apps, themes, wallpapers, and exclusive content tailored to Samsung users. Initially introduced as Samsung Apps in 2009, it was rebranded to Galaxy Store in 2018. The store features thousands of apps, though Samsung does not publicly disclose the exact number. Offers apps and services optimized for Samsung devices, including Galaxy Watch apps, S Pen-compatible apps, and One UI themes. Provides firmware updates, gaming benefits, and Galaxy-specific promotions. Acts as a backup app store for Samsung users, especially in markets where Google services are restricted. No upfront fee for publishing apps, but developers must comply with Samsung's review process. The store includes both free and paid applications, as well as in-app purchases and subscriptions. Huawei App Store The Huawei AppGallery is Huawei’s official app distribution platform, launched in 2011 as a Google Play Store alternative. In the last part of 2023, Huawei AppGallery announced that it had about 580 million active users each month around the world. Its main goal is to provide apps for Huawei and Honor devices, especially after Google's services were restricted on Huawei phones. Number of apps: Over 220,000 globally (as of recent data) Distinctive Features: Focus on privacy and security with a four-layer security system Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) replaces Google services Quick Apps: Apps that don’t require installation, saving storage Free to publish apps, but developers must register and integrate with HMS Both free and paid apps are available, along with in-app purchases Huawei AppGallery is growing as a Google Play alternative, especially in China and for Huawei devices users worldwide. F-Droid F-Droid is an installable catalog of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and monitor device updates. Established in 2010 it now has around 4,400 apps available without ads or tracking. All apps are open-source and privacy-friendly. No proprietary or closed-source software. No ads or tracking in apps. In this app store, developers do not pay to list their apps. All apps are free, though some offer donation options.  It's a great alternative for privacy-conscious users who want to avoid Google Play. Tencent MyApp Tencent MyApp (应用宝, Ying Yong Bao) is a Chinese Android app store developed by Tencent. It serves as one of the largest alternative app marketplaces in China, where Google Play is restricted. Opened in 2010 as Tencent's official app distribution platform, as of January 27, 2025, it had nearly 88,000 mobile applications available for download from more than 48,000 app developers on the Tencent Appstore. Deep integration with Tencent services (WeChat, QQ, etc.). Strong app recommendation algorithms based on user behavior. Strict security checks to prevent malware and fake apps. There’s no direct fee for listing apps, but Tencent takes a commission from in-app purchases. The platform offers both free and paid apps, as well as in-app purchases. Since Google Play is not available in China, Tencent MyApp is a dominant Android app store in the region, competing with other local stores like Huawei AppGallery and Xiaomi GetApps. Qoo App QooApp is an alternative app store primarily for Android users that specializes in Asian mobile games, manga, and related content. It’s a platform for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean games that may not be available on Google Play. QooApp was founded in 2014 and now offers thousands of mobile games focusing on anime, RPGs, and otaku culture. Today, It provides multilingual services, including Chinese, English, Spanish, Korean, and Japanese, to over 6 million users across 200 countries monthly and growing. Unlike Google Play, QooApp provides easy access to region-locked Asian games without requiring a VPN. It also includes a community feature where users can discuss games and news. Developers can list their apps for free on QooApp. The platform offers both free and paid games, including in-app purchases. 9Apps 9Apps is a third-party Android app store that provides a wide range of apps, games, wallpapers, and ringtones. It was launched in 2013 by Alibaba Group and primarily targets users in India and other emerging markets.  With a massive selection of over 18 million apps, games, wallpapers, and ringtones, it’s a hit with 250 million users thanks to its fast downloads and easy-to-use interface. Focuses on lightweight apps and games, making it suitable for low-end devices. Provides fast downloads and curated recommendations. Some apps are modified versions of originals (not always official). It is free for developers to publish apps. Apps are mostly free, but some apps may have in-app purchases. ⚠ Note: Since 2020, 9Apps has been banned in India due to security concerns, and its availability varies by region. GetJar GetJar is an independent app store offering free Android and Java-based mobile device applications. Founded in 2004, it is one of the earliest third-party app distribution platforms.  Now, it offers a free, open marketplace where developers can distribute their apps, and users can download them without restrictions. At its peak, it hosted hundreds of thousands of apps across various categories. Focuses on free apps, though some may include in-app purchases. Users can earn virtual currency (GetJar Gold) to unlock premium features in supported apps. Available to both individual developers and large companies. Free to publish apps, no fees for listing applications. GetJar was once a popular alternative to Google Play but has declined in relevance with the rise of official app stores. Aptoide Aptoide is an independent Android app store that allows users to download and distribute apps outside of Google Play. It was launched in 2009 and operates as a decentralized marketplace where developers can create and manage their own app stores. There are over 1 million apps available with over 430 million active users. No geo-restrictions. Supports older Android versions. Allows rollback to previous app versions. Offers a blockchain-based app approval system for security. Free to publish apps with no upfront fees for developers. Offers both free and paid apps, with developers choosing their monetization model. Unlike Google Play, Aptoide is not centrally controlled, making it a popular alternative for users looking for apps unavailable in mainstream stores. Uptodown Uptodown is an independent platform for downloading Android APK files. Uptodown was founded in 2002 in Spain. Today, the platform hosts around 4 million APK files.  Over 130 million users choose Uptodown to download apps monthly. This app marketplace is available in 17 languages and accessible from any web browser and through its native Android app. No need for an account or Google services. Apps are available in multiple versions, including older releases. Free global access without geo-restrictions. Developers can upload apps for free, no payment is required for distribution. Provides free apps, but some may include in-app purchases. Its open approach makes it a popular alternative to Google Play, especially for users seeking flexibility in app access. APKPure APKPure, a third-party platform for Android APK files, was founded in 2014. Over 1 million apps are available there.  It provides an alternative app store, allowing users to download Android apps, including region-locked and unavailable ones from Google Play. Offers older versions of apps. No regional restrictions on downloads. No need for a Google account. Free to publish apps, no payment required. Does not support paid apps or in-app purchases. Opinions vary about Apkpure's safety. The platform is legitimate and has many users, but it lacks the strong security measures of the Google Play Store, which increases the chance of finding harmful software. SlideME SlideME is an alternative app marketplace for Android devices, launched in 2008 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It's an independent platform for Android apps, especially for developers and users who may not have access to Google Play. Offers both free and paid apps. Features a curated selection of apps, ensuring quality and security. SlideME has thousands of apps, though significantly fewer than Google Play. A key distinction is its focus on global accessibility, catering to users in regions where Google Play may be restricted. No upfront fees are required to publish an app, but SlideME takes a commission on sales. Overall, SlideME is a niche platform offering an alternative distribution channel for Android developers. HappyMod HappyMod is an alternative app store for Android, primarily focused on providing modded APKs of popular apps and games. Its main goal is to offer users modified versions with unlocked features, unlimited in-game resources, or ad-free experiences. Although the exact launch date is unclear, HappyMod has existed since 2017 or earlier. According to official data, more than 1 million mods APKs have been uploaded by 200,000+ users. Offers modded versions of apps and games that are not available in official stores. Users can request mods or upload their own modified APKs. Community-driven, with users testing and rating mods for reliability. Developers and “modders” can upload their apps without paying. All apps are free, even those that would normally require payment elsewhere. ⚠ Note: Since HappyMod distributes modded APKs, it operates in a legal gray area and may pose security risks. Apps downloaded from unofficial sources can contain malware or violate app developers’ terms of service. iOS Alternative App Stores The Digital Markets Act (DMA) of 2024 changed how mobile apps are distributed.  This law required big tech companies like Apple and Google to allow third-party app stores and different payment systems on their platforms. By promoting competition, the DMA gave developers and users more choices and created a better environment for digital apps. The Impacts of the DMA on iOS App Distribution: Apple is now required to allow third-party app stores on iOS devices within the EU. This means users can download and install apps from sources other than the official Apple App Store. The DMA permits sideloading, enabling users to install apps directly from developers' websites or other platforms without going through the App Store. Alternative app stores and payment systems can offer developers lower fees than Apple's traditional 15-30% commission, fostering competition and potentially lowering consumer costs. The DMA reduces the dominance of gatekeepers like Apple, giving smaller developers and app stores a better chance to compete. AltStore It is one of the early app store alternative platforms for iOS devices designed for EU regions that was approved by Apple. AltStore was released in 2019 by developer Riley Testut. Although the platform has a very limited number of official apps (under 10), users can sideload any compatible IPA file (iOS app package).  AltStore focuses on security. Its store page provides a complete list of an app's permissions. It will also automatically alert you if those permissions change so you can sideload apps with confidence. Unlike other alternative stores, AltStore works without jailbreaking. Uses a personal Apple Developer certificate to install and refresh apps. Requires a device running AltServer, which refreshes apps periodically to keep them working. Developers do not need to pay Apple’s $99 developer fee to distribute apps through AltStore. Some apps are free. Others are exclusive to Patreon supporters, meaning users must pay a subscription to access certain features or apps. Plan for Success Visualize your product, define architecture, avoid early mistakes, and ensure clear requirements, while getting accurate budget and timeline estimates for better resource planning Get in touch Unlisted, yet worth mentioning And here are some additional examples to look at. Epic Games Store Although Epic Games, another iOS alternative app store, has been vocal about its plans to launch an iOS app store in the EU by January 2025, none of the 100 highest grossing mobile game developers are willing to distribute their games on the Epic Games Store because of the Core Technology Fee and Apple and Google’s onerous restrictions and scare screens.   Aptoide iOS In June 2024, Aptoide launched its alternative app store for iOS users in the European Union, taking advantage of the EU's Digital Markets Act.  Currently, Aptoide for iOS is available exclusively to users within the European Union. The initial rollout provides a selection of high-quality games, with plans to expand the library over time.  To install Aptoide on an iPhone, users need to obtain an access code, which can be acquired from a friend or by joining a waitlist. Additionally, users must enable the installation of third-party stores in their iPhone settings.  Setapp iOS Setapp has expanded its services to include iOS applications. Initially launched in 2017 as a subscription-based platform for macOS apps, Setapp introduced iOS support in August 2020.  The open beta for Setapp Mobile began in September 2024, featuring 50 productivity and lifestyle apps at launch.  To access Setapp Mobile, users need to be in the EU, have an Apple ID based in the region, and run iOS 17.4 or later. The subscription is priced at $9.99 / €9.49 per month, with a seven-day free trial available. Why Use an Alternative App Store? Alternative app stores can offer advantages that you might not know about, especially in different parts of the world and for specific markets.  These platforms can help you connect with new audiences and lower the fees that reduce your earnings. However, they have their own specifics.  Let’s look at why exploring options beyond Google Play and the App Store might be a smart choice and what risks you need to keep in mind. Wider Reach App store alternatives often serve the needs of niche audiences or regions where Google Play and the App Store have limited presence. For example, Huawei App Store dominates in China, while Qoo App is popular among anime fans. Better Revenue Models Some stores offer more favorable revenue-sharing models or lower fees compared to mainstream platforms. Faster Access to Users Stores like Galaxy Store and Huawei App Store are pre-installed on specific devices, giving developers instant access to millions of users. Regional Accessibility In countries like China, where Google Play is blocked, alternative stores like Tencent MyApp and Huawei App Store are essential for reaching users. Cost Savings Many alternative stores offer discounted premium apps or free versions of paid apps. Lower Competition With fewer apps than Google Play, alternative stores provide better visibility and ranking opportunities for new developers. Lower Competition Third-party app stores are ideal for testing early-stage products before scaling to larger platforms. Combined with AI test automation tools for unit tests, they provide a competitive edge on a global market scale. Risks to Consider Security: Policies vary, and some stores may host pirated or unsafe apps. Transparency: Not all stores have clear terms and conditions. Fragmentation: Managing apps across multiple stores can be challenging. Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Development with JetRuby At JetRuby, we specialize in building MVPs that help businesses validate their ideas quickly and cost-effectively.  When creating an Android app, it's important to look beyond the Google Play Store and leverage app store alternatives that can increase visibility. We have experience with different marketplaces and can suggest options that fit your app's purpose, especially if you’re building a SaaS. For example, F-Droid is great for tech-savvy users who prefer open-source apps. Itch.io is perfect for indie game developers, providing exposure to a dedicated gamer community.  Why Choose JetRuby? Expertise: We’ve developed and launched mobile apps from scratch for diverse industries, from healthcare to e-commerce.  Custom Solutions: Tailored development to meet your specific needs, whether you’re building a mobile solution, web app, or website. End-to-End Support: From ideation to publishing, we handle every step of the process, ensuring code quality with the help of tools like AI-driven code review. Discover how AI code review enhances Ruby on Rails projects. Since each app owner has specific goals, we suggest checking out the app stores listed in the article to find the best option for maximizing your app's potential in a competitive market. If you need to shift your business model, explore how to pivot your startup effectively. If you’re considering launching your app on alternative stores or need help with MVP development, schedule a call with us today. ### How We Hire Top Engineers: From Talent Sourcing to Seamless Onboarding at JetRuby Hiring top engineering talent is both a priority and a challenge for tech companies like JetRuby. A bad hire can cost an organization about 30% of that employee’s annual salary​, not to mention the lost productivity and team disruption. We at JetRuby understand that investing in a thorough recruitment process upfront pays off in long-term performance.  In fact, industry research shows that companies with structured hiring and onboarding see dramatically better retention and productivity (a strong onboarding alone can improve new-hire retention by 82%).​ We’d like to share our expertise and explain why and how a well-thought hiring process benefits our clients. This article will take you inside our internal hiring process for top engineers: From how we source and attract candidates Through multi-stage interviews and evaluations  And all the way to comprehensive onboarding and continuous training Key takeaways Hiring top engineers requires a multi-channel approach. Companies need to combine job boards, social sourcing, internal referrals, and networking events to attract the best candidates. Technical skill alone isn’t enough. The best engineers thrive in dynamic environments, communicate well with clients, and adapt to fast-changing requirements. Soft skills matter just as much as technical expertise. Structured hiring reduces bad hires and increases retention. A defined hiring process, with clear evaluation criteria and multi-stage interviews, prevents costly hiring mistakes and ensures candidates align with company culture and expectations. Employer branding attracts top-tier talent. Engineers seek out companies that prioritize innovation, mentorship, and professional growth. A strong brand reputation makes hiring easier and ensures a steady influx of skilled candidates. A well-designed onboarding process accelerates productivity. Providing clear documentation, mentorship programs, and early-stage project involvement ensures that new hires quickly integrate and contribute to company goals. A talent pipeline guarantees long-term growth. Internal academies, internship programs, and continuous learning initiatives help companies develop junior talent into senior experts, ensuring a sustainable, high-quality workforce. The very first step in the hiring process: talent sourcing The hiring process begins long before any interviews take place — it starts with strategic talent sourcing. Our team believes in a simple principle: we rely on strong engineering minds that help our clients achieve success. We focus on the following traits: High skill level that covers coding and architecture choices. Clear communication style with teammates, managers, and stakeholders (a willingness to speak with clients directly). Ability to solve problems across multiple projects. Dedication to client needs, shown by proactive solutions and business-focused thinking. Willingness to lead teams while continuing to learn new concepts that expand project possibilities. Long-term partnership with personal and team growth. These are key aspects we assess and value the most.  Each phase in our process follows these pillars. We rely on steady methods that assess both practical expertise and long-term vision.  We want experts who enjoy constant improvement, care about project outcomes, and solve problems with precise solutions. However, we do not prioritize product-based engineers when we seek top experts. Outsourcing experts handle varied stacks and adapt to shifting client demands. On the other hand, product experience sometimes leads to narrower expertise and less direct client contact. “Since we are a B2B software development company, our projects revolve around external customers who expect deep technical expertise in different domains and technologies.  A product-based developer might expect a more static environment with one product backlog and one set of managers.  Our environment demands quick changes when separate client stakeholders share conflicting requests. Some individuals might panic at the idea of rethinking solutions that worked for one project but not for another.  Many of our senior developers came from outsource backgrounds, so they view each domain as a fresh puzzle. They talk to client teams, map out business needs, and decide which technology fits best.  This kind of mindset suits our culture and goals,” says Alex, VP of Operations at JetRuby. JetRuby follows a two-tier approach: Top-level engineers (Senior/Lead) Juniors with a strong desire to learn We help develop basic skills and provide regular internal courses for junior-level specialists. Within a year, they acquire the necessary knowledge and get assigned to one of the projects. When our strategy or specific projects require expanding our competencies, we look for top specialists that can bring fresh ideas and innovative techniques. We don’t focus on hiring mid-level developers because: Mid-level engineers sometimes carry issues from previous jobs They might have unresolved frustrations and resist our fast-moving environment They can lack the willingness to guide or mentor others This high bar removes average talent from our pipeline. But it doesn't mean there are no exceptions, of course. Below, we outline the primary sourcing channels JetRuby uses. Job boards & career sites We post open engineering positions on popular job boards (e.g., Indeed, Glassdoor, LinkedIn Jobs) and niche tech job sites. These platforms reach active job seekers worldwide.  For example, Indeed alone has been known to deliver a large volume of candidates. One study showed Indeed was responsible for 65% of external hires at one point​. We also maintain a careers page on our website where candidates can learn about our company culture and see current openings. LinkedIn & social media JetRuby’s recruiters actively use LinkedIn to both post jobs and search for strong candidates.  We leverage LinkedIn’s advanced search to identify software engineers with relevant experience (like Ruby on Rails, React, cloud architecture, etc.) and reach out with personalized messages.  Our team members also share job openings on their networks, and we engage in tech groups on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit to spread the word.  This social sourcing helps attract passive candidates who might not be checking job boards but would consider a great opportunity if it comes their way. Internal referrals JetRuby runs a “Bring a Friend” initiative.  An existing staff member contacts our HR team with a recommendation. We document the candidate’s details and proceed with the usual screening steps.  That referral often includes extra insights about the candidate’s teamwork approach or real coding achievements.  Our staff receives a reward when these referrals lead to a successful hire. We see a steady influx of senior talents from these referrals, and the success rate can exceed 30% in some cases. Meetups and conferences Our managers attend software meetups, larger conferences, and specialized gatherings.  These events happen in many regions and sometimes we meet promising leaders who have shown advanced knowledge of certain frameworks. We keep a record of those introductions and encourage them to apply.  That channel helps us learn about an engineer’s communication style right away. With all these channels, JetRuby ensures we have a steady inflow of talent. We measure the efficiency of each channel (for example, tracking how many candidates from LinkedIn or referrals advance through our process) and prioritize those with the best results.  However, we don’t rely on just one source. Top engineers can come from anywhere, so our sourcing strategy casts a wide net while focusing on the spaces where those engineers spend their time. Candidate attraction strategies Finding candidates is only half the battle. We also need to attract them to JetRuby.  Top engineers often have many options, so we put effort into making JetRuby an appealing career destination.  Our candidate attraction strategies involve crafting compelling job postings, personalized outreach, and strong employer branding to highlight what makes JetRuby special. Compelling job descriptions: Every job description at JetRuby is carefully written to be clear, engaging, and inclusive. Rather than a dry list of requirements, we describe the impact and opportunities of the role.  Personalized outreach: When our recruiters identify strong passive candidates, we reach out with personalized messages rather than generic form letters. Highlighting growth and innovation: In our messaging to candidates, we also highlight what engineers care about: growth, interesting challenges, and modern tech. We make it clear that at JetRuby, they’ll get to solve complex problems, work with the latest technologies, and continuously learn. Positive candidate experience: Candidate attraction extends into the experience a candidate has throughout the process. JetRuby strives to make every interaction, from the first email or call to the final offer, a positive, professional experience. Employer branding: JetRuby also invests in employer branding — building a positive reputation as a great place to work. We want potential hires to have heard of JetRuby in a favorable light even before we contact them.  These employer branding efforts pay off: 86% of job seekers research company reviews and ratings to decide where to apply​.  And having a strong brand means more top-tier candidates come to us. In fact, 75% of active job seekers are more likely to apply to a job if the employer actively manages its brand online​. Conversely, a poor reputation can repel talent. 50% of candidates say they wouldn’t work for a company with a bad reputation, even for a pay increase​. Candidate screening and evaluation After sourcing and attracting candidates, JetRuby moves into the screening and evaluation phase. This is where we determine which applicants truly have the qualifications and potential to excel at JetRuby. It’s a multi-step filter that ensures only the top candidates advance to in-depth interviews. We receive a healthy volume of applications for each engineer opening, so a structured screening process is critical to identify the stand-outs efficiently and fairly. Our screening process has two main components: a resume/application review and one or more pre-screen interviews (often a phone or video call).  For senior-level and lead experts, we use predefined criteria and a hard skill review matrix so that every candidate is evaluated consistently against the same standards. For example, we might rate “Work Experience Relevance” on a 1-5 scale, “Technical Skill Match” 1-5, etc., for each resume.  Candidates who meet or exceed the threshold on these criteria are moved to the next stage.  Typically, we end up shortlisting a modest percentage of applicants, perhaps the top 10-15%.  This ensures that those we contact for interviews already have a strong baseline fit. Our HR staff begins with a structured checklist. Technical skills & experience Does the candidate have the core technical skills we need?  For a senior software engineer role, we’d be checking for proficiency in relevant programming languages and frameworks (such as Ruby on Rails, Python, React, AWS, etc.), and a sufficient number of years building similar systems. We also value depth of experience — evidence that they’ve tackled complex challenges, not just basic tasks. If a resume shows they led development of a scalable SaaS platform or contributed to an open-source project, that stands out. Education & certifications While we don’t require a specific degree for all roles, a strong educational background in Computer Science or related fields is a plus.  We verify any listed degrees or certifications that are relevant (for example, AWS Certified Developer, or a Master’s in Computer Science).  However, JetRuby also values equivalent practical experience. A candidate without a CS degree but with a track record of successful projects will certainly be considered. Key achievements We pay close attention to whether the candidate’s resume highlights certain achievements, not just duties. Top candidates will list accomplishments like “Improved database query performance by 50%” or “Led a team of 5 to deliver a mobile app used by 100,000 users”.  Such results-oriented details demonstrate impact and problem-solving ability. We’re looking for people who excel at their job and drive results. Domain count Has the developer worked in at least two or three domains? For instance, did they try finance and eCommerce in prior roles? This variety signals strong adaptability. Team or leadership experience Some resumes show that a developer oversaw a small group, mentored interns, or introduced new architecture decisions. Our environment encourages leadership at all levels. Client-focused skills We look for any sign that the person explained solutions in business terms. If a resume only lists coding tasks, we might pause and consider whether that person might dislike direct client calls. Side projects or open-source contributions For engineering roles, seeing a link to a GitHub repository, personal website, or portfolio of projects is great.  If provided, our reviewers will often take a quick look at a candidate’s code samples or project demos to gauge their coding style and creativity.  A well-structured, active GitHub profile can sometimes compensate for limited work experience, as it shows passion and self-driven learning. Once we confirm that the candidate meets the baseline, our HR experts might ask a few additional questions or schedule a brief 15-minute phone or video call. During that chat we: Confirm a pay range to avoid future mismatches. Ask if the candidate can relocate or prefers remote work. Explain basic details about JetRuby’s environment. Boost Your Team Backed by our 15 years of Ruby on Rails expertise, accelerate development, integrate seamlessly, and receive full support. Get in touch Pre-screen conversations with HR Candidates who show potential move to a deeper discussion. Our HR team probes their motivations and checks their approach to conflicts. We: Explore their motivation to join an outsourcing company Ask them how they handle conflicts or frequent requirement changes See if they enjoy speaking to external stakeholders We prefer to see how a person reacts to hypothetical but realistic scenarios.  The HR manager might say, “Imagine you are in a situation with three stakeholders, each pressing for different features. How would you handle that?”  Although we aim to avoid yes-or-no questions, we do want a sense of how the candidate organizes priorities. Candidates who say they become frustrated by frequent changes raise red flags, since we see changes all the time. If the role absolutely requires X years of a certain technology, the interviewer may ask a few pointed questions about that skill to verify the resume claims.  For example, “I see you worked with React for 3 years, can you tell me about the most complex React component you built?”  The idea isn’t to grill them technically (that comes later) but to ensure they have real hands-on expertise. As for juniors, we pay more attention to their soft skills and the desire to grow as an expert. We also could check for code samples or give a small assignment if the person is mid-level or junior. For example, we might give them a short Ruby project: Create a user login system Store data in a basic database Upload all code to GitHub The individual writes code on a personal system and uploads it to GitHub. Our technical specialist then inspects the test assignment. If results meet our standards, we book the next step. If not, our experts provide feedback so the candidate can try again.  We rarely give these assignments to senior engineers. They usually demonstrate skill through a deeper conversation and live coding in the technical interview session. In summary, the screening stage at JetRuby is about ensuring that anyone who invests time in the rigorous main interviews is a viable contender.  By reviewing resumes systematically and conducting structured pre-screen interviews, we filter in the right candidates. Those with the qualifications, communication skills, and interest level that match JetRuby’s high standards.  Now, having identified the top candidates, we proceed to the core of our hiring process: the main interviews and assessments. In-depth technical interviews and cultural fit assessments JetRuby’s main interview process is a multi-step, detailed evaluation designed to thoroughly assess a candidate’s technical expertise, problem-solving ability, and cultural fit.  By this stage, candidates have already impressed us on paper and in preliminary screenings.  The main interviews allow us to dive deeper and see how exactly they think and work in scenarios similar to our real project environment. It’s also a chance for the candidate to meet multiple members of our team and get a feel for how we operate. We prepare a structured list of topics for each technology: Ruby on Rails: This is our main specialization. The interviewer checks knowledge of frameworks, architecture patterns, and code structuring. React or Node.js: The conversation shifts to dynamic interfaces or back-end logic in JavaScript. Other topics: Some advanced applicants know multiple languages. The conversation touches on concurrency, microservices, or domain-driven aspects if relevant. Our main interview process for engineers typically takes several distinct rounds, which may be conducted all on one day (for efficiency) or spread over multiple days.  The exact steps can vary by role level (for example, a senior engineer might have an extra system design presentation), but generally include: Technical assessments — to test coding skills and engineering knowledge. Behavioral and situational interviews — to evaluate soft skills, teamwork, and adaptability. Team/management interview — often a cultural fit discussion with an engineering manager or future teammates. Feedback review and final hiring decision — an internal step where we compile results from all interviewers. Offer discussion — presenting the offer to the chosen candidate and addressing any final questions. [table id=44 /] As we mentioned above, we measure responses with a hard skill review matrix that covers: Familiarity with best practices in a certain language. Competence in design patterns and architecture. Problem-solving approach for real-life project needs. Ability to speak about the business impact of solutions.  Now, let’s highlight a few core elements of our technical interview. Live coding or project review We ask the candidate to show a code snippet. We prefer real-world code from their prior experience.  Some will pull up a GitHub repository that has a commercial or personal project.  For instance, one of our recent interviews focused on an applicant’s advanced caching layer.  Our team lead wanted to see how that caching logic handled partial data updates. The candidate demonstrated how it stored fragments of data and invalidated them when changes occurred.  That example showed how thoroughly the candidate thought about real-time performance. If no prior code example is available, we might propose a small scenario. For example, we ask them to parse JSON data and filter certain fields.  This helps us see how they approach a problem: Do they name variables in a descriptive way? Do they handle exceptions gracefully? Can they explain each step without confusion? Our team lead looks at the approach, naming conventions, and error handling. This test does not last long. Our main goal is to see how quickly the candidate organizes code logic, not to measure memorized syntax. Leadership review with Mercer guidelines For senior leads, we apply Mercer-based frameworks that break down leadership traits. These traits might include: Decision-making style Conflict handling Efficient task delegating Ability to teach or mentor junior developers Our managers rate each trait to see how the candidate might perform.  One candidate might excel at architecture but show fewer points in mentoring. Another might have strong management instincts but weaker architecture expertise.  This data helps us decide if a person can lead a big project or if they should join as a senior contributor first. ISO-aligned procedures JetRuby references standard practices to confirm that we apply consistent scoring. We check clarity in test instructions, structured rubrics, and guidelines that define pass/fail criteria. For instance, if a candidate’s code style is strong but they seem uncertain about presenting solutions to clients, we note that. Our managers can weigh those observations and see if it aligns with the open role. Behavioral and situational interviews Soft skills often decide whether a person can thrive in our environment. We talk about past teamwork and ask each person to share a conflict they faced.  This reveals how they solve issues with clients or coworkers. We measure several traits: Adaptation in uncertain client requests. Respect for deadlines or customer constraints. Willingness to lead knowledge-sharing sessions for juniors. Consistency in daily communication with managers or client stakeholders. Times when a client asked for an urgent feature switch. Experiences where the candidate had to communicate with a skeptical manager. Moments when the developer guided teammates through a big code refactor. Final steps: offer, onboarding, and adaptation After the final round, we gather opinions from recruiters, team leads, and often the department manager. Each group references the matrix with numeric or descriptive scores.  They analyze: Overall performance: Did the candidate show strong alignment with the role’s needs? Cultural synergy: Did the candidate’s work ethic and communication show signs of good chemistry with JetRuby’s environment? Leadership or potential: Did the candidate show a willingness to guide others or share expertise?. Salary expectations: Did we come to an agreement with the candidate? We choose the best fit by combining these data points.  If two engineers have identical skill sets, we favor the one who shows a desire to mentor less experienced developers or who has worked in multiple outsourcing firms.  Our next step is a written pre-offer that specifies role, base compensation, and a possible bonus path.  We finalize after a short meeting with senior leadership for top-level hires. Our CEO meets senior staff to confirm the cultural aspect because these employees represent the public face of JetRuby when they interact with clients. Onboarding process We at JetRuby treat the first day as a critical milestone and invest significant attention in the early phase of employment. We want a new hire to feel confident. Before the new hire’s first day, we finish these tasks: Administrative details: We prepare the contract, gather any necessary IDs, confirm the new hire’s contact information, and note any hardware requests. Documentation: We send a short welcome pack. That pack includes an overview of JetRuby’s mission, main communication norms, and a schedule for early calls. Essential credentials: We generate user accounts for internal tools. That might include code repositories, project management platforms, CRMs, task and time tracking tools, chat groups, etc. Welcome plan: We design a schedule for the first week. It includes a quick introduction to the team lead, the mentor, and possibly a project manager if the hire belongs to a client-facing project. What exactly do we do with these items? We collect them in a digital folder accessible to the new hire and the relevant manager. How exactly does this help them adapt? They arrive ready with fewer missing details. They know how to connect to each system on day one. That structure reduces confusion and speeds up productivity. Internal systems and guidelines We have internal frameworks and checklists that support a new hire from the first day: Knowledge base: We store best practices, coding examples, or standard operating procedures. Technical frameworks: We use standard guidelines for version control, code reviews, and approvals. Checklists: Each new hire sees a practical checklist. It outlines the tasks for day one, day seven, and the first month. This includes tasks like reading a short set of instructions, finishing a self-introduction message, or setting up personal code repositories. What exactly is in the guidelines? They note recommended libraries, code style norms, or communication tips for clients in different time zones. How exactly does this help new hires? It gives them a roadmap. They know which tools to learn, how to structure commits, and how to handle immediate tasks without guesswork. Team integration and support A new hire connects with colleagues right away. JetRuby assigns a mentor or “buddy,” often a senior developer in the same practice area: Regular check-ins: The mentor schedules short calls to answer questions. Buddy programs: Another colleague outside of the direct project team might introduce them to less formal aspects of JetRuby culture. Scheduled reviews: An HR professional meets the new hire at intervals (for example, after two weeks and one month) to gather feedback about progress. What exactly do these steps accomplish? They build a sense of belonging from the first day. The new hire gains clarity and a place to ask immediate questions. How exactly does this help parties? The new hire sees direct support. The mentor learns leadership skills. The organization sees faster alignment with best practices. Accelerate Digital Development! 200+ projects, ISO security, flexible scaling, low turnover for efficiency & savings. Get in touch Internal engineer academy We established our in-house engineer academy. It aligns with our plan to grow juniors who show potential. It consists of: A group-based curriculum with key subjects in programming fundamentals. Mentoring sessions with real-time code reviews. Projects that mirror real examples from client work. Only about 1 in 200 participants become full employees. That might sound low, but the academy teaches serious coding tasks.  Some participants drop out if they miss deadlines or find the work too demanding. Others realize they prefer another career.  Those who stay often become excellent junior developers. Structure and typical projects The curriculum focuses on: Basic Ruby skills: They build small web apps, learn how to manage data, and fix bugs. Sample assignments: Examples include user authentication or a simplified e-commerce flow. Group checkpoints: Mentors track each student’s progress and offer weekly feedback. We rotate mini-projects. For one cohort, we might create a social feed assignment. Another cohort might focus on a microservice approach. We want novices to see how real outsourced projects often add new features and test them on short timelines. Growth from internship to Junior After the academy, some participants earn an internship. During these three months, they: Work on an internal product or a small-scale client feature. Get code reviews from senior developers. Go through best practices for commit messages and pull requests. Successful interns become official junior developers. They join one of our projects and continue learning. Many of our past interns grew into seasoned software engineers in a few years. Process summary and client benefits JetRuby’s journey for each hire begins with sourcing, moves through screening, covers thorough technical checks, and finishes with a guided onboarding.  The same applies whether we hire an entry-level developer or a top-level expert.  Our internal academy adds another dimension: a pipeline for well-trained engineers. That pipeline amplifies our ability to supply clients with strong talent. Clients receive these advantages: Pre-vetted engineers: Each new team member already proves technical skill and readiness for frequent communication. Reduced risk: We do not expect clients to guess about an engineer’s abilities. Our multi-stage approach confirms skill, cultural fit, and reliability. Domain versatility: Many of our hires carry experience in finance, retail, or other sectors. They apply that knowledge to each new client. Staff Augmentation: Our clients do not waste time on job posts or complex interviews. We handle those processes. Clients can focus on product vision while our staff provides the technical backbone. This entire approach yields stable teams who adapt to new technologies or project pivots. It supports junior employees who rise to mid-level or senior status. It also integrates external experts who merge with the JetRuby way of working. Please don't hesitate to contact us for additional details and professional advice. ### Navigating Chinese Map Providers: A Guide to Coordinates, Constraints, and Real-World Use Imagine you plan a trip to China, filled with dreams of walking along the Great Wall, exploring the Forbidden City, and marveling at the futuristic skyline of Shanghai.  The twist?  Google Maps stays out of reach.  What, you might ask, doesn’t Google Maps work in China?  Yes. You need a Chinese map provider to replace Google services. At the inaugural meeting of the Central Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization, President Xi Jinping said, “There is no national security without cybersecurity.”  Since then, Chinese officials have increased their already severe control over everything online, including social media, online publishing, IT business models, and cloud data centers. So, many foreign platforms, including all Google services, have been blocked ever since. Instead, you're thrust into a Chinese map app world that breaks every rule you learned before. There is no Chinese version of Google Maps with exactly the same features, and this hidden world of apps has its own language and rules. We at JetRuby have experienced Chinese map quirks firsthand.  Although each Chinese map app shows you walking and bus routes and even points you to local eateries, much like a friend who knows all the best spots, the text on these apps is in Chinese, and you need a local phone number to register. And if you’re trying to expand your app or service into China, you especially need to be aware of various important differences.  These aren’t just minor differences in map accuracy or street names.  The Chinese government enforces strict regulations about which services can operate in the country. As a developer, this means you might face roadblocks with licensing, data storage, and even which map services you can use. In this guide, we'll share our experience adapting a client’s app to Chinese geolocation reality and legal regulations. We'll also discuss map alternatives, so you won't have to ask any more questions about navigating without Google Maps in China. Key takeaways Global mapping services like Google Maps are blocked or restricted in China. You’ll need to rely on local providers like Gaode, Tencent Maps, Baidu Maps, or others. China uses unique coordinate systems (GCJ-02 and BD-09) that differ from the global standard (WGS-84). If you don’t account for this, your app’s markers could be hundreds of meters off. Building apps in China requires local servers, business licenses, and compliance with strict regulations. Ignore these, and your app could face delays, blocks, or legal issues. Real-time apps (like ride-hailing or delivery services) are especially vulnerable to latency and data accuracy issues. Local infrastructure is key to success. JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation services can help you assemble a skilled team to tackle these challenges, ensuring your app meets Chinese standards without headaches.   About to launch a mobile app? What to choose — Native vs Hybrid? Get key insights in our blog post!   Introduction to China’s Complex Mapping Landscape Google Maps in China, like many other global map services, face strict restrictions within the country. They either don’t work at all, work with huge delays, or fail to offer the same level of detail that we’re used to elsewhere. Why does this happen?  China enforces strict rules on foreign tech companies, especially when it comes to services that deal with sensitive data, such as maps. The country protects its local businesses by limiting access to global services, including Google Maps.  This means that if you want to use a digital map in China, you need to find a local solution that complies with the country’s laws. The selection of an appropriate map provider is crucial for developers who intend to adapt their apps or develop new ones within China. Examining Top Chinese Map Suppliers There are no Chinese Google Maps, yet there are a few local options, of course, with their own quirks and oddities, yet quite manageable and useful.  So, what map app to use in China? And what does China use instead of Google? The most popular options include Gaode (Amap), Tencent Maps, Baidu Maps, GeoQ, and OpenStreetMaps. Each offers different strengths in data coverage, accuracy, and integration capabilities.  In November 2024, Gaode Map was the leading navigation app in China, with over one billion monthly active users, followed by Baidu Map with around 275 million users, and Tencent Map in third place. Gaode (Amap) Gaode (also known as Amap) is one of China's most widely used map services. It is widely used as a China travel map app, which is another Chinese equivalent of Google. It offers extensive coverage and highly accurate data. Gaode stands out for its high-resolution, detailed maps, especially in urban areas. It regularly updates its maps, making it ideal for applications that require up-to-date data for route planning or precise location tracking. Tencent Map Tencent Maps is another strong contender, especially in urban areas. The mapping accuracy in cities is 88.9%, backed by Tencent LBS data. Land use/cover data is 87.1% accurate, while nightlight satellite data has an accuracy of 85.5%. Known for its deep integration with Tencent's ecosystem, including WeChat, Tencent Maps provides a seamless experience for users in China. GeoQ GeoQ is a new player in the Chinese map market, but it has quickly carved a niche by focusing on professional industries such as construction, logistics, and environmental monitoring. OpenStreetMaps (OSM) OpenStreetMaps (OSM) is a unique, open-source alternative to commercial mapping services. Unlike the others, OSM relies on contributions from users around the world. By 2023, it had more than 10 million registered users. Baidu Map Baidu Maps is one of China's most popular map services, particularly for users in northern and western regions. Baidu’s app usage has been growing steadily for the past two years. In March 2024, the Chinese search engine giant had about 676 million monthly active users on its app. Known for its detailed maps and integration with other Baidu services, Baidu is a strong contender for urban-based applications. Some consider it a Chinese equivalent of Google Maps. Note! Before leaving for your trip, download a couple of China map apps. It is for you to decide what Chinese map apps are the best alternatives to Google maps. Learn their basic functions so you can easily switch from Google Maps to Baidu Maps, GeoQ, or others.   Why use Ruby on Rails for product development? Discover the reasons why it remains fast, secure, and ideal for building web applications.   Data Coverage and Accuracy Now, let’s talk about data accuracy.  You may not realize how much of an impact map accuracy can have until you run into problems in your own app.  Some Chinese map providers offer incredibly detailed street-level data, while others provide less comprehensive information.  This can be especially problematic for apps that require precise data, such as tracking deliveries or monitoring infrastructure like pipelines or electrical grids. Integration and API Differences Once you’ve chosen a map provider, the next step is integrating it into your app.  This is where things can get tricky.  While global map providers offer relatively easy-to-use APIs, Chinese maps providers may require you to jump through additional hoops.  Some of these providers offer open APIs that allow you to access advanced features like live traffic data or detailed street views. But others limit access to basic map tiles, meaning that you won’t be able to get all the data you might need. Another critical factor is where you host your servers.  Many Chinese maps require that you host your servers within China to comply with local regulations. This is not a technical barrier but more of a legal one.  If you don’t follow these rules, your app could face slowdowns or, worse, get blocked altogether.  So, before integrating a Chinese map provider into your app, make sure you understand the licensing requirements and server localization rules. By the way, if you are searching for reliable environments for your application, explore our 8 best Ruby on Rails hosting providers to ensure compliance and seamless performance.  When integrating the client’s app with Baidu, we encountered quite an obstacle — you need to register an account with the service to access a map provider API. However, you can only register if a registered local user confirms he knows you.  This was somewhat tricky, but the client found a local to help us with it. We can’t say for sure, but other map providers supposedly require the same.  Now, more on each map provider integration capabilities. Understanding each provider's strengths and limitations can help you select the best one for your specific project needs, ensuring that your app runs smoothly and legally in China. [table id=43 /] Rapid Team Expansion Scale your team quickly without wasting time or resources on hiring. Choose our staff augmentation solution and get the talent you need, when you need it. Hire developers Coordinate System Pitfalls and the Offset Mystery China has its own mapping standards that differ from global ones.  The widely used global Coordinate Reference System (CRS), called WGS-84, defines locations using latitude and longitude. In China, the standard is GCJ-02. This system modifies WGS-84 by adding random adjustments for security, which usually shifts locations by 300 to 500 meters. Baidu, a major map provider in China, has created another system called BD-09.  This system makes additional adjustments to GCJ-02 to protect its data from competitors. Baidu offers tools to switch between the three systems but only shows users how to convert from GCJ-02 to BD-09, encouraging them to use Baidu’s mapping services. These location “offsets” can cause serious problems for apps that need high accuracy, like navigation and location-based services. Users may end up with incorrect directions or wrong store locations, making the app hard to use. Practical Challenges of Building Apps in China Building an app that works well in China takes more than choosing the right map provider.  Developers also need to deal with complex legal and technical issues.  One of the biggest challenges is the Great Firewall of China, which can significantly slow down access to foreign resources. This means that if your app relies on data from international servers, you might experience delays in delivering map data or other services. Additionally, if your business model or product direction needs to significantly change to comply with Chinese regulations, consider learning how to pivot your startup strategy effectively to maintain momentum and growth. Another issue is censorship. The Chinese government closely monitors the information that flows within its borders. If your app includes content or features that don’t comply with Chinese laws, it could be fined or even blocked entirely.  For this reason, it’s important to understand the country’s legal requirements and ensure that your app is fully compliant. As you modernize your application, it can also help to stay on top of the latest Ruby on Rails updates. You might be interested in what's new in Rails 8: upgrade features and benefits to keep your tech stack current.   Ruby on Rails is the right choice for a SaaS idea! Why? It offers businesses the tools to build scalable, reliable, and quick-to-market products!   How NeptunusDetect Overcame Mapping Obstacles Here’s the story of our client, NeptunusDetect, a global technology leader and innovator in intelligent water loss and leak detection technologies. They decided to enter the Chinese market but faced challenges immediately.  When the company’s Chinese distributors placed some sensors, they found them located in a river.  Another problem was legal. To use map navigation software in China, the software and the company must be registered in China. Switching to a local Chinese map provider and using the proper tools to convert coordinates solved the issue and ensured that their system worked as expected.  We worked with NeptunusDetect in two main steps: the Proof of Concept (PoC) and the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). In the PoC step, we connected the client’s API to check whether it worked with Chinese map providers.  Next, we created a system that let the client easily switch between map providers. This system helped us gather data from the client’s app. This was important for the client because different map providers showed cities and towns in different ways.  For example, one provider might show a small town in one spot, while another might show a waste lot or land property in the same place.  The costs for these providers also varied. At first, the client chose the free option with the self-hosted Open Street Map, but later, we switched to Baidu Map to better meet their needs. We decided to opt for a combination of Leaflet and React libraries to combine map providers in a single application and compare them without dealing with each provider's APIs.  Leaflet is a lightweight but powerful library for creating interactive maps, while React is ideal for building dynamic user interfaces. We used the Leaflet.ChineseTmsProviders repository to simplify the integration of various Chinese map providers.  This tool’s ready-made configurations for various Chinese maps significantly speed up the map development and integration process and allowed us to test about eight map providers quickly. To deal with China’s unique coordinate system standards, we used the gcoord library, which provided a simple and efficient way to convert coordinates between different systems.  It adapted the clients' data to Chinese coordinate systems, thus ensuring an accurate and correct display of geospatial information in the app. Throughout this process, ensuring code quality was paramount. To streamline code reviews and maintain consistency, we leveraged AI-driven solutions.  We provided more details about this aspect in one of our recent articles  How AI code review enhances Ruby on Rails project.   Thinking about hiring a CTO? Find out how the CTO meaning in business differs depending on a company scale.    Staff Augmentation for Rapid Global Development Building an app (and a website!) that works seamlessly in China can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming.  If you are struggling to navigate the legal and technical barriers, Staff Augmentation service can help.  The JetRuby team includes seasoned Ruby on Rails developers and geolocation technology specialists. They can join your project quickly without needing extra training time.  If your business needs flexible staffing, you can easily adjust your team size while receiving regular progress updates. Our developers work in the same time zones, follow industry rules, and speak English well, making it easy to collaborate internationally. With JetRuby, you hire a complete development team. This team covers engineering, testing, business analysis, and design. We offer clear pricing and detailed reports for complete transparency. Skilled developers: Our experts deliver current knowledge to help you meet deadlines and maintain quality. Cost-effective solutions: Flexible staffing allows you to access the expertise you need without high costs. Seamless integration: Our developers collaborate smoothly with your existing team, ensuring clear communication. Improved workflow: Efficient processes and regular updates quickly help you deliver high-quality features. Following our top 13 steps to reduce employee turnover can also support stronger team motivation and lower turnover. Keeping a stable, skilled workforce will streamline every stage of your project. When entering a complex market like China, you better have a team that understands the technical and regulatory challenges. Our developers understand the technology and know how to ensure your app works smoothly and legally in China.  Whether you need to scale your team quickly or handle specific challenges, JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation service provides the flexibility and expertise you need to succeed. ### What to Do If You Have an App Idea: A Detailed Guide Many business owners notice a market gap, develop a great app idea, and think, “I could theoretically fix this.” One could see a chance to cover an untapped market. Another entrepreneur could notice that existing apps lack something important. However, startups with a new concept can feel excited and unsure at the same time. These doubts arise because building software demands a good business strategy, a clear picture of user needs, and a plan to deal with unexpected twists. It can also raise many questions: Where do I begin? How do I check if people want this app? How much will it cost? Who can build it? Where do I find beta users or early backers? What to do with an app idea if I don’t have a dev team? How to develop an app idea on a tight budget? In this article, we’ll answer these questions and walk through a practical path, from the early spark of an app idea to releasing a functioning solution. Let’s dive in! Key takeaways Mobile apps require significant time and financial investment for development. A solid idea for an app is a good starting point, but initial concepts need organization. Most software developers understand that they cannot manage every task on their own. A team or partner is essential for handling design, coding, testing, and additional steps. The competition is intense. Millions of apps are already available, and every new release must compete with well-established titles in similar categories. Thoughtful planning can prevent issues later on. Unexpected changes in cost or scope can hinder the progress of promising ideas. Before taking action with your app idea, recognize the budget factor Developing an app often requires a sizable budget. The average cost to build a mobile app is between $10,000 and $49,999. Not to mention those tailored solutions with custom features and integrations that might cost anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 and more. What exactly makes it expensive? The app development costs depend on design, platform complexity (iOS, Android, or both), user interface details, integrations with external systems, backend development, QA testing, and time spent on coding. If a project needs advanced features, the cost grows. If it demands 3D graphics or real-time data streaming, make sure you have enough experts. Partnership with a top development company boosts confidence. Skilled engineers and product managers can refine initial ideas. They review the concept, list potential pitfalls, and propose timelines that fit a set budget. This step sounds trivial, but it often decides which apps flourish and which ones fail due to cost overruns. Now, let’s look at the 8 key steps to help you turn your disruptive app ideas into a robust solution. Step 1. Explore the competitive landscape A new app faces competition in two giant markets. About 1.54 million apps exist in the Apple App Store, and around 1.68 million apps are available in the Google Play Store. That’s a huge number of options, so developing an app idea is never that easy. You must see how your idea will stand apart, so you need to compare your app’s utility with competitor solutions. Your job is to confirm that your concept adds something unique and solves a user issue in a simpler way or from a different angle. How exactly? By exploring the following: SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) Crucial app features (unique value proposition, call to action) Attractiveness of the UI/UX design (original graphical elements, top-notch technologies) Drawbacks (flaws, bugs) User acquisition channels (target audience, traffic sources, marketing campaigns) Revenue (free options, paid features, monetization model) Ratings (user reviews, rankings, app store ratings) After you gather competitor data, you also need to analyze your target audience. Who are they? Where do they live? What do they do each day? A generic answer, like “adults aged 18-60,” is too broad. You need to break it down: Demographic, geographic, and social criteria (gender, age, education, family status, income, profession, geographic location) Interests (favorite movies, entertainment, literature, hobbies, political views, sports activities) Needs (product quality, wide range of goods, acceptable cost/quality ratio Motivations (entertainment, improving health, self-expression, education) Ways of making decisions (based on friends’ recommendations, based on discounts/bonuses) Reasons to use your app (price, discount, attractive design, positive reviews, useful features, recommendations) Solvency (average check size, purchase frequency, app features users would like to pay for) That said, the thinking, “I’m starting an app, so I’ll figure it out later,” doesn’t work here. Thorough research now saves trouble later. Step 2. Confirm the worth of your concept You might ask: “I have an app idea where do I start after conducting market research?” You need to validate your concept. You verify its feasibility and commercial potential and check if real users will see enough value in your idea to download or pay for it. Some founders conduct a brief test model called a Proof of Concept (PoC). It’s a short test that checks if one specific assumption in your idea is flawed. It’s a good and easy-to-follow practice since you don’t have to code an entire product. You just run a small tech experiment or present rough demos to see if a key feature works as intended or if people respond well. Who are your potential customers? (Identify your target group) Write a profile for your ideal user group (also called a persona). Are they college students who need cheap transportation? Are they parents who want better ways to track chores for kids? Age range: For example, 25-40. Lifestyle: Working professionals who want quick solutions. Habits: Heavy phone use, frequent ordering online. Pain points: Not enough time to plan meals, always struggling with scheduling. Ask real people in that group about your concept. You can gather feedback or do quick polls. If many show excitement, you might have a winner. What problem does your app address? (Check usability) A product that solves no real problem often fades. Ask, “What difficulty do people face?” You must name the problem in simple terms, such as: “Busy parents need a shared calendar to track after-school programs.” “Small restaurants want a fast way to manage online reservations.” Then ask yourself: Does my solution save time, reduce costs, or raise efficiency? Can my target user see the benefits in one sentence? If yes, you likely have a strong focus. If not, rework your approach until you find a clear angle. What is your suggested fix? Present your solution to the identified problem. If the issue is chaotic scheduling, your solution could be: Quick appointment setups with color-coded slots. Shared calendars that sync with each user’s phone. Automatic reminders to prevent missed appointments. Provide further details. Our calendar integrates with Google Calendar and Apple Calendar. Users can simply tap a button to send invites. They can also color-code each event. Additionally, the system sends text alerts before every meeting. This level of clarity shows how the app stands out. It also proves that you studied user habits. What are your app’s strengths and weaknesses? Every concept has pros and cons. Be honest about them. If you plan a multi-platform product, you need a bigger team. That might be a weakness if the budget is small. You need to perform a brief SWOT analysis at this stage (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). List strong points that might give you an advantage: An advanced search engine that finds items in seconds. A user-friendly interface with large buttons for older audiences. A creative or location-based feature that no one else offers. Also, note the weak points: A small budget that limits large-scale marketing. A new brand without name recognition. A feature that relies on a third-party API that might be slow or costly. How exactly does this help? You can set priorities for improvement. You might decide to find an investor or cut back on features to keep it smaller at the starting point. Talk to your potential users Surveys or interviews offer real-life perspectives. You can also host an online poll or gather a small focus group. Start by reaching out on social media or local meetups. Offer an incentive, like a gift card, in exchange for their time. What exactly should you ask? What apps do you use for [similar purpose]? What do you find most frustrating about current solutions? Which features matter most? What features do you wish existed? Would you pay for it? If yes, how much? Collect your findings in a spreadsheet or a note-taking tool and look for patterns. If many participants ask for the same feature, highlight it. If only one person wants it, consider the cost of development versus the benefit. What metrics are you planning to use? Defining your success metrics prevents confusion later. Some examples: User satisfaction: Gather direct feedback or star ratings. Session length: Track how long each visit lasts. Average revenue per user: Measure monthly spending per active user. Hours of use per month: Monitor engagement level. App opens: Count how many times a user opens the app during a day or week. Active user count: Compare total downloads with those who still engage. Retention rate: Check if people come back after the first week or month. How exactly do you track these metrics? Tools like Google Analytics or Apple’s App Analytics gather data. They show daily active users, session duration, and user demographics. What is your app development budget? At this stage, you have enough information to decide how much you can spend. You can now set a budget for design, coding, testing, launch, and marketing. What exactly should you include in the budget? Developer salaries or freelance costs. Design fees for logos or user interface elements. Marketing efforts like social media ads or influencer outreach. Backed setup, server hosting, or cloud application services like AWS or Google Cloud. APIs for payment or location-based features. Quality assurance to catch bugs before launch. Gather quotes from different developers. Check how many months or sprints you need. Decide if you can cover all of this in-house or if you need outside funding. You might choose to drop some features if the estimated cost is too high, or you might look for an investor if you feel the potential payoff is big enough.   Think Ruby’s outdated? Discover why Ruby is still used for modern products and where it truly shines.   Step 3. Craft a mind map A mind map is a visual breakdown of your idea. It places the central concept in the middle and then branches out to tasks, user flows, features, or timelines. This technique keeps everyone on the same page. How to build one Pick a simple tool (like Miro or XMind) or just draw on paper. Write the main product name in the center. Highlight feature sets, user flows, budgets, marketing steps, team roles, and timelines. Draw lines for subcategories, such as “User Registration,” “Payment System,” or “Notification Flow.” Keep breaking large items into smaller tasks. Why do this? Early discovery: Missing elements become obvious. Easy prioritization: Teams can highlight must-have features versus extras. The bigger picture: Gives a quick snapshot of the entire project. Smooth collaboration: Helps with communication among team members.   Plan for Success Visualize your product, define architecture, avoid early mistakes, and ensure clear requirements while getting accurate budget and timeline estimates for better resource planning Get in touch   Step 4. Create a business plan Many investors or potential partners want to see a written plan. It’s a roadmap describing how your product operates, who it serves, and how it earns money. For instance, a pitch to investors often includes market research, the product’s vision, target audience details, and a revenue plan. These fundamentals also help you when you learn how to pitch an app idea to stakeholders. Follow these core 4 steps to form the plan. Describe your proto-persona This is a mock-up of your average user. It includes age, interests, goals, and daily habits. For example, “Olivia, 29, marketing manager. She wants a budget-friendly scheduling app that syncs across devices. She checks her phone 10 times a day.” Sketch feature sets List the must-haves. For example, a real estate app might need “property listings,” “interactive map,” “virtual tours,” and “simple contact form.” This helps developers focus on the main items first. Name unique value propositions (UVPs) A UVP is a brief statement about what sets your product apart and why people choose your service. It might be “near-instant ride matching,” “budget-friendly subscription,” “one-tap project creation with real-time collaboration.”, and so on. Monetization choices Look at competitor pricing to see what customers might pay. You can also gather input from user surveys. Advertising (banners): Show ads to users and earn revenue from clicks or views. Good for apps with large user bases and frequent sessions. Freemium: Offer basic features at no cost, lock advanced tools behind a subscription or one-time payment. Attracts users with a free version. Encourages upgrades if they like it. Premium: Charge a monthly or annual fee. Works if you update content often or provide ongoing value. In-app purchases: Sell items or content inside your product. Fits games or tools that offer optional enhancements. Paid apps: Have users pay upfront in the app store. Requires strong branding or a special niche. Step 5. Decide on your development partners Business owners often lack programming skills or time to manage a full tech stack, especially without a CTO on board. You can hire an in-house team, engage freelancers, or work with an outsourced agency like JetRuby. In-house team You hire full-time employees. You keep direct oversight of each step. Costs can rise due to salaries, benefits, hardware, and office space. Freelancers You contract individuals on specific tasks (front-end, back-end, design, BA, QA). Lower overhead if used wisely. Coordination can get messy if you juggle many freelancers with different schedules. Outsourcing to a development company You partner with an agency like JetRuby that handles coding, design, testing, and project management. You sign a contract with clear deliverables and deadlines. Communication is simpler because you have one primary point of contact. Questions to ask: How many platforms will I support? iOS, Android, or both? Do I need advanced graphics or real-time connections? This might require specialized coders. How much money and time can I invest? A tight budget might push you to pick a smaller team. What is the scale of my project? Mid to complex apps might demand an agency with robust experience. If you’re building something large, an app development for startup approach with a reliable partner is crucial. Compare quotes, check portfolios, and talk with references from past clients. Ask about their coding practices, design approach, and post-launch support. A good fit means fewer headaches during development.   Building SaaS soon? Check out nine ways Ruby on Rails can fast-track your SaaS product to success.   Step 6. Examine funding options A strong idea still needs cash to cover design, coding, testing, marketing, and hosting providers. Different funding methods work for different founders. Let’s list a few options: Personal network: Friends, family, or acquaintances with money to invest. Private investors: Wealthy individuals who might want equity or a return. Conferences and events: Gatherings where startups pitch to various sponsors. Accelerators: Organizations (like Y Combinator) that provide seed money, mentoring, and a network of peers. Funding contests: Competitions with prize money for standout ideas. Winners can attract media or investor attention. Angel investors: Individuals who invest in early-stage startups and expect a return or want a share of the business. Venture capital (VC) investors: Firms that invest large sums in high-potential ideas in exchange for a bigger share or board seats. Big companies: Sometimes, an established company acquires a startup or invests in its idea. Bank credit: Traditional loans that demand payback with interest. Crowdfunding platforms: Websites like Kickstarter or Indiegogo where many contributors pledge small amounts. You often need a polished slide deck or pitch to share your app idea with stakeholders and investors. The global mobile app market is forecast to hit $606.1 billion by 2032, so there is a lot of potential for investment initiatives. Show the problem, your solution, user data, competition, and revenue predictions. Investors want evidence that you can scale. They might ask about your user acquisition strategy or your break-even point. JetRuby can help create cost-efficient prototypes or an interactive demo. Instead of just a concept on paper, investors see a real sample and can be sure you’re not stuck in theory. A typical process might look like this: Project overview: You share your vision. Requirement breakdown: We clarify which features to include in the demo. Design: Our experts create simple wireframes or clickable prototypes. Coding: We build a basic version with primary functions. Testing: QA engineers check major bugs. Presentation: You can showcase the final product to investors or use it in pitch events. So, how to launch an app in the first place? Step 7. Build an MVP An MVP (minimum viable product) is a smaller version of the app with core features. It helps you learn if real users like your concept. You skip extras like advanced animations or deep customization and focus on the function that solves the user’s main issue. Why an MVP? Shorter development time: You launch an app faster and deliver your app idea in time, possibly within weeks or a few months. Lower cost: You invest in basic features first. This strategy works well for anyone starting an app with limited funds. Immediate feedback: Users confirm if they want the product or not. You should save any advanced feature that’s nice but not crucial for later. If the simple version gains traction, you can expand your functionality. If your MVP doesn’t work as you assumed, you can initiate a startup pivot strategy. Step 8. Refine, expand, and grow Once the MVP is live, a cycle begins and now you must refine and expand it. Run a beta testing round Track your app metrics Analyze feedback Expand features Cover maintenance and support tasks Promote your app Partner with JetRuby to bring your vision to life After shaping a plan, many founders look for a partner who handles coding, design, and testing. JetRuby offers MVP development services that reduce the time it takes to release a basic version. We help founders shorten the path from ideas to real user feedback. With an MVP, businesses can test their hypothesis about market demand and gather user comments and investor reactions. This data shapes future improvements without burning through a massive budget. JetRuby forms sprints with set deliverables and expected outcomes. These sprints last one or two weeks. Each sprint includes a planning session, coding, testing, and a demo of results. After the demo, the team gathers input from the client and decides on the next sprint’s tasks. What exactly happens during MVP development with JetRuby? Planning: The team defines features, deadlines, and tasks. Design: A minimal set of screens appears. Designers choose a layout and color scheme that suits the concept. Coding: Programmers implement the main user flow. They keep the scope lean. Quality assurance: Testers run the app and note errors or friction points. Iteration: The team corrects major flaws. They might add a small piece of code to address a must-have feature. Release: The MVP goes live for a group of users or an entire market segment. Further enhancements: Based on user feedback, we continue to improve the product and expand the functionality Please contact us for additional information or if you need expert guidance. ### What is a Proof of Concept (PoC) in Software Development and How It’s Done at JetRuby: An Exclusive Guide for 2025 Many startups and companies invest time and money in ideas that never reach the market. In fact, 90% of startups fail. Why? One of the reasons — they skip an important step: Proof of Concept (PoC).  A PoC in business determines if an idea is practical before full-scale development begins. Without a PoC, companies risk building products that might fail due to technical limitations, lack of demand, poor architecture, or unforeseen challenges. At JetRuby, PoC is an important validation process that helps us avoid costly mistakes and wasted resources. You might ask, “What exactly do I gain from a PoC system?”  You gain confidence. Your product team learns about user demand. Investors see data. And developers confirm their approach can scale or simply work in the first place. In this article, we’ll cover the PoC meaning, explain its importance, and share some insights on how JetRuby runs it. Key takeaways Tackling too many questions at once muddles data and prolongs the process. Zeroing in on a single idea keeps the PoC fast and clear. A market PoC uncovers whether users want the feature you have in mind, while a technical PoC verifies if a chosen stack or library holds up under load. Both approaches share a common goal: preventing large-scale rework later. A small test exposes performance bottlenecks, security flaws, or lack of user engagement before you invest months of coding. This early insight is worth using since it helps avoid expenses that snowball with time. PoC code is often rushed, lacks security measures, and isn’t designed for long-term stability. It confirms feasibility but shouldn’t be dropped into production without a proper rebuild. What is a Proof of Concept (PoC)? So, what does PoC mean in business? At JetRuby, we believe that a Proof of Concept is a small project that verifies only one assumption, one idea at a time. At least, this is how we conduct this process in our software development cycles. It can address a question about market demand or a concern about technical limits. Either way, the scope remains narrow.  You don’t build a finished product. Instead, you only build enough to check if the concept stands.  If it passes the test, you proceed with confidence. If it fails, you discover an early warning sign to pivot your idea before spending months of development time. Let’s look at these two key PoC types and how they work exactly. Market-focused PoC A company might assume there’s a demand for a certain feature. For example, it can be a travel agency that wants to know if people love their services. Let’s say they believe users want timed quizzes at the end of each day.  They gather a test group, show them a bare-bones demo, and measure if those users engage with the quizzes two days in a row. If engagement is high, they move forward. If it’s low, they pause or adjust their concept. What happens in this test group? The team invites a small slice of the user base to try the quiz feature and then gathers their reactions. They collect data about completion rates, average time spent, or user comments. How do they gather that information? They might use a simple interface that logs each quiz attempt. They could pair it with a quick survey. This feedback reveals if the idea has enough traction or if the audience wants something else. Of course, they can also measure user sign-ups or app usage frequency. But they’ll require to start two more PoC processes to get accurate data for each measured aspect. Technical-focused PoC Developers might wonder if a certain library can handle thousands of concurrent operations. They code a minimal test that triggers many parallel requests. They monitor each response, watch for error rates, and see if memory usage spikes. What does that look like in practice? The team writes a small script to stress-test the library. They run it on a staging server or local environment and then record how many requests are completed within a given timeframe. How does that confirm feasibility? If the library processes requests within the performance threshold without crashes, the team feels more confident adopting it for production. If it fails, they look for another library or try a different approach.   Ready to future-proof your next app with cloud application development? Learn the must-know tips for building in the cloud this year.   When do you use a Proof of Concept in software development? Now that you know what a PoC in software development means, let’s determine when it’s used. Most companies run a PoC during the initial project stages. They have a fresh idea and want to test it before heavy design or coding begins. This approach helps them avoid rewriting large segments of the app if something goes wrong. For instance, a team can come up with an idea to create a marketplace for delivering fresh food within 30 minutes. A short PoC might verify if local couriers can handle that speed under certain conditions or if customers genuinely want ultra-fast deliveries.  We at JetRuby sometimes see the need for a PoC even in the middle of development.  We may realize that the current approach underperforms or that a new requirement demands an entirely different solution. Or even better — there’s a new or updated technology that we can integrate to enhance performance. In those situations, a mid-project PoC helps us answer a single question and verify if the new direction is better.  Let’s look at typical triggers that prompt a PoC in software development. Starting a new project A founder or product owner may propose a brand-new concept. The team wonders if the market needs that idea. They start the Proof of Concept process to test a single assumption and measure user engagement for a core feature. Adding a new feature to an existing product A business might want to add a social feed or an advanced payment integration to the existing solution. The team quickly checks if the new feature meets certain performance benchmarks. Suspecting that the current solution falls short This can occur even during the mid-development phase.  For example, a product team might notice performance bottlenecks with the existing framework. Or developers might see that the library slows the system. Or there’s a new method to opt for. The team finds some alternatives, but first, they need to confirm that new options can handle the load. Now it’s the right time to conduct a small PoC project to compare a few available options under test loads. This produces data about which option fits best.   Curious about the latest AI breakthroughs? Explore our top 14 AI developments shaping tomorrow’s tech.   Proof of Concept benefits A PoC in project development delivers tangible insights without demanding a full build.  Here are 5 ways it helps teams make smarter decisions. Confident decisions based on data A PoC shows real metrics about performance, user feedback, or library compatibility. Instead of guessing, you see direct evidence. How does that data assist your business? It convinces potential investors that you have a sound approach. It calms internal stakeholders who might question an unproven concept. It clarifies whether to invest more resources or pivot away. Early issue identification You set goals at the outset, like “We need a transaction speed under 25ms.” Then, you run the PoC process and compare real performance to that goal. If the PoC fails, you know about the obstacle upfront. What qualifies as a problem in a PoC? Slow query times under load Negative user reactions to a new feature Inconsistent behavior when integrating with an external API Lower costs and reduced wasted effort You only build the minimum set of features needed to answer your question. No large-scale design or code is required. How does this reduce wasted effort? You discover feasibility issues quickly. You avoid rewriting huge sections of code. You only invest heavily after you see evidence the approach works. Stronger pitch for stakeholders All stakeholders and investors want proof that a concept stands on real footing, not wishful thinking. How exactly does a PoC boost your pitch? You show logs or performance charts. You share user feedback from a mini demo. You highlight relevant metrics instead of vague promises. Pointing toward the next development step A successful PoC often leads to a prototype. A failed PoC can prompt a major course correction. Instead of spending months coding the wrong solution, teams move faster toward the right fit. Proof of Concept vs. Prototype vs. Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Software teams often mention PoC, Prototype, and MVP in the same breath. Each represents a distinct milestone in product creation, though. [table id=42 /]   Tired of high employee turnover? Uncover 13 actionable steps to keep your talent on board this year.   Key mistakes when conducting a Proof of Concept A PoC in the IT industry can spare you many troubles, but it can also create confusion if done poorly.  Below are five major mistakes. Each includes an example and an explanation of how teams can sidestep that pitfall. Mistake #1: Confusing PoC with R&D development Example: A startup wants to build an advanced product based on computer vision. The entire R&D effort includes many tasks, like training a model, collecting image datasets, and refining detection algorithms.  On the other hand, a small PoC within that larger R&D effort can only focus on picking a library that identifies certain objects better. One library may excel at face recognition, while another focuses on squares or moving objects.  That single decision is your PoC. It addresses a narrow question: “Which library suits our primary detection need?” Why is it a mistake? Teams sometimes blend the entire R&D scope with what should be a much smaller PoC. This approach means no clear boundaries exist, so the project can sprawl for months without delivering a firm yes/no result. How to avoid it Understand the Proof of Concept meaning and separate it from the Research and Development process. Outline the entire R&D plan and isolate the specific question you want the PoC to answer. Do not try to solve every research challenge in one short experiment. If the question is “Which library detects square objects faster?”, focus solely on that. Mistake #2: Trying to test many hypotheses at once Example: A manager says, “I want to confirm that users love our new chat feature, plus I want to pick the best cloud provider, plus I want to see if a certain database can handle 20,000 queries per second.”  They roll all of these into one PoC. The outcome might be scattered. They gather partial data, but it’s unclear which piece truly worked or failed. Why is it a mistake? A PoC in software development thrives on speed and clarity. Multiple unrelated hypotheses break that clarity. The results can become tangled, leading to confusion about which approach to adopt. How to avoid it Separate tasks. If you must test user interest in a chat feature, do that in one PoC. If you want to compare two cloud providers, make that a different PoC. Keep each test short. The faster you get real data, the sooner you can adapt or proceed. Mistake #3: Getting too deep into implementation details Example: A founder wants to check if a new library can process user uploads in under 20ms. The team builds a gorgeous interface for file uploads, adds robust user profiles, and sets up advanced analytics.  Months pass, and the original question remains unanswered. Why is it a mistake? A PoC in software development aims to confirm feasibility, not deliver a polished user experience or advanced design. Adding these extra layers makes the scope balloon and jeopardizes the main goal. How to avoid it Stay laser-focused on the specific question. Skip the user interfaces step. Use a basic form or command-line approach if necessary. Resist the urge to perfect the code. Speed and clarity matter more than design polish. Mistake #4: Interpreting the results incorrectly Example: A team tests only two solutions that appear similar.  They run a minimal load test, see that one solution “seems okay,” and ignore the possibility that a third approach they didn’t research might outperform both.  Or they gather user feedback from 20 people who work in the same department, then assume the entire market will love the idea. Why is it a mistake? Skewed or narrow samples can trick you into believing a concept works better than it does. You might later discover that a broader user group or an untested library yields different results. How to avoid it Carefully pick your sample size or data set. Remain open to the idea that more than two solutions exist. Double-check if your test group represents real users, not just an internal team. Mistake #5: Using PoC code directly in production Example: A developer writes fast, rough code to check if a new integration meets the performance target.  It hits the required threshold, so management decides to copy that code into the production branch.  Later, the website or web app breaks under actual traffic or fails security tests. Why is it a mistake? PoC code rarely includes robust architecture, scalability, security measures, or thorough error handling. It only demonstrates that a concept is feasible in a lab environment. Rolling it out live can create hidden vulnerabilities or technical debt. How to avoid it Treat the PoC code as disposable. Rebuild the concept once you decide to incorporate it into the final product. Document what worked, then re-implement those findings in a structured manner. Boost Your Software With CTO Co-Pilot! Tackle architecture challenges and access top experts to efficiently drive your projects. Get in touch How to create a Proof of Concept A PoC in software engineering is only as good as your planning and execution.  The steps below outline a typical roadmap. #1. Identify the core concept What exactly do you want to test? Do you need to know if a certain feature attracts users? Do you want to see if your architecture scales under peak loads? Can Ruby on Rails caching techniques reduce load times? So, how exactly do you specify it? Write a single-sentence hypothesis like: “We believe that library X can handle 5,000 data requests in 10 seconds without timeouts.” #2. Define success metrics Pick numbers or criteria that clarify success or failure. Transaction speed, user adoption rate, or error count are typical examples. These metrics provide a target. For instance, “Pass if average request time is under 100ms.” If the data shows 200ms, you know it failed. #3. Build a Minimal Test Skip design flourishes. Focus on your single question. Write “throwaway” code that you can discard afterward. What exactly goes into your test environment? A tiny app that exercises the core library A minimal user interface or script for data input A logging mechanism to track performance #4. Collect and interpret data Compare your actual numbers to the success metrics. If you see a match, you consider it a pass. If not, you either refine the approach or pick another tool/method/solution. You want to monitor the following: Success or failure rates Response times Logs User feedback User engagement levels, if it’s a market test #5. Share results and decide next steps Gather key numbers, logs, or user quotes that show how the PoC performed. Then, you can compile your outcomes in a concise format.  For instance, “We achieved a 10ms average response with a max concurrency of 30,000.” Present this to stakeholders, investors, or team members. It shows them how you tested the concept and what data you gathered.   Vue or React? See our breakdown of which framework steals the spotlight for 2025 app projects.   PoC methodology at JetRuby Our team follows a streamlined PoC approach.  We first confirm that a concept is unknown from a technical point of view.  If there’s confusion in terms of requirements (typical non-technical business issues), those do not need a PoC. In this case, our business analysts can define and create requirements during the Design and Discovery phase.  If we see a project that comes with new technical-based integrations, unknown performance bottlenecks, or an untested feature, it’s a perfect fit to start a short PoC. We keep the scope small, skip fancy user interfaces, and focus on the core question. That single-minded approach helps us deliver results faster. Once we collect the data, we decide if the path is valid or if we should pivot. Moments NFC case study A client wanted fast sub-40ms transactions through a payment gateway. Our team wasn’t 100% sure which gateway could deliver that speed.  That’s why we asked for a brief PoC to test multiple options.  We: Built a lightweight prototype where you scan an NFC tag with a mobile app that triggers requests through 4-5 payment gateways. Measured the average response time for each gateway. Spent around 40 hours building and testing, then compiled performance logs. We found one gateway with an average response under 40ms. We presented those numbers to the client, who appreciated seeing real data instead of vague assurances. This short test answered a single question and helped the client pick the gateway with confidence.   Launching a Rails app? Compare 8 Ruby on Rails hosting providers that promise peak performance and reliability.   Creating a Proof of Concept for your software product with JetRuby SMBs often have a CTO in place but still face tricky questions about new technologies or methods.  Our CTO Co-Pilot service exists for those scenarios. We jump in as an extra layer of expertise to cover your tough architectural or performance issues. Technical consulting We investigate specific issues in architecture or infrastructure. We analyze the current stack, identify bottlenecks, and propose solutions based on past successes with similar platforms. Implementation of new technologies What exactly counts as a “new technology?” It could be a container platform, an AI-powered solution, a shift to serverless functions, or an advanced search engine for large data sets. We write small demos, run tests to verify performance, and share best practices that minimize downtime. Decision support for key technical questions We examine multiple frameworks, libraries, or approaches that might solve a given need, and we rank them on cost, reliability, and performance. We compile test data from mini-PoCs, discuss the pros and cons with the client’s CTO, and suggest a clear path forward. Our CTO Co-Pilot is like an extension of a client’s existing team.  We offer continuous collaboration, a set schedule for tasks, and transparent updates. If a new question arises that calls for a PoC, we execute it quickly, gather results, and help the client decide on the best route. Please contact us if you have any questions or if you need professional advice. ### App Development Cost in 2025: A Friendly Guide for Business Owners There’s a common joke in the developer community: People often ask developers to create a “super simple” app based on their brilliant idea that will make them a lot of money. Clients often ask, “How much does it cost to make an app?” or “What are app development costs in common?” This is like asking, “How much does it cost to build a simple house? I just want a few rooms and maybe some running water.” or “How much does it cost to make a simple car?” Clients might think it’s easy, saying, “I just want four wheels and a steering wheel.”  These questions ignore the reality that building something functional and reliable involves many details and challenges. You need thorough research, clear planning, and collaboration with an experienced development team to develop a successful mobile app. This partnership ensures that the app meets your business goals and user needs. Key Takeaways The Mobile App Market is Growing Rapidly — In 2025, the global mobile app market is expected to surpass $613 billion, making it a crucial investment for businesses. App Development Costs Vary — Depending on the complexity, costs range from $10,000 to over $150,000. Simple apps start around $25,000, while enterprise-level apps can exceed $150,000. Key Cost Factors — The final price depends on the app's design, features, integrations, platform choice (iOS, Android, or cross-platform), and developer location. For example, hiring developers costs between $20 and $200 per hour, depending on the region. Ways to Save on Development – Start with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test your idea, reuse code where possible, and prioritize only essential features to avoid unnecessary costs. Ongoing Maintenance is Essential – Budget 15–20% of your initial development cost per year for updates, security fixes, and improvements. Why Businesses Are Investing in Apps The global mobile app market is thriving, with its value expected to exceed $613 billion in 2025.  Whether it’s an eCommerce platform, a healthcare app, or an entertainment service, businesses see apps as a way to stay relevant and competitive. An app offers benefits like: Giving customers easier access to your services. Building loyalty through personalized features. Collecting valuable data to improve your offerings. But with these benefits comes the need to plan carefully for app development costs. A Ballpark Estimate On App Development Costs According to Clutch data, the average cost to build a mobile app is between $10,000 and $49,999.  However, prices can vary depending on the project’s size and desired features. The cost also depends on the mobile app development company’s size, experience, and location.  There are a lot of factors that affect the final cost of the app, including, but not limited to: Design and number of screens of the app Development process complexity QA and testing phase Developers’ hourly rate (which basically depends on the location of the team) Amount of functions and features, their complexity Number of necessary 3rd party integrations Another element that indirectly shapes cost is how your app manages user permissions and data access. Modern users are highly conscious of privacy, and addressing this properly often requires additional design and development effort. For a deeper look at why apps request certain permissions and how they handle data control, check out this GoodFirms guide. Let’s dive deeper into each of them and explore the most important factors to give you a clear picture. Overall App Complexity Not all apps are the same. Some apps are just adapted webpage interfaces or a single-screen RSS feed, while others may include complicated computations and business logic. The overall complexity is a major-level criterion that influences the final app cost and drilling down on exact parameters further: [table id=41 /] Features and Functionality Each additional feature adds to the cost of app development. For instance: Payment systems: Add convenience but require advanced security protocols, increasing costs. Real-time tracking: Useful for delivery apps but needs sophisticated development. AI-based recommendations: Popular in shopping, healthcare, and financial apps but require expertise and higher budgets. App Category The type of app you’re developing also affects the cost. Different categories have different requirements.  For instance, there is a big difference between travel and fintech apps. Fintech apps are usually more complex than travel apps. This is due to the many integrations needed, the cost of licenses, security requirements, and the need for scalability.  eCommerce: Needs secure payment gateways, product listings, and inventory management. Social Media: Requires user profiles, messaging, and real-time updates. Gaming: One of the most expensive app categories that comes with complex graphics, animations, sound and music atmosphere, rich storylines, and sometimes multiplayer capabilities. Learning: Needs features like quizzes, progress tracking, and possibly video content. Each category has its own set of features that can influence the overall cost. User Interface & Visuals How your app looks and feels is crucial for user satisfaction. The design complexity can significantly impact costs. Basic designs cost less, while custom interfaces with animations and unique visuals require more effort and higher app design prices. Basic Designs: Simple layouts with standard buttons and fonts are more affordable. Custom Interfaces: Unique designs with animations, special graphics, and tailored user experiences require more time and creativity, thus increasing the cost. A well-designed app attracts users and keeps them engaged, so it's worth investing in good visuals. Platform Choice Your target audience determines whether you need an Android, iOS, or cross-platform app. Android app development price: $40,000 to $180,000 due to the diversity of devices. iOS app development price: $30,000 to $150,000, slightly lower since iOS devices are more standardized. Cross-platform apps: $50,000 to $200,000, offering a balance between cost and functionality. Let's do our calculations based on a simple, average app with moderate complexity. Developing a medium-complexity app for both Android and iOS will cost about $100,000. However, making just one native app for either platform will cost around $65,000 due to the reuse of code and design. A cross-platform app will typically cost between $80,000 and $100,000. Cross-platform development is often more complex, and you may end up paying a similar amount depending on the framework and the app’s features. Code Reuse Reusing existing code can save both time and money. It’s like using a tried-and-true recipe instead of inventing a new dish from scratch. Reusable Components: Utilizing libraries or frameworks that have pre-built functionalities can speed up development. Modular Architecture: Designing your app in a way that allows you to reuse code for different parts of the app or even in future projects. Effective code reuse can lower development costs and make updates easier. Team Location Where your development teams work impacts the cost of app development: North America: $100 to $200 per hour. Eastern Europe: $25 to $75 per hour. Asia: $20 to $50 per hour. Ongoing Maintenance The work doesn’t stop after the app is launched. Regular updates, bug fixes, and feature additions cost around 15–20% of the initial cost of building an app each year. Note! You may have seen online calculators that promise to estimate your app development costs. However, these tools are often unreliable.  Why?  First, they can't consider all the factors that affect the cost, like the number and complexity of features, design details, backend infrastructure, and post-launch support.  Second, as a future app creator, you might not have all the information necessary to use these calculators accurately. Because of this, consulting an expert is usually necessary to better understand development costs and the app-building process. So, how much does it cost to make an app then?  Let’s look at examples of how much it costs to build some well-known apps: Tinder: The initial app cost was around $70,000. Uber: The cost to develop an app like Uber ranges from $50,000 to $150,000 for one platform. Airbnb: The initial cost to build an app like Airbnb was approximately $150,000. These numbers give a sense of what to expect for apps with similar functionality. Looking for an experienced tech partner?   Plan for Success Visualize your product, define architecture, avoid early mistakes, and ensure clear requirements while getting accurate budget and timeline estimates for better resource planning Get in touch How to Save Money When Developing an App Many people mistakenly believe that mobile app development is very expensive, complicated, or won’t provide a good return on investment.  But don’t worry — we can explore some smart and practical ways to keep costs down without sacrificing quality.  Here’s how you can save money while building your app: 1. Research the Target Market Before you start building anything, take some time to understand who will use your app. Ask yourself: Who are my potential users? Think about their age, interests, and what they need. What do they already use? Look at similar apps to see what works and what doesn’t. What problems can my app solve? Make sure your app addresses a real need. Doing this research helps you focus on what matters, so you don’t waste time and money on features that nobody wants. 2. Prioritize Features Early On You might have a long list of cool ideas for your app, but it’s best to start with the most important ones. One feature that covers the key pain point of your target audience. Ask yourself: What are the must-haves? These are the features that make your app useful. What can wait? Save the nice-to-have features for later updates. By focusing on the essentials first, you can reduce costs and ensure that your app does its job well. 3. Conduct a Startup Pivot if Your Idea Doesn’t Work Sometimes, your initial idea might not hit the mark despite your best efforts. Don’t worry — it happens! Here’s how to handle it: Listen to feedback: Pay attention to what users are saying and where they’re struggling. Be flexible. Based on your learning, you should be ready to change your app’s features or its main purpose. Reallocate resources: Focus your time and money on parts of the app that have the most potential. Pivoting can help you steer your app toward what users really want, preventing you from wasting resources on a failing idea. If you don’t know where to start, check out our text about pivoting your startup. 4. Hire an App Development Company Instead of trying to build everything yourself or putting together an in-house team, hiring a professional app development company can be a smart move. Here’s why: Expertise: They have experience and know the best practices. Flexibility: You can scale the team up or down based on your needs without long-term commitments. Efficiency: Professional companies often have streamlined processes that get things done faster and cheaper. Just make sure to choose a company that has good reviews and understands your vision. 5. Choose the Right Platform Decide whether you want your app to be on iPhone, Android, or both. Here’s how to choose: Where are your users? If most of your audience uses iPhones, start there. Budget considerations: Building for one platform first can save money compared to developing for both at the same time. Future plans: Think about where you might want to expand later. Starting with one platform can help you manage costs and make a strong launch before expanding. 6. Create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) An MVP is like a basic version of your app that includes only the core features. Think of it as a simple prototype that you can launch quickly. Here’s why it’s a smart move: Cheaper to build: You’re only creating what’s necessary. Get feedback early: Users can tell you what they like and what needs improvement. Grow wisely: Use the feedback to add new features that people actually want. For example, if you’re developing a fitness app, you might start by tracking workouts. Later, you can add more features like meal plans or advanced analytics based on user requests. 7. Test Your App Don’t wait until the end to test your app. Start testing early and often. Here’s why it’s important: Find bugs early: Fixing problems while you’re still building is cheaper than after launch. Improve quality: Regular testing ensures your app works smoothly and keeps users happy. Save time: Efficient testing can speed up the overall development process. Test on different devices and get feedback from real users to catch as many issues as possible. 8. Submit the App to Stores When your app is ready, you need to get it into the app stores like Apple’s App Store or Google Play. Here’s how to do it smoothly: Follow guidelines: Each store has rules you need to follow to get approved. Do a final check: Make sure everything works perfectly to avoid being sent back for changes. Plan your launch: Coordinate your submission with your marketing efforts to make a big splash without extra costs. Getting your app approved the first time helps you save time and avoid frustration. 9. Launch and Track Performance Once your app is live, keep an eye on how it’s doing. Here’s why tracking is crucial: Understand users: See which features are popular and which aren’t being used. Fix issues quickly: Spot any problems early and address them before they become big headaches. Measure success: Know if your app is meeting your goals and making a good return on investment. Use tools like Google Analytics or in-app tracking to gather this information and make informed decisions for future updates. 10. Plan for Maintenance Building your app is just the beginning. You need to keep it running smoothly over time. Here’s what to keep in mind: Regular updates: Add new features and improvements based on user feedback and tech advancements. Fix bugs: Continuously address any issues that arise to keep users happy. Stay secure: Protect your app from security threats and keep up with data protection laws. Setting aside a budget for maintenance helps ensure your app stays relevant and reliable, which keeps users coming back. Get help with your simple, medium-complexity, or even complex app from JetRuby's expert engineers! Why JetRuby is a Great Partner for App Development As previously mentioned, building an MVP is a practical way to reduce costs without sacrificing quality.  True story. A strong MVP makes operations smoother, adjusts to market changes, and provides value to customers without the risks of developing a full product.  So, how exactly does it work? Let us show you an example based on one of many JetRuby cases. A client company that has 16 storage facilities in the U.S. worked with third-party online platforms to rent its units. Although these platforms handled customer service, they took a large share of the profits and limited the company’s access to data.  When our client decided to manage rentals independently, they built a custom website because they had tight deadlines for ending contracts with these platforms.  Speed and accuracy were very important in this situation, as delays could have caused them to lose customers and income.  The JetRuby team quickly built a minimum viable product (MVP) that focused on the key functions needed to manage rentals in-house. This MVP gave the company the necessary tools to operate independently and manage customer relationships. Our approach involves: Fast Solutions for Quick Results Many businesses need quick help. We usually take 3-4 months to give our clients useful results. We focus on speed and quality. Focusing on Important Needs The first version of a product (MVP) includes useful features. These can help with sales, payments, or customer service. The MVP should solve important problems immediately. Planning for Future Growth   While the MVP provides essential features, we allow it to grow later. This means it can be improved with more features over time. Working with the Client's Team We work closely with the client’s team to ensure the MVP fits their goals and current systems. This helps us make everything work better together. Summing it up, when you understand app development costs, you plan better and avoid surprises.  Whether you wonder, “How much does it cost to develop an app for Android or iOS?” or you’re exploring cross-platform development options, being informed will help you make the right decisions. Creating a mobile app has significant benefits. It can improve customer engagement, increase sales, and make business processes more efficient. Therefore, investing in a mobile app is a smart decision that can help your business grow and operate more efficiently. If you’re thinking about creating an app, work with professionals like JetRuby. Our expertise ensures you get a cost-efficient solution that meets your needs without compromising on quality. Please contact us if you have any questions left or if you need a piece of professional advice. ### Top 14 Recent AI Developments for 2025 and Beyond By 2025, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology market size is projected to reach $243.70 billion. We expect that in 2025, more early adopters will see real benefits from their AI investments. Marketing, customer service, and sales teams are leading the way in using AI and machine learning (ML) trends to increase revenue. These teams focus on AI developments 40% more than other departments, and this trend will likely continue. These numbers highlight why businesses are investing heavily in AI and machine learning developments. What emerging AI technologies have contributed to its rapid progress? What’s new in AI trends? Has AI transitioned from being a niche interest to something more widespread or even mainstream? And what is the most advanced AI new technology right now? Well, let’s find out. We’ll explore some of the latest artificial intelligence trends and innovations and explain what makes them special. Key Takeaways AI systems now grasp and generate human language with remarkable accuracy, enhancing communication tools and customer service interactions. Companies prioritize fairness and transparency in their AI applications, building trust and ensuring responsible technology use. AI-driven diagnostics and personalized treatments lead to better patient care and more efficient medical practices. AI protects organizations from sophisticated cyber threats, safeguarding sensitive data and maintaining business integrity. Combining AI with augmented reality delivers engaging and personalized interactions across various platforms. The democratization of AI allows businesses of all sizes to leverage advanced technologies, driving innovation and competitive advantage. Integrating quantum computing with new AI enhancements unlocks new possibilities: helps with quicker data analysis that leads to accurate models, enables personalized medicine and drug discovery, sparks innovation in art and technology, etc.   Looking to retain your staff while staying updated with the latest AI advancements? Be sure to read our article on the best strategies to reduce employee turnover!   14 AI developments, predictions, and trends for 2025 and beyond AI is not meant to substitute human intelligence. It provides you with more time, improved efficiency, and additional cognitive support. You only need to find the best way to leverage it in your work and daily routines. Which sectors stand to gain from AI? The quick answer is that every sector can take advantage of AI, ranging from Learning & Development, Education, Healthcare, and Sales...to, unexpectedly? Well, not so much — Marketing. Software development is no different — AI helps with code review and identifies errors that people would normally spend hours, if not days, to find. So what are the latest trends in AI, and how are they improving healthcare, enhancing cybersecurity, and even fighting climate change? Here, we also highlight ethical questions that come with these powerful tools and how new AI trends are becoming accessible to businesses, big and small. AI Breakthroughs in Understanding Human Language AI has improved greatly in understanding how we speak and write. We can now have a conversation with the computer, understanding what you mean, not just the words you use. This improvement helps customer service chatbots handle your questions more effectively, giving you clear and helpful answers. Tools like OpenAI’s GPT-4 can write text that sounds just like a human, making interactions feel more natural and less robotic. Addressing Concerns About AI and Ethics As AI becomes a bigger part of our daily lives, people rightly worry about how it’s used. Companies must ensure their AI systems treat everyone fairly and are open about their work. Important issues include keeping your data private, avoiding bias in AI decisions, and being responsible for what AI does. Many businesses are creating ethical guidelines for their AI to earn trust and ensure everyone benefits equally from these technologies. AI Making Healthcare Better So, what can AI do today for the healthcare sector? AI is making a big impact in healthcare by helping doctors diagnose illnesses more accurately and create personalized patient treatment plans. For example, AI tools can precisely examine medical images like X-rays, helping doctors spot diseases early. Personalized medicine uses AI to customize treatments based on each person’s unique health data, which makes treatments more effective and improves patient outcomes. Strengthening Cybersecurity with AI Cyber threats are always changing, but AI offers strong ways to protect against them. AI systems can spot unusual activities and potential dangers immediately, allowing quick responses to threats. For instance, AI-based cybersecurity tools can find and deal with threats faster than traditional methods, keeping important data safe and ensuring businesses continue to run smoothly. 70% of cybersecurity professionals say AI effectively finds threats that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. Enhancing User Experience with AI and Augmented Reality When you combine AI with augmented reality (AR), the user experience becomes more interactive and tailored to each person. In stores, for example, AI-powered AR apps let you see how products would look in your home before you buy them. This makes shopping more enjoyable, increases customer happiness, and can lead to more sales. Stats prove that AR experiences are 200% more engaging and provide a higher interaction level than non-AR alternatives. Making AI Decisions Clear and Understandable It’s important for people to understand how AI makes decisions, especially in fields like finance and healthcare. Explainable AI is designed to make the reasoning behind AI’s choices clear to humans. This transparency helps build trust, as everyone can see why the AI made a particular decision. It ensures that its actions are fair and justifiable. Bringing AI Closer to Where Data Is Generated With edge computing, AI processes data closer to where it’s created, which makes everything faster and more efficient. This is crucial for things that need immediate responses, like self-driving cars and smart city systems. By handling data on the spot, AI can make quicker decisions and improve how different systems work together. Fighting Climate Change with AI AI helps us use energy more wisely and predict environmental changes. According to UNESCO, advancements in AI can analyze complex datasets on emissions and climate impacts to help stakeholders like policymakers, NGOs, corporations, and investors make informed, data-driven decisions for a greener and more resilient society. Top AI models can analyze huge amounts of data to forecast weather, manage renewable energy sources, and develop sustainable practices. These efforts help reduce the effects of climate change and support a healthier environment. Making AI Available to Everyone AI tools are becoming easier for businesses of all sizes to use. Cloud-based AI platforms offer flexible solutions that smaller companies can adopt without spending much money upfront. Making artificial intelligence developments accessible to everyone is a fantastic chance to balance the control held by big companies. This means more businesses can use AI; whether you're a startup or an established firm, there’s an AI solution for you. Combining Quantum Computing with AI Quantum computing is set to change AI by solving really complex problems much faster than regular computers in fields like drug discovery, climate modeling, and financial forecasting. This powerful combination allows AI to create more advanced models and work quicker. Quantum AI could lead to major breakthroughs in areas like discovering new medicines, developing new materials, and securing data. Improving X-Ray Analysis with AI AI systems are now helping doctors analyze X-rays with incredible accuracy. These tools assist radiologists in finding things like tumors and fractures more quickly and correctly. For instance, a new AI tool can find fractures in X-rays and help reduce missed diagnoses. This tool looks at X-ray images and can spot small signs of fractures that doctors might not see. By speeding up the diagnosis process and reducing mistakes, AI improves patient care and helps ensure better health outcomes. Enhancing Smartphone Apps with AI Smartphone apps are getting smarter and offer more personalized experiences thanks to new trends in AI. Whether it’s a voice assistant that understands you better or photo editing tools that make your pictures look great, AI adds useful new AI features that make apps easier and more enjoyable to use. This leads to happier users who return to the apps they love. Transforming Financial Services with AI AI is changing the financial world by automating tasks and improving decisions. AI-driven systems can analyze market trends, manage risks, and offer personalized financial advice. The newest AI technology has become vital in banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI). It is changing how these products and services are provided. As AI advances, financial services become more efficient, reduce costs, and provide better customer support. Creating New Content with Generative AI Generative AI can independently create new things like images, music, and text. This technology is useful in creative industries, marketing, and design. For example, businesses can use AI to produce unique artwork or write marketing copy quickly and effectively, helping them stand out and work more efficiently. Stats show that the Generative AI market is expected to reach US$3.00 billion by 2025. AI is truly transforming our world in so many ways. From making our daily tasks easier to solving some of our biggest challenges, these innovations in AI show how powerful and beneficial AI can be when used thoughtfully and responsibly AI-Enhanced Efficiency Transform your business! With AI as a powerful support tool, our skilled engineers work more efficiently and effectively, enhancing outcomes and driving profitability! Get in touch AI Developments and Enhancements with JetRuby Agency At JetRuby, our experts have extensive experience in latest AI technologies and its implementation techniques across various projects. For over 15 years, we have developed numerous software solutions, including SaaS products, successfully integrating AI into existing systems or creating new ones from scratch. Through our CTO as a Service (CTOaaS) offering, we become part of your team, providing the technical leadership needed to harness AI trends and enhancements effectively. With CTOaaS, JetRuby helps businesses implement AI quickly and cost-effectively. Our services include AI strategy development, implementation, and ongoing support. We ensure that your AI integration aligns with your business goals, enhancing efficiency and product quality without the complexity of hiring a full-time CTO.   Learn why Ruby on Rails consistently ranks among the top development technologies worldwide and what’s new in Rails 8 upgrade!   Why Choose JetRuby’s CTOaaS? AI continues to advance rapidly, offering new opportunities and solutions across various industries. From healthcare to cybersecurity, the latest AI developments enhance efficiency, improve product quality, and provide deeper insights. However, keeping up with these innovations can be challenging for businesses without the necessary resources or expertise. By partnering with JetRuby, businesses can leverage the latest AI developments to stay competitive and innovative. Our CTOaaS service provides the expertise and support needed to navigate the complexities of AI integration, ensuring that your business reaps the benefits of cutting-edge technology. Expertise: Our team possesses deep knowledge of AI trends and technologies and their practical applications. Experience: We have a proven track record of successfully integrating AI into diverse projects. Cost-effective: Avoid the high costs of a full-time CTO while gaining access to top-tier technical leadership. Tailored solutions: We customize our services to meet your specific AI needs and business objectives. Seamless integration: Our approach ensures that new AI technologies fit smoothly into your existing systems. Stay ahead of the curve by embracing the latest AI advancements with JetRuby! Contact us today to learn how our CTOaaS can help your business leverage AI to achieve its goals and overcome long-standing challenges. ### Reducing Load Times in Ruby on Rails Applications with Rails Caching Techniques Have you ever noticed how frustrating it is to wait for a website to load?  Although the average mobile web page usually requires around 15 seconds to fully load, research from Google shows that an alarming 53% of users will abandon a mobile website if it exceeds the three-second loading mark.  For developers and business owners, this delay translates to missed opportunities, lower conversions, and unhappy users. Caching is a solution to this problem! It temporarily stores frequently used data so your application can retrieve it quickly without recomputing it every time.  This article explains how Rails caching techniques improve user experience and performance.  You’ll learn how to use caching effectively in your Ruby on Rails applications. Key Takeaways Using Rails caching to store frequently accessed data for quick access can reduce load times, improve scalability, and enhance user experience. This approach can also help keep users on your site and increase conversion rates. Rails offers different caching methods, such as Page Caching, Fragment Caching, and Low-Level Caching. You can choose the best method depending on whether your content is static or dynamic. By saving query results, Rails caching reduces unnecessary database calls, which lessens the load on the database and improves response times, scalability, and overall system performance. Fragment Caching is useful for storing reusable components like headers or footers. Russian Doll Caching allows for nesting caches, ensuring that updates can occur without regenerating entire pages. For larger applications, dedicated caching tools like Redis or Memcached can greatly enhance performance by distributing cache across multiple servers, ensuring consistent data access even during high traffic. What is a caching mechanism?  Imagine a student bookmarking a frequently referenced textbook page instead of flipping through the entire book each time.  Similarly, caching stores frequently used data so your application can quickly retrieve it without repeated searches.  This simple technique significantly speeds up your app, especially under heavy user traffic. Why Use Rails Caching? Rails caching stores frequently used data for quick retrieval, thus improving website performance and reducing loading times. This leads to increased user satisfaction, decreased server workload, and overall enhanced application speed. Below are its key benefits. Reduced Database Load Rails caching, including the use of app cache, temporarily stores frequently accessed data, reducing the need to query the database repeatedly. Faster Response Time Cached data speeds up page load times, ensuring a smooth user experience. Faster websites improve customer satisfaction and reduce bounce rates. Improved Scalability Caching enables your application to handle more users simultaneously. Your website stays reliable during high-traffic peaks. Better User Experience A fast-loading application creates a seamless experience for users, encouraging them to stay longer and interact with your content. Positive user experiences lead to higher customer retention and increased conversions. Improved Performance Caching minimizes redundant computations, such as regenerating the same content multiple times. This optimizes your application’s overall performance and makes it more efficient. Faster processing ensures smoother operations and better satisfaction for end-users. Reduced Server Load By reusing cached data, your servers perform fewer operations, leading to lower CPU and memory usage. This reduces the need for additional infrastructure, cutting costs while maintaining high performance. Cost Optimization Reducing server workload cuts infrastructure expenses. Backed by Rails caching, you can save money on hosting without sacrificing performance.   Ruby on Rails is one of the most trusted frameworks for building web applications. How to get the most out of it? You need the right Ruby on Rails hosting provider!   Types of Caching in Rails  Rails supports various caching methods tailored to specific application caching needs.  Page Caching Page caching, which has been removed from Rails core and is now available exclusively through a gem like actionpack-page_caching, saves the entire content of a webpage.  This makes it ideal for static pages such as "About Us" or "Contact." When a user requests one of these pages, Rails serves the cached version without regenerating it. Business Benefit: Speeds up load times for non-dynamic content, reducing server processing. Action Caching Action caching stores the output of specific controller actions but allows for user-specific variations. It’s useful for pages with the same layout, but content differs for logged-in or logged-out users. Business Benefit: Ensures personalized responses with improved speed. Low-Level Caching Low-level caching directly stores and retrieves raw data from the cache, bypassing Rails helpers. It’s suited for custom caching needs. Example: Rails.cache.fetch("raw_data_key", expires_in: 6.hours) do   SomeExpensiveComputation.call end Business Benefit: Grants full control over cached content and enables unique use cases. SQL Caching (A Specific Case of Low-Level Caching) SQL caching is a form of low-level caching that stores the results of database queries. Subsequent identical queries can retrieve the data directly from the cache instead of executing the query against the database again.  This approach significantly reduces the load on the database and improves application performance, especially under heavy traffic conditions. Example: Rails.cache.write("query_results", query_results) Business Benefit: Minimizes the database workload, leading to faster response times and enhanced scalability.  Rails Fragment Caching Fragment caching stores reusable parts of a page, like headers, footers, or sidebars, while dynamic sections can still be updated independently. Example: <% cache [@article, "comments"] do %>   <%= render @comments %> <% end %>The diagram below shows how Rails fragment caching optimizes webpage performance: Business Benefit: Improves performance for pages with both static and dynamic components. Russian Doll Caching Russian doll caching builds on fragment caching by allowing nested caches. For example, a product detail page might cache product information and individual components like price or reviews as separate nested fragments. Example: <% cache [@product] do %>   <%= render "details", product: @product %>   <% cache [@product, "price"] do %>     <%= render "price", product: @product %>   <% end %> <% end %> Business Benefit: Saves resources by rebuilding updated fragments, not the entire page, thus optimizing the caching mechanism. Shared Partial Caching This technique allows caching reusable components that are shared across multiple pages, such as a "Featured Products" section displayed on the homepage and product category pages like "Portfolio" or "Case Studies". Example: <% cache "shared_partial_key" do %>   <%= render "shared/featured_products" %> <% end %> Business Benefit: Reduces redundancy and enhances page load consistency. Rapid Team Expansion Scale your team quickly without wasting time or resources on hiring. Choose our staff augmentation solution and get the talent you need, when you need it. Hire developers Rails Caching Stores Ruby on Rails supports multiple caching stores to handle data efficiently.  The cache store holds cached data for easy use. It can be in memory, in external files, or in other places, depending on the type of store used. This storage is important for making applications run faster. Memory Store A high-speed, in-memory solution for temporary caching. It enables quick access to frequently used data, enhancing performance by reducing the need for slower traditional storage.  Ideal for applications requiring rapid data retrieval, it ensures your information is readily available when needed. Rails File-Cache Store Saves cache data as files on the server, balancing speed and persistence. Both Memory Store and Rails File Cache Store can cause problems in a multi-server setup because the cache is not shared.  Each server has its own cache, which can lead to outdated or inconsistent data. As a result, users may receive different information from different servers, creating confusion and unreliable experiences. Rails Memcached Store A distributed and scalable system that can handle a lot of users at the same time. It is reliable and can grow to meet the needs of high-traffic websites. This makes it a good choice for improving performance in web applications.Example: config.cache_store = :mem_cache_store, "cache-1.example.com", "cache-2.example.com" Redis Store Redis Store is a caching system for Rails. It provides helpful features like data storage and support for complex data types.  These features make it a good option for applications that need improved performance and advanced data management. Example: config.cache_store = :redis_cache_store, { url: "redis://localhost:6379/0" } Here’s a diagram illustrating how caching layers work:   Plans don’t always work out. A startup pivoting approach means recognizing this and being willing to change. How do you know when it’s time to pivot?    Implementing Caching Techniques in Ruby on Rails Identifying the right caching strategies means choosing the right types, such as fragment, page, or SQL caching.  So, how to reduce load times and server strain using Rails' caching directives? Let’s uncover best practices for cache expiration, cache busting, and advanced layers like Redis and Memcached. Identify the Right Caching Strategy Before applying caching, analyze your application's performance to pinpoint bottlenecks.  For example: Are database queries slowing down specific pages? Do users frequently access particular data or pages? Tip: Use tools like New Relic or Skylight to monitor performance and identify areas where caching would have the most impact. Leverage One of the Caching Types Choose the most suitable caching type for your use case: Use Fragment Caching for reusable components like sidebars or navigation menus. Use Page Caching for static pages that rarely change. Use SQL Caching for frequently executed database queries. Example: <% cache [@article, "comments"] do %>   <%= render @comments %> <% end %> Use Caching Directives Rails offers specific directives to control caching within your application, distinguishing between view-level caching and direct cache operations: cache: Used within views to cache particular sections of a page. This is ideal for parts of the UI that do not change frequently, such as headers or footers. <% cache do %>    <% end %> fetch: Used for caching the results of data queries. This directive retrieves data from the cache if available. Otherwise, it executes the query and stores the result in the cache for future requests. Rails.cache.fetch("query_results") do   perform_expensive_query end write: Allows you to save data to the cache store explicitly. This is useful when you need precise control over what is cached and when it is updated. Rails.cache.write("key", value) By appropriately leveraging these caching directives, you can optimize view rendering and data retrieval efficiency, enhancing the overall performance of your Rails application. Expire Caches When Needed Cached data becomes outdated over time. Use expiration rules to refresh the cache automatically: Set expiration times for frequently changing data. Trigger manual expiration for specific events (e.g., product price changes). Example: Rails.cache.delete("products") Business Impact: Expiring old cache ensures that users always see the latest updates. Clear Rails Cache Manually clear caches during development or for debugging: Use Rails.cache.clear to remove all cached data. Target specific keys with Rails.cache.delete("key_name"). Example: Rails.cache.clear Implement Cache Busting Cache busting ensures that users see the latest version of your application when updates are made: Use versioning in file names (e.g., styles-v2.css) to signal changes. Add timestamps or unique keys to cache entries for dynamic data. Example: Rails.cache.fetch("product_#{product.updated_at}") do   product.details end Tip: Cache busting is particularly useful for static assets like JavaScript or CSS files. Consider Using a Caching Layer For high-traffic applications, integrating a dedicated caching layer like Redis or Memcached significantly improves performance: Redis: Ideal for advanced caching strategies requiring persistence and data structures. Memcached: Perfect for distributed, high-speed caching. Example (Redis caching): config.cache_store = :redis_cache_store, { url: "redis://localhost:6379/0" } Example (Memcached): config.cache_store = :mem_cache_store, "cache-1.example.com", "cache-2.example.com"   Developers often spend too much time dealing with the same issues. This takes their focus away from solving larger problems. Find out how using AI in code review can help with this.    Leverage Ruby on Rails Caching with JetRuby At JetRuby, we understand how frustrating slow or unresponsive web applications can be.  Your users expect speed, and delays can drive them away. That’s why we help businesses build high-performing applications that delight users.  Backed by over 15 years of expertise in Ruby on Rails and dozens of successful projects, our seasoned developers maximize caching’s potential to boost your app’s performance. Whether you have an existing application or need a new solution, we tailor our approach to fit your unique business needs.  We don’t believe in one-size-fits-all — our goal is to create a product that aligns perfectly with your objectives and grows with your business. Flexible Solutions for Every Business We offer a service called Staff Augmentation that provides highly skilled Ruby on Rails developers when your team is stretched thin.  Instead of hiring new employees, which can be time-consuming and costly, you can "borrow" our professionals who work well together and are ready to join your project in 2-3 weeks. Here’s what makes our Staff Augmentation service special: A cohesive team, not just individuals: You get developers who are used to working as a group. This means they adapt quickly to your project and don’t waste time getting up to speed. Detailed updates: We provide clear monthly reports that show exactly what each developer has worked on. You’ll always know how your resources are used. Scalability: If your project grows or slows down, you can adjust the size of your team. Adding or reducing developers is simple; we make these changes with just one month’s notice. This service is ideal for businesses that need to quickly expand their team and face challenges that their current staff can’t handle at the moment.  If you have any questions left or you need additional advice, please don’t hesitate to contact us anytime you see fit. ### What Is Cloud Application Development? Tips for Building in the Cloud 2025 Picture this: it’s 2025, and almost every new software rollout is happening in the cloud. A Cloud Security Alliance report found that 98% of organizations worldwide use cloud services, particularly in the financial services industry. SaaS applications and fully cloud-based networks are among the most popular cloud services. Recent data shows a strong yearly increase in cloud usage. Why is that so? Businesses want to update their infrastructure to improve efficiency and grow quickly. They aim to modernize their processes to stay competitive and meet changing demands. But what does cloud apps development really mean? Why should you care? Should you move to the cloud — yes or no? We’ll break down the essentials, explore the perks, and show you how JetRuby’s CTO as a Service (CTOaaS) can make your cloud journey smooth and cost-effective. Key Takeaways Businesses can enhance flexibility and reduce operational bottlenecks backed by cloud-driven platforms. Tailored cloud solutions allow businesses to meet their specific needs, ensuring seamless integration and scalability in their cloud-based app development Cloud applications grow with your business, making them ideal for fluctuating demands. Choosing the appropriate cloud-based application development platforms ensures better performance and security. With expert guidance, small to medium-sized businesses can navigate the complexities of development in the cloud and reduce development time and costs. What Is Cloud Application Development? Let’s start with the “cloud.” When people talk about the cloud, they mean servers that store data and run applications over the internet. Instead of keeping everything on your device, the cloud lets you use apps and store information online. This way, you can access your data from your phone, tablet, or computer, no matter where you are. Now, what is cloud software development? It’s the process of creating software applications that run on cloud servers like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. Unlike traditional apps that you install on your device, cloud-based applications work online using the infrastructure these providers manage. This means updates and maintenance happen on the server, so users do not have to download new versions when changes occur. Cloud development makes it easy for multiple people to collaborate, allowing them to work effortlessly on the same app from different locations. What Is a Cloud-based Application? In cloud application development, experts create software that operates on cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud. These platforms offer developers essential resources, such as servers and storage. They use languages like Ruby, Java, Python, or JavaScript to write code and deploy applications. Cloud resources allow these applications to perform well, adapt easily, and be accessed from anywhere. Once live, users access these applications via the internet on mobile devices. For example, online tools like Google Docs process inputs on cloud servers and allow multiple users to work simultaneously without delays. Here are some cloud application examples: Email Services Platforms like Gmail and Outlook help you manage and organize your emails. Inventory Management Tools like Zoho Inventory allow you to seamlessly track and control inventory levels, orders, and deliveries. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solutions like Salesforce and HubSpot enhance customer interactions and refine your sales strategies. 4 Main Cloud Deployment Models Cloud deployment models explain how businesses use cloud infrastructure based on their needs. Each model has its own benefits. Whether you're a pivoting startup wanting flexibility, a large company needing control, or a business looking for a balance between the two, understanding these models helps to choose the right cloud strategy. Let’s examine the four main cloud deployment models and see how each one works and what it offers. Public Cloud Think of the public cloud as renting an apartment in a large building. While many people share the same space, each has their own private area. Companies like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud offer public cloud services. How it works: These providers own and manage all the hardware and software. Businesses rent space and resources as needed, paying only for what they use. This arrangement is flexible and cost-effective, especially for startups or companies that don’t want to invest heavily in their own infrastructure. What it does: Public clouds handle tasks like storing data, running applications, and managing databases. They allow businesses to scale up quickly when they need more resources without worrying about the underlying technology. Private Cloud Now, imagine owning your own house. You have full control over the space, security, and how you use it. A private cloud works the same way for businesses. How it works: The infrastructure is dedicated solely to one organization. It can be hosted on-site at the company’s data center or by a third-party provider. This setup offers greater control and security, which is crucial for industries handling sensitive information, like healthcare or finance. What it does: Private clouds provide the same services as public clouds like data storage, application hosting, and more. But it also offers enhanced privacy and customization. Companies can tailor the environment to meet their specific needs and more easily comply with regulations. Hybrid Cloud Picture having both an apartment and a house. You use the apartment for everyday living and the house for special occasions or extra space when needed, similar to how businesses utilize different cloud resources. A hybrid cloud combines elements of both public and private clouds. How it works: Businesses use a mix of public and private cloud services. In this way, they can move data and applications between the two environments as their needs change. This setup offers flexibility, enabling companies to keep sensitive information in the private cloud while leveraging the public cloud for less critical tasks. What it does: Hybrid clouds help organizations balance cost and security. They can optimize performance using the public cloud for high-demand applications and the private cloud for secure, mission-critical workloads. This approach also supports gradual migration to the cloud, reducing risks and disruptions. Community and Multi-Cloud Deployment Several organizations can use a community cloud because they share common requirements, such as security measures or compliance with regulations. They can either manage this cloud themselves or hire a company to do it. This setup allows a business to use services from various cloud providers simultaneously. Companies can leverage each provider's strengths, maintain operations if one service encounters issues, and have the flexibility to adapt as needed. In summary, a Community Cloud serves a specific group with similar needs and is shared among them, while a Multi-Cloud uses various services from different providers to meet diverse requirements. Understanding these differences helps organizations choose the right strategy. Types of Cloud-Based Apps Cloud-based applications come in various flavors, each serving different purposes: IaaS — Infrastructure as a Service: Rent virtualized computing resources like servers and storage on a pay-as-you-go basis. PaaS — Platform as a Service: Provides a platform with hardware, software, and infrastructure for developing, testing, and deploying applications. SaaS — Software as a Service: Delivers software applications over the internet on a subscription basis. Examples of cloud applications include Salesforce for CRM and Slack for team communication. DaaS — Desktop as a Service: Offers virtual desktops accessible from any device with an internet connection. Software as a Service (SaaS) SaaS apps are like the Netflix of the software world. Instead of downloading and installing programs on your computer, you access them through your web browser. For example, Gmail lets you check your emails without installing any special software. Similarly, Microsoft Office 365 offers tools like Word and Excel online. These apps handle all the updates and maintenance, so you don’t have to worry about keeping them up to date. You simply log in and start using them. Platform as a Service (PaaS) PaaS is a bit like a builder’s toolkit in the cloud. It provides developers with the cloud application development tools they need to create, test, and deploy applications without dealing with the underlying hardware or software layers. Let’s say you consider custom cloud application development for your business. With PaaS, you get access to the necessary software, databases, and development tools for cloud app development all in one place. This setup speeds up the software development process and makes it easier to manage cloud infrastructure. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) IaaS offers the fundamental building blocks for cloud computing. Think of it as renting virtual machines, storage, and networks from a provider instead of buying physical hardware. For example, Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides servers and storage that businesses can use to host their websites or applications. This type of service is flexible and scalable, meaning companies can adjust their resources based on their needs without investing in expensive equipment. Desktop as a Service (DaaS) DaaS is a virtual desktop environment that follows you wherever you go. Instead of being tied to a single physical computer, your desktop environment, including your files, applications, and settings, is hosted in the cloud. You can access it from any device with an internet connection, whether a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. For instance, services like Windows 365 allow employees to work from a consistent desktop experience, no matter where they are. DaaS providers handle all the heavy lifting, such as updates, backups, and security, making it an ideal solution for businesses with remote or hybrid workforces. Cloud-Based Application Benefits Cloud-based applications make managing your work and personal projects easy. They allow you to focus on what’s important without the burden of costly hardware.  Let’s look at these beneficial aspects. Cost-Effectiveness Using cloud-based applications can save you money.  You don't need to buy pricey hardware or spend time maintaining servers when you can leverage cloud computing services.  Instead, you pay a regular subscription fee for cloud storage that covers everything you need. This approach makes advanced cloud software affordable for both individuals and small businesses. Simplicity Cloud apps are straightforward to use. There are no complicated installations or settings. Just log in through your web browser, and you're ready to go. This ease of use saves you time and reduces the hassle of managing software on your devices. Flexibility and Scalability (Resilient Nature) As your needs change, cloud applications can grow with you. The cloud adapts quickly if you need more users, extra storage, or additional services. This flexibility ensures that your tools stay effective as your personal or business requirements evolve. Data Management (Data Coherence) Managing your data is simple with cloud applications. All your information stays consistent across different devices. When you update something on one device, it changes everywhere. This consistency helps you stay organized and ensures you always have the latest information at your fingertips. High Competitiveness (Wide Geographic Reach) Cloud services let you reach a broader audience. You can access your applications and data from anywhere in the world. This wide reach helps businesses stay competitive and operate smoothly across different locations and time zones. Robust Data Security Security might sound tricky, but cloud providers take it seriously. They use advanced encryption and strong security measures to keep your information safe from threats. Plus, your data gets backed up regularly, so you won't lose important information if something unexpected happens. Automatic Updates With cloud applications, you don't handle updates yourself. The service provider manages all the maintenance and improvements. This way, you always have the latest features and security measures without any extra effort on your part. Disaster Recovery Cloud services offer reliable ways to recover from disasters. If something goes wrong, like a hardware failure or a natural disaster, your data stays safe and can be quickly restored. This protection gives you peace of mind, knowing your information is secure no matter what. Easy Deployment Setting up cloud applications is a breeze with the right development services. You don't need a large IT team or extensive resources. Most cloud services let you get started quickly. Environmental Impact Using cloud services can also help the environment. By sharing resources on large servers, companies reduce overall energy consumption compared to everyone running their own equipment.  This collective effort helps lower the carbon footprint associated with technology use. Startup Growth Accelerated Accelerate your startup's growth with expert tech leadership! We guide your team, refine strategy, and guarantee timely, high-quality results. Get in touch Cloud App Development: how to develop cloud applications? Creating a cloud application is like building a sturdy bridge. Each step is crucial to ensure it stands strong and serves its purpose.  Here’s a roadmap to guide you through the process: Market and Requirements Analysis Start by understanding your market for cloud-based application development.  Who is your target audience, and what do they need?  Define the specific requirements your application must meet to address these needs effectively. This foundation ensures your app is both relevant and valuable. Hire Cloud Application Developers Building the right team is key. You have three options: Hire freelancers: Engage individual experts for specific tasks. This offers flexibility and cost savings. Create an in-house team: Develop a dedicated team within your organization for greater control and collaboration. Find a reliable technical partner: Partner with an experienced cloud development company. This option leverages external expertise without the overhead of hiring full-time staff, ensuring your cloud solution is designed and developed efficiently. Architecture and Features Design a robust architecture that supports scalability, security, and performance. Define your application's features and ensure they align with your business goals and user needs. A well-thought-out architecture is the backbone of a successful cloud application. Designing Stage Visualize your application’s user interface and functionality through detailed designs and high-fidelity prototypes.  At this stage, you need to refine the user experience, ensure the design meets all requirements, and make adjustments based on feedback to create an intuitive and engaging interface. Product Development and Testing Use best practices and industry standards when developing cloud applications. Conduct thorough testing to identify and fix any issues, ensuring the application is reliable and performs well under various conditions. Quality assurance is essential to delivering a polished final product. Deployment and Maintenance Deploy your application to the chosen cloud platform. Implement ongoing maintenance to address updates, security patches, and performance optimizations. Continuous maintenance keeps your application running smoothly and securely. Native vs hybrid app? Your choice can affect your app’s performance, user experience, and success. More helpful information - in our blog. Cloud Application Development with JetRuby. Cloud computing is changing quickly. Many businesses are now using cloud-native and hybrid solutions. Cloud-native applications grew by 175%, while hybrid cloud adoption increased by 145%. These solutions are popular because they offer flexibility, scalability, and speed. However, some businesses might find this shift confusing. Although terms like "cloud-native" and "hybrid cloud" may seem complicated, they refer to simple, flexible ways to use the cloud.  Cloud-native means building applications that run directly in the cloud, making them easier to adapt and grow. Hybrid cloud combines different cloud services, giving companies more choices and control. These changes can be challenging for smaller companies without large tech teams.  JetRuby can help you create cloud applications. With over 15 years of experience, we make building and managing cloud applications easier. We offer expert support without the cost of a full-time CTO. Our services help businesses stay updated with cloud trends and create solutions that work for them. What is CTO as a Service (CTOaaS)? Imagine having a seasoned CTO guide your cloud projects without the expense of hiring one full-time, allowing your development team to focus on core tasks.  JetRuby’s CTOaaS provides technical leadership to help you align your business goals with the right strategies. It’s ideal for small and medium-sized businesses that require expert technical guidance. How we help: Expert leadership: Gain access to experienced CTOs for smarter decisions. Cost-effective: Save money and resources while leveraging high-level expertise. Tailored support: Scale our involvement to fit your project needs. Better outcomes: Improve quality and speed while cutting costs. Additional Development Services for cloud-based applications. Staff augmentation: Add skilled developers, designers, or managers to your team. Custom SaaS development: Build unique, high-quality SaaS products from scratch quickly and efficiently. JetRuby combines expertise and strategy to simplify cloud development.  Contact us today to see how we can drive your business forward. ### Vue vs React: What to Use for Your App Development in 2025 The debate between Vue vs React is quite popular among web application developers. We bet questions like "Which is better, Vue.js or React?" or "Will React still be important in 2025?" are pretty common. Both Vue.js and React.js are leading options for front-end frameworks. They each have strong developer communities, flexible designs, and many features that suit today’s web development needs. For the record, in 2022, more developers used React than Vue. About 42.62% chose React, while 18.82% preferred Vue. The numbers for 2023 were similar to those for 2022. The first thing to understand is that there is no single "best choice." You may never find a perfect framework. Every option has trade-offs you must accept. Ultimately, the choice may matter less because what counts is the business logic, not just the framework. Many online discussions about this topic focus mainly on technical details. But those aren’t the only important factors. It does matter how well a framework performs, how fast you can build certain features, and how good the code quality is. Key takeaways Selecting Vue.js vs React.js depends on your project's specific requirements and your team's strengths rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach. For large-scale applications and teams experienced with JavaScript libraries, React offers robust tools and a flexible ecosystem that supports extensive growth and customization. Vue.js stands out with its straightforward syntax and seamless integration capabilities, making it ideal for projects that prioritize quick setup and simplicity. React and Vue have active communities, but React's larger ecosystem provides a wider array of resources, while Vue's growing support offers dedicated assistance and innovative contributions. Both frameworks deliver high performance. React's virtual DOM ensures efficient rendering, while Vue's reactive data binding provides smooth and responsive user interactions. Vue documentation is clear, detailed, and accessible for beginners, whereas React's comprehensive resources cater to developers seeking depth and advanced usage. Assessing how well each framework can adapt to future needs and remain compatible with evolving technologies ensures that your application remains robust and maintainable over time, which is crucial in the debate over Vue versus React What is React? React is a JavaScript library created by Facebook in 2013. It is an important tool for developers who build user interfaces. React is especially useful for single-page applications because it helps create fast and interactive user experiences. What Exactly Does React Do? React manages the view layer for web and mobile apps. It uses a virtual Document Object Model (DOM) version that quickly updates the user interface when data changes. This faster process avoids slow updates to the real DOM, leading to a better user experience. Why Use React? Many developers and businesses prefer it because of its strong community and support. React can easily manage complex states and works well with various tools and libraries, making it ideal for creating interactive and scalable applications. React takes a notable 2nd place among the most used web frameworks, and its popularity shows how adaptable it is. What is Vue.js? So, is Vue a library or framework? Vue.js is a JavaScript framework created by Evan You in 2014. It is flexible and allows you to use as much or as little of it as you need for your projects, whether for small features or full single-page applications. Vue.js features reactive data binding, which means the view updates automatically when the data changes. This makes it easy to keep the model and view in sync and simpler to understand than similar frameworks like React. What Exactly Does Vue.js Do? Vue.js enhances the applications view layer, making it great for improving existing projects like e-commerce sites and content management systems. Its clear syntax helps developers build user interfaces easily. Why Use Vue.js? Vue.js is simple and flexible for both beginners and experienced developers. Its lightweight design provides faster load times and better performance. Vue js vs React. The differences When it comes to the difference between Vue and React, it's essential to understand how they differ across various aspects. Here's a javascript framework comparison based on key criteria: Speed React: React works fast by using something called a virtual DOM. This means it updates only the parts of the screen that need to change, which keeps everything running smoothly. Vue.js: Vue also uses a virtual DOM and sometimes performs faster than React in certain tests. Both React and Vue handle changes quickly, making your app feel responsive. Architecture React: React encourages you to build your app using small, self-contained pieces called components. Each component handles its own data and logic, making your code organized and easier to manage. Vue.js: Vue also uses components but offers more ways to arrange them. With Vue’s Single File Components, you can keep your HTML, JavaScript, and CSS together in one file, keeping everything neat and easy to find. Scaling: Data Flow React: In React, data flows in one direction from parent components to child components. This straightforward path makes it easier to track changes and fix problems when they arise. Vue.js: Vue allows data to flow in one direction or two directions. One-way data flow is great for large projects because it keeps things predictable. Two-way data binding is handy for forms where you want data to update automatically as users type. Mobile Development React: With React Native, you can create mobile apps for both iOS and Android using the same React code. This saves time since you don’t need to write separate code for each platform. Vue.js: When building applications on Vue, one may consider using NativeScript, which allows developers to build cross-platform mobile applications using a single codebase for both iOS and Android platforms. Another option is Quasar Framework, which is primarily focused on building web and PWA (Progressive Web Apps) with responsive designs that function across various devices. Popularity React: How popular is React? Well, it is one of the most popular tools, supported by Facebook and a huge community. Because of its popularity, you can find many tutorials, libraries, and help when needed. Vue.js: Vue popularity is growing quickly, especially in places like Asia and among new startups. While its community is smaller than React’s, it’s very active and continues to grow, offering plenty of support and resources. The number of downloads shows how often each framework is used and is probably the best way to measure their popularity. Let’s compare the npm downloads of React and Vue over the last two years. Package download counts over time A chart from HN Trends shows that React's popularity has grown a lot in recent years. January 2024 Hacker News Hiring Trends Documentation Both React and Vue.js come with clear, detailed, and regularly updated documentation. Community React: React has a large and active community that creates countless libraries, tools, and extensions, making it easier to find solutions and add features to your project. Vue.js: Vue’s community might be smaller but very supportive and passionate. The ecosystem around Vue is growing quickly, providing developers with plenty of resources and tools. Third-party Integrations React: React works well with many different tools and libraries. This flexibility allows you to customize your project’s setup to fit your needs. Vue.js: Vue also offers flexible ways to integrate with other tools. It can fit into existing projects without requiring major changes, making it a convenient choice for enhancing current applications. Choosing between React and Vue depends on your project’s needs and personal preferences. Both tools are powerful and capable, so you can’t go wrong with either. Take your time to explore each one and see which feels right for you and your project. Key Differences between React and Vue [table id=39 /]   Rapid Team Expansion Scale your team quickly without wasting time or resources on hiring. Choose our staff augmentation solution and get the talent you need, when you need it. Hire developers Benefits of Using React React offers several advantages that make it a popular choice among developers and businesses alike: Virtual DOM React uses a Virtual DOM for efficient updates. Changes are made first to this lightweight copy, then only necessary updates are applied to the real DOM, resulting in a faster user experience. Strong Community Support A vast community allows developers to find tutorials, forums, and libraries easily. This support streamlines development and helps quickly resolve issues. Flexibility React provides a customizable tech stack and allows you to choose the best tools for your project, whether it's Redux for state management or React Router for navigation. Rich Ecosystem React covers diverse development needs and provides various tools and extensions, from testing frameworks like Jest to styling solutions like Styled Components.   Are you looking for a framework for your application other than Vue or React based on its community support? Check out our blog about Ruby. Its rich community constantly improves its gems to keep them functional, secure, and up-to-date!   Benefits of Using Vue.js Vue.js is one of those tools that many developers and businesses love, and here’s why it might be the perfect fit for you, too: Easy to Add to Your Projects You can easily add Vue.js to existing projects without starting from scratch. Simple to Learn and Use Its straightforward syntax makes Vue approachable for those new to coding, allowing quicker learning and project development. Clear and Helpful Guides Vue stands out for its clear and organized guides, making finding answers easy and implementing features without hassle. Light and Fast Vue’s smaller file size leads to quicker load times for your applications, ensuring smooth user interactions. Smart Data Management With reactive data handling, Vue automatically updates the user interface when data changes, which simplifies code management. Keeps Styles Organized Vue’s scoped styles keep your CSS organized, ensuring that styles for one component don’t affect others, making maintenance easier. [table id=40 /]   Good code management is important for all programming, not just Vue.js. AI can assist in reviewing code, helping developers improve quality. Have you thought about how AI code reviews could help with your coding?   When to Choose Vue vs React in 2025 When choosing a framework, ask yourself: What experience do your developers have? Is it easy to find new developers who know this framework (or can you train them efficiently)? How good is the documentation? Is there commercial support available if you need it? Will the software still be around in 10 years? How well does it support older versions? Opt for React if: You need a highly scalable application with robust state management. Your team is experienced with JavaScript libraries and prefers flexibility. You require efficient mobile app development through React Native. Opt for Vue if: You value simplicity and want to get projects up and running quickly. You need flexible integration into existing projects for incremental upgrades. React vs Vue in 2025: What to Expect Let’s break down what React and Vue.js will look like in 2025 and how they might shape your apps and websites. Faster and More Efficient Both frameworks will run smoother, with React improving its virtual DOM and Vue optimizing data management for complex applications. Better Tools for Developers Expect advanced tools that simplify development. React DevTools will become more powerful, while Vue will introduce new data management methods, streamlining the process for developers. Easier for Developers to Use Both frameworks will focus on easier usability, with simpler learning curves, clearer error messages, and better guides, making it enjoyable for new developers. Community-Driven Innovations Their active communities will continue to drive innovations, producing plugins and libraries that align both frameworks with modern trends. Enhanced Mobile App Development React Native and Vue’s tools like NativeScript or Quasar will improve mobile app development, providing better options for Android and iOS. Better Server-Side Rendering (SSR) Both frameworks will enhance server-side rendering, boosting website performance and search engine rankings.   Are you a startup founder who needs some extra tech leadership support when choosing between React and Vue? Our blog is a perfect guide to help you decide when it’s time to hire a CTO for your startup without any risks!   React, Vue, and more with the help of JetRuby Agency! JetRuby helps you use React and Vue to create amazing projects without the hassle of hiring full-time experts. React builds strong websites, while React Native creates mobile apps for both iPhones and Android devices. Our developers use React to build scalable websites that grow with your business. With React Native, we deliver mobile apps that perform well and look great, ensuring a seamless user experience. Vue.js builds user-friendly websites quickly and flexibly. Our team uses Vue's reactive data binding to make sure your website responds instantly to user actions, offering a smooth and engaging experience. Combining Ruby on Rails with React or Vue, we create complete, feature-rich applications that look good and perform reliably.   Find out how to pivot your startup with JetRuby’s help as we know how to support your fresh startup ideas. Learn to be flexible and try new things while keeping risks low.   Staff Augmentation Services Small and medium businesses often need expert technical help without hiring full-time staff. Our Staff Augmentation services provide: Skilled developers: Our React and Vue experts deliver current knowledge to help you meet deadlines and maintain quality. Cost-effective solutions: Flexible staffing allows you to access the expertise you need without high costs. Seamless integration: Our developers collaborate smoothly with your existing team, ensuring clear communication. Improved workflow: Efficient processes and regular updates quickly help you deliver high-quality features. JetRuby can enhance your app or website. Our expertise in React and Vue.js drives your business forward. Contact us to see how we can support your needs. Schedule a call or use our Contact Us form to start working with our dedicated team. ### Top 13 Actionable Strategies to Reduce Employee Turnover and Boost Retention in 2025 According to a report by the Work Institute, the global employee turnover rate will be approximately 20% in 2024, up from 18% in 2023. The reasons for that are quite evident. People seek jobs where they feel appreciated and happy. They want to work where they are truly valued, and the company cares about their well-being and healthy employee experience. Companies realize how important it is to keep their staff from leaving because constant high turnover rates disrupt team dynamics, increase recruitment costs, and diminish overall business performance. Good news? Companies can prevent unhappy employees and avoid losing them by paying attention to their needs. Prioritizing employees' physical and emotional health fosters loyalty and decreases the likelihood of them seeking opportunities elsewhere. Key takeaways: When employees see chances to advance their careers and learn new skills within the company, they feel excited about their future there. This belief in their potential makes them want to stay and contribute more to the organization. Managers who care and effectively help their team create a positive workplace. When employees feel that their leaders notice and appreciate their efforts, they feel valued and are more likely to remain with the company. A workplace that focuses on respect, teamwork, and shared values helps employees feel like they belong. This strong sense of community and alignment with the company's goals makes them more committed and less likely to leave. A thorough and friendly onboarding process helps new hires feel comfortable and integrated into the team from day one. When employees feel welcomed and well-prepared, they are more likely to stay with the company for the long term. Keeping open lines of communication and regularly giving feedback helps employees feel heard and important. When employees know their opinions matter, they feel more connected to the company and want to stay. Training and developing current employees for leadership roles ensures that the company remains strong and stable during changes. This preparation shows employees that they have a future in the company, encouraging them to stay and grow with the organization. Why do employees leave? Employee attrition happens for many reasons. Some employees leave because they find better opportunities. Others quit because they feel unhappy with their work environment. To address these issues, you need well-designed employee retention ideas and strategies. Let’s first look at the most common reasons why employees decide to leave: Limited Career Growth: Employees feel stuck if they do not see opportunities to advance Imagine working where you feel stuck in the same position forever. That’s what limited career growth feels like. It can be discouraging when you don’t see any chances to move up or learn new skills. People want to grow and advance in their careers. If they don’t see a future where they can take on more responsibilities or move into roles they’re passionate about, they might start looking for other jobs where they can grow and develop. Low Salaries: Workers leave when they believe they deserve higher pay Everyone deserves to feel they’re being paid fairly for their work. Low salaries can make employees feel underpaid for the effort and skills they contribute. When people see others in similar roles earning more, or when the cost of living goes up, and their pay doesn’t keep pace, they naturally seek better-paying opportunities. Feeling undervalued financially can lead to frustration and the decision to leave for a job that offers better compensation. Poor Management: A bad boss can make even the best job unbearable Poor management might include miscommunication, lack of employee support programs, or failure to recognize their hard work. When managers don’t provide employees the guidance or feedback, the work environment can become stressful and unhappy. Employees want to feel appreciated, and without good leadership, they may leave for a place where they feel more valued. Toxic Workplaces: A negative environment can push people to leave quickly. A toxic workplace is filled with negativity, conflict, and bad vibes. These can include bullying, favoritism, or a lack of respect among coworkers. An unpleasant work environment affects everyone’s mental and emotional well-being. People don’t want to spend their days in a place where they feel stressed, unappreciated, or unsafe. This kind of environment pushes employees to find a healthier and happier workplace. Lack of Work-Life Balance: Overworked employees feel exhausted and burned out “One common mistake leaders make is assuming that because a team member isn’t complaining, they are happy at work. “, - Harvard Business Review. When there’s a lack of work-life balance, employees feel overwhelmed and burned out. This can happen when work demands take up too much time, leaving little room for family, hobbies, or relaxation. People who constantly feel exhausted want to find a job that allows them to enjoy their personal time without feeling guilty or stressed about work. Workplace Culture: It’s all about the vibe and values of a company A positive culture makes employees feel they belong and share the same goals. This sense of belonging helps people stay longer because they enjoy working with their team and believe in what the company stands for. Conversely, a negative culture can make employees feel out of place and eager to leave for a more welcoming environment.   Expertise You Can Trust Enhance your project with our skilled Ruby on Rails professionals. 15 years’ expertise, reliable integration, and dedicated support Enhance project   How to Measure and Analyze Employee Turnover To know how to reduce staff turnover, you first need to understand it. Effective turnover management helps you measure, analyze, and identify why employees leave and how to keep them. Calculating Turnover Rate To find the turnover rate, use this simple formula: Count the number of employees who left during a specific period (like a year). Find the average number of employees during that period. Divide the number who left by the average number of employees. Multiply by 100 to get a percentage. Let’s say your company had 100 employees at the beginning of the year. By the end of the year, 15 employees left. The average number of employees during the year is 100. So, the turnover rate is (15 ÷ 100) × 100 = 15%. Is it a low employee turnover rate? It’s for you to decide. Important Metrics When analyzing employee turnover, consider these key metrics: Voluntary vs. Involuntary Turnover: Track how many employees leave by choice versus those who are let go. This helps you understand if the issue is with job satisfaction or performance. New Hire Turnover: Determine the number of new employees who leave within their first year. High turnover in this group might indicate hiring or onboarding problems. Departmental Turnover Rates: Identify the departments with the highest turnover rates. This can help you target specific areas for improvement. Assessment Frequency Regularly checking turnover rates helps you stay on top of trends: Look at turnover every three months to catch short-term issues. This allows you to address problems quickly. Conduct yearly surveys to understand long-term patterns and gather detailed employee feedback. Employee Retention Tools Organizations can use various employee retention programs and solutions to track the turnover rate and streamline the process: HR Software Solutions: Tools like BambooHR offer comprehensive dashboards to monitor employee retention metrics. Employee Engagement Surveys: These surveys provide actionable insights into workforce satisfaction, often correlating with turnover, empowering organizational leaders with strategic information. Data Analytics Tools: Platforms like Tableau or Microsoft Power BI can visualize turnover trends, helping HR teams confidently identify patterns over time and address the causes of decreased employee satisfaction. When choosing a tracking tool, consider your company’s size, budget, and specific needs. Small businesses might prefer straightforward solutions like exit interview software or simple HR platforms, while larger organizations may benefit from comprehensive HR systems or advanced data analytics tools. The key is to select a tool that provides clear, actionable insights without overwhelming your team. Industry-Specific Turnover Challenges and Employee Retention Techniques Every industry faces its own struggles with employee turnover. Some industries lose people because the work is exhausting or the pay is too low. Others see employees leave for better opportunities or because they don’t feel appreciated. We will walk you through some industry-specific creative ways to retain employees. Healthcare Industry: Exhaustion Pushes Good People Away Imagine working 12-hour shifts where every decision could mean life or death. Nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals live through this every day. They work long hours, face emotional pressure, and rarely get time to recover. Eventually, they burn out. Burnout happens when a person feels so drained and overwhelmed they just can’t keep up anymore. What can hospitals and clinics do about it? Hire extra support staff. Doctors and nurses can focus on their patients when someone else handles paperwork. This reduces stress and allows them to do what they excel at — caring for people. Offer mental health support. Therapy sessions or support groups help healthcare workers process the difficult parts of their jobs. Talking to someone who understands makes a big difference. Create fair schedules. When hospitals give workers proper breaks between shifts, it prevents exhaustion. People need time to rest, both physically and emotionally. Healthcare workers often feel proud of their jobs but can only give so much without support. If hospitals treat them well, they are more likely to stay. Retail Industry: Low Pay and Temporary Jobs Make People Quit If you’ve ever worked in retail, you know it can be tough. The pay is often low, and employees rarely get recognition for their hard work. Many jobs in retail are temporary, especially during busy seasons like the holidays. Once that season ends, employees either leave or get let go. Without stability, it’s hard for people to feel loyal to their jobs. What can retail companies do to keep employees? Offer loyalty bonuses. A small reward for staying a year or longer can encourage employees to stay and show the company appreciates their commitment. Create training programs. Allowing employees to learn new skills helps them see a future with the company. For example, a cashier can learn to manage a team. Recognize employees’ hard work. A simple “thank you” or public recognition for a well-done job can significantly improve employee recognition and make people feel seen and valued. Retail employees work hard, often with little appreciation. If companies reward their efforts and give them reasons to stay, turnover can drop significantly. Technology Industry: Too Many Opportunities Cause High Turnover The tech industry works differently. Skilled developers and engineers know they are in high demand. If one company doesn’t offer good pay, interesting projects, or growth opportunities, they can easily find another job. This constant competition makes turnover a big problem for tech companies. What can tech companies do to hold on to their talent? Offer competitive salaries. Tech professionals often leave when they feel underpaid. Matching industry pay rates and adding benefits like health insurance or stock options helps keep them happy. Support skill development. Developers want to learn and improve. Companies can help by paying for certifications, workshops, or access to online learning platforms. Recognize achievements. Developers spend weeks or months on complex projects. Acknowledging their hard work through bonuses, awards, or team celebrations makes them feel appreciated. Tech professionals love what they do but also need recognition and growth. Companies that focus on these areas will motivate employees to stay. Hospitality Industry: Hard Work and Low Wages Drive People Away The hospitality industry includes hotels, restaurants, and other service jobs. Many of these roles, like cleaning rooms or waiting tables, require physical effort and long hours. The pay is often low, and the work can feel thankless. Employees deal with difficult customers, late shifts, and very little room for growth. Eventually, they leave to find something better. How to reduce turnover rate in the hospitality business? Pay a bit more. A slightly higher wage shows that the company values its employees, and even a small increase can convince people to stay longer. Create growth opportunities. Employees in entry-level jobs should have a clear path to advance. For example, a waiter can train to become a restaurant manager. This gives workers hope for a better future. Improve working conditions. Simple changes, like allowing regular breaks, providing free meals during shifts, and creating a supportive environment, can make a huge difference. In hospitality, small gestures go a long way. When businesses treat their employees respectfully, they are far more likely to stay. Manufacturing Industry: Safety Issues and Boredom Cause High Turnover Manufacturing jobs often involve repetitive tasks, noisy environments, and safety risks. Workers may feel their jobs lack purpose or excitement. If they also worry about injuries or unsafe conditions, they will look for work elsewhere. What can manufacturing companies do to solve this problem? Improve workplace safety. Employers should invest in safety training and equipment. When workers feel safe, they trust the company and focus better on their tasks. Offer training for new skills. Manufacturing companies can teach employees how to operate advanced machinery. This helps workers feel engaged and excited about their roles. Listen to employees. Giving workers a voice, whether through surveys or team discussions, makes them feel like valuable contributors to the company. Manufacturing workers deserve to feel safe, heard, and motivated. Companies that focus on these areas will see happier employees who are less likely to leave. 13 Actionable Strategies on How to Reduce High Employee Turnover in 2025 Reducing turnover requires a multifaceted approach focusing on employee engagement and support. Companies can take practical steps to keep their employees. Companies that listen to their employees, treat them with respect, and invest in their well-being can significantly reduce turnover. It doesn’t require massive changes or endless resources. Small, thoughtful steps make the biggest difference. To help you build a workplace where employees feel appreciated and want to stay, we’ve outlined 13 of the most effective strategies that will help reduce turnover and improve retention. 1. Hire the Right People Employees who fit well with the company culture are more likely to stay. During interviews, focus on skills, values, and long-term goals. 2. Enhance the Onboarding Process Recent statistics show that only 52% of employees are happy with their onboarding experience. This means 48% feel their experience was a failure. So, good onboarding is linked to better retention and productivity and helps new employees adjust quickly. Provide clear instructions, assign mentors, and set expectations early. 3. Offer Fair Salaries Salary dissatisfaction is widespread among competitive intelligence professionals, and the 2024 Salary Report highlights just how deep the issue runs. Offering competitive salaries and benefits can significantly reduce the rate at which employees leave. Competitive salaries show employees that the company values their work. Research market rates regularly to ensure compensation remains fair. 4. Recognize and Reward Achievements Recognition makes employees feel appreciated. A simple “thank you” or a bonus for good work can improve employee recognition and make a big difference. Simple recognition methods include highlighting employees in marketing materials or creating a "wall of fame" for top performers. Celebrating milestones like birthdays and work anniversaries, giving personalized gifts, and offering bonuses are effective ways to show appreciation. Unique experiences, free meals, and sessions with the CEO can also boost morale. 5. Allow Flexible Work Options Employees value flexibility. Flexible work options, such as remote work or flexible hours, can significantly boost retention rates. These arrangements show employees that their well-being is valued, allowing them to balance personal and professional responsibilities effectively. 6. Promote Work-Life Balance The saying "work hard, play hard" isn’t enough anymore to engage employees and improve employee retention. Instead of returning to a strict 9-to-5 schedule, we need a better way to blend work and life that prioritizes employee well-being and sustainable productivity. The concept of work-life balance has evolved. A work-life fit is a flexible approach that connects your job and personal life. Unlike traditional work-life balance, which suggests a clear separation, work-life fit focuses on finding a balance that meets your needs. So encourage employees to take time off. Companies can also limit after-hours work to prevent burnout. 7. Increase Employee Engagement Studies on employee engagement and years of research in motivation psychology show managers do not directly “motivate” their employees. Instead, motivation is a state that employees find themselves in when the right conditions are present, many of which are fostered by managers through their active engagement. Check in with employees regularly. Use surveys to ask about their needs, challenges, and ideas for improvement. 8. Develop a Strong Company Culture A Built-In study found that nearly half of job seekers consider company culture when choosing employers. About 46% of applicants say culture is an important factor in their decision to apply, and 88% consider it significant. We know why. A positive company culture creates a sense of belonging. Therefore, it is important to define clear values and ensure everyone understands them. 9. Feedback matters Employees need feedback to grow. Peer-to-peer feedback fosters positive employee relationships, and many HR representatives highlight its beneficial effects in retaining top talent. Offer regular performance reviews with clear, constructive comments. 10. Support Employee Development Invest in training, workshops, or education programs. Employees appreciate companies that support their professional growth, and it’s the number one priority for almost half of millennials in the workforce. 11. Be Open and Transparent Share updates about company goals, challenges, and decisions. Transparency builds trust and loyalty. Open communication is one of the core drivers of workplace culture. 12. Identify and Address Toxic Employees One toxic employee can damage team morale. Use anonymous feedback and performance reviews to identify employees who create a negative environment. 13. Plan for Leadership Succession Companies that wait until someone resigns or retires to focus on leadership programs, especially without a clear succession plan, may find themselves in a tough spot. This kind of delay can lead to unexpected turnover, which can decrease productivity, create talent shortages, and significantly decrease revenue. You need to identify top-performing employees and prepare them for leadership roles. This ensures smooth transitions when managers leave. After exploring these 13 effective strategies, it's helpful to have a clear and straightforward summary of the most important steps you can take to reduce staff turnover. The table below highlights each key action in a simple way, making it easy to reference and use in your organization. [table id=37 /] Implementing these strategies can significantly enhance your workplace environment and reduce employee turnover. However, there are times when your team may require specialized skills or additional support to maintain this positive momentum. That's where JetRuby's Staff Augmentation service comes into play.   Team Excellence Accelerate development with a team meeting international standards - stable, highly qualified, and motivated. Hire developers   Why Choose JetRuby's Staff Augmentation Service? Imagine you have a big project that needs special skills right away. Instead of waiting to hire someone full-time, you can bring in a skilled professional from our team. They join your team quickly and help you complete your projects without the long hiring process. Our service is perfect when you need: Immediate Expertise Flexibility Cost-Effective Solutions Our developers combine professionalism and expertise to ensure your projects are completed efficiently and meet high standards. They collaborate with your team to identify issues and share best practices, leading to better results and a satisfying work experience. With JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation service, you receive detailed monthly reports outlining work hours and progress, ensuring transparency and informed decision-making. Our flexible approach allows you to scale your team up or down as needed, with just a month's notice, avoiding long-term commitments. Having developers based near the USA ensures a time zone overlap of at least four hours, facilitating real-time communication. Our team is fluent in English, enhancing collaboration and minimizing language barriers. Our developers act as true partners, proactively address potential issues, and offer valuable insights to improve project outcomes. By choosing JetRuby's Staff Augmentation service, you ensure your projects stay on track and your team remains productive. Let us help you find the right talent fast so you can focus on what matters most: growing your business and keeping your team happy. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for additional details! ### Why Is Ruby Still Used for Product Development and What Is It Good For? You opt for the right tools for product development but feel overwhelmed. No wonder, with so many frameworks and languages emerging. You might ask: "Is Ruby on Rails dead?" The short answer is no. Not only is Ruby on Rails alive in 2024, but it continues to thrive, and for good reason. Ruby on Rails (RoR) and Ruby consistently rank among the top-paying technologies worldwide, so it’s clear that Rails has left a lasting mark on the software development landscape. If you’re unsure about its strengths, challenges, or whether it fits your needs, this article explains everything in simple, clear terms. By the end, you’ll know exactly why Ruby on Rails (RoR) remains a smart choice for building fast, secure, and scalable web applications. Is Ruby Still Used Today? Rails 8.0 Sets the Standard Ruby technology keeps evolving to stay modern and useful. The release of Rails 8.0 proves this point, offering tools that solve performance, deployment, and integration problems. Here’s what makes Rails 8.0 special. Seamless Deployment with Kamal 2 and Thruster Proxy Kamal 2 simplifies deployment (launching an application online). With just one command, you can set up your Ruby application on cloud servers or your own infrastructure. Kamal removes unnecessary complexity, enabling fast scaling without extensive manual configurations. Performance Boost with Thruster Proxy Rails 8.0 also introduces Thruster Proxy, which works directly with the Puma web server. This eliminates the need for external servers like Nginx and improves performance with asset compression and caching features. Business Benefits of the Thruster Proxy Update It reduces costs by eliminating extra servers like Nginx. Faster load times improve user experience and customer retention. Asset compression and caching speed up processes. It makes server maintenance easier and less complex. Allows your business to support more users without extra costs. Faster speeds can boost your search engine rankings and attract more visitors. Fewer server needs and better performance lower maintenance expenses. Reduced Dependencies with Solid Adapters Solid Adapters (a set of tools) replace third-party systems like Redis and Memcached, which are often expensive. These tools reduce costs, simplify operations, and make Rails more accessible for startups and businesses. Here’s what they include: Solid Cable: Manages messaging between app users using SQLite. Solid Cache: Provides fast, encrypted data caching on the disk. Solid Queue: Handles job queues with native retry features. Modern Asset Management with Propshaft Rails now uses Propshaft instead of Sprockets for managing assets (images, JavaScript files, etc.). It integrates smoothly with tools like bun and esbuild to make builds faster and easier to manage. Business Benefits of Updating to Propshaft for Asset Management: Propshaft speeds up asset builds, allowing faster feature releases. Improved asset handling enhances application speed and user experience. It works well with tools like Bun and Esbuild for better efficiency. Simplified asset management reduces complexity and lowers maintenance costs. Enhanced asset management supports business growth by handling more traffic and complexity. Better Security and Compliance Rails 8.0 focuses on security, introducing an authentication generator to help developers set up secure user logins in Ruby applications. It also integrates with tools like 1Password and Bitwarden to ensure that apps like GDPR and CCPA meet privacy standards. Together, these Ruby features make Rails 8.0 a leap forward. It improves speed, security, and developer experience — key reasons businesses trust Rails. Who uses Ruby? (Real-World Applications of Ruby on Rails) You might ask, “What is Ruby on Rails good for?” It powers platforms you likely use every day. Companies trust it because it builds reliable and scalable systems quickly. GitHub: Rails is the backbone of the world’s largest code collaboration platform, supporting over 100 million developers. Shopify: Shopify uses Rails to power e-commerce stores for 4 million businesses worldwide. Airbnb: Rails ensures millions of travelers a seamless and reliable booking experience. Twitch: Streaming massive volumes of real-time video data requires Rails’ scalable and robust architecture. Dribble and Basecamp: Rails excels at building dynamic, user-friendly applications, from creative portfolios to project management tools. Ruby on Rails usage goes beyond the above-mentioned companies: Groupon, Coinbase, GitLab, Zendesk, Etsy, Crunchbase, Ask.fm, Fab, and many other well-known firms began their journeys with Ruby on Rails technology. The main advantages of Ruby on Rails in web development If you’re wondering why companies of all sizes choose Rails, here’s a breakdown of the main reasons why Ruby on Rails popularity is high: Fast Development Ruby on Rails focuses on speed without sacrificing quality. Its principles, Convention over Configuration (CoC) and Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY), eliminate unnecessary steps during development. Instead of writing repetitive code, developers can focus on building the core features of your product. With over 187,000 ready-made solutions called gems, Rails allows developers to add features like payment processing, user authentication, or file uploads without starting from scratch. This helps businesses build and launch products quickly. It’s especially vital for startups that need a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test their ideas or for enterprises working on tight deadlines. High Security Level Security is non-negotiable for any business. Ruby on Rails comes with built-in protections against major security threats: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) SQL Injection Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Clickjacking These Ruby features reduce risks and help businesses comply with security standards like GDPR and CCPA. Clear Syntax (Developer-Friendly Syntax) Ruby on Rails uses clean, simple code that developers love. As The Rails Doctrine outlines, one of its main pillars is “programmer happiness.” Thus, Rails makes developers’ work smoother and more enjoyable. The syntax reads almost like plain English, so developers can tackle complex tasks without writing endless lines of code. This clarity also makes onboarding new developers easier since the structure is easy to follow and maintain. Strong Community Since 2003, Ruby on Rails has been supported by a vibrant and passionate global community. Thousands of developers continuously introduce new enhancements to ensure the framework stays up-to-date with new technologies and best practices. Issues get addressed quickly. New features are regularly introduced. Countless tutorials, guides, and forums make it easy to find help when needed. For businesses, this means faster solutions, fewer bugs, and reliable support from the Rails community whenever challenges arise. Easy Implementation of Business Logic With its Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, Rails makes it simple to integrate even the most complex business logic into applications. Developers can manage workflows, handle transactions, and build custom features that align perfectly with your goals. For example, businesses can seamlessly integrate APIs, automate tasks, or manage multi-step operations without unnecessary hassle. AI and Machine Learning Integration Ruby on Rails integrates seamlessly with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) projects. Rails supports tools for: Predictive analytics to identify trends and behaviors Chatbots to improve customer service Personalized user experiences based on data insights Using AI-focused gems like ai4r, Rails makes it easier to bring intelligence and automation into web applications, keeping up with modern technological trends. Compatibility with Other Technologies Ruby on Rails integrates well with popular frontend tools like React, Vue.js, and Angular, making it easy to create dynamic user interfaces. Rails also works smoothly with various APIs, mobile backends, and other third-party tools to support complex workflows. This compatibility allows businesses to choose the best tools for their needs without facing integration issues. Gems Ecosystem The gems ecosystem is one of Rails’ greatest strengths. With over 170,000 gems available, developers can easily add features to Ruby applications. Whether you need payment gateways, file uploads, or advanced AI tools, there’s likely a gem that solves your problem. This vast library of pre-built solutions saves time and money since you don’t have to build functionalities from scratch. Scalability Businesses that expect growth need a framework that scales with them. Rails effortlessly handles high traffic and complex applications. Tools like Kamal and Solid Adapters ensure Rails apps can manage increasing demand without sacrificing performance. Companies like Shopify and Twitch prove that Rails can handle millions of users and transactions daily. Continuous Improvement Major updates like Rails 8.0 introduce new tools and performance enhancements to keep it modern and efficient. This commitment to improvement ensures businesses can rely on Rails for long-term projects without worrying about falling behind. Database Support Rails simplifies database management through Active Record, a built-in Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) tool. Active Record allows developers to interact with databases using straightforward commands rather than complex SQL queries. Whether using MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite, Rails makes database operations smooth and intuitive. Business Benefits of Rails Database Support Update: Simplified database interactions with Active Record ORM, reducing the need for complex SQL. Speeding up tasks, helping you launch features faster. MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite support allow businesses to choose the right database. Reduced complex query writing, letting developers focus on key business functions. Accelerated development potentially lowers project costs. Easily scales database operations as your business grows. Simple Testing Tools Rails has built-in testing tools that help developers check code quality and ensure features work as expected. The included Minitest framework makes writing and running tests simple. With testing tools embedded into the framework, businesses can release updates confidently, knowing the code is reliable and bug-free. Extensive Documentation Rails has some of the most thorough and user-friendly documentation available. Developers can find clear explanations, examples, and guides for every part of the framework. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced programmer, the documentation makes it easy to understand and apply Rails’ features.   Startup Growth Accelerated Accelerate your startup's growth with expert tech leadership! We guide your team, refine strategy, and guarantee timely, high-quality results Get in touch   What is Ruby on Rails used for? Why use Ruby on Rails? Well, because Rails goes beyond basic web applications. Here’s what Rails can help you build: Web Applications Rails is perfect for creating dynamic and user-friendly web applications. Its Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture ensures that even complex apps are easy to manage and scale. From social networks and online marketplaces to business management tools, Rails delivers seamless and engaging user experiences. For startups, Rails is especially valuable. It allows you to quickly build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test ideas, gather feedback, and adapt without wasting time or money. eCommerce Solutions Rails proved to be a powerful framework for building successful eCommerce platforms. Businesses like Shopify rely on Rails to manage high-volume transactions, flexible pricing, and inventory systems. Beyond simple online stores, Rails can handle: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Secure payment gateways Marketing tools Inventory management systems This flexibility makes Rails the go-to choice for companies looking to create scalable and feature-rich eCommerce solutions. Events Organizing an event, whether a small birthday party or a large international conference, can feel overwhelming. Ruby on Rails simplifies this process, making your event run smoothly from start to finish. With Ruby on Rails, you can set up a secure online platform where attendees can effortlessly purchase tickets. RoR ensures that transactions are safe and helps you track all ticket sales so you know exactly who’s coming. Consider a system where guests can easily sign up, create their own profiles, and access all the necessary information about the event. This personal touch makes attendees feel welcome and informed. Sometimes, plans change at the last minute, like a speaker canceling. With Ruby on Rails technology stack, you can instantly send notifications to everyone, keeping them updated and reducing potential confusion. Ruby on Rails takes the stress out of event planning by providing tools that handle the details, allowing you to focus on creating memorable experiences for your guests. Healthcare Healthcare is all about caring for people, and Ruby on Rails helps build systems that make this care more efficient and secure. Let’s explore how it supports both doctors and patients. Ruby on Rails technology ensures that all patient details, such as medical history and treatment plans, are easily accessible to doctors and safe and organized, so healthcare providers have everything they need at their fingertips. With Rails, you can build a user-friendly system where patients can book, change, or cancel their appointments online without any hassle. This convenience reduces wait times and makes managing visits much easier for everyone involved. Picture patients having video calls with their doctors from the comfort of their homes. Ruby on Rails makes these virtual consultations possible and ensures medical advice is just a click away. Thanks to Ruby on Rails, Patient Portals, where patients can log in to view their test results, check their medical information, and communicate directly with their healthcare team, are a reality. JetRuby team developed a healthcare management platform that now allows a number of private hospitals to schedule their patients’ appointments for free, with some additional advanced features available at a premium. HRTech and ERP platforms Managing a team and handling HR tasks can be complex, but Ruby on Rails simplifies it. Let’s see how it supports HR departments in their everyday work. Imagine a centralized platform built with Ruby for companies to list job openings and manage candidates' applications in one place. A platform like this streamlines the hiring process and makes it easier to find the right talent. It’s a system that records each employee’s role, performance, and onboarding process. Ruby on Rails makes this platform concept a reality and ensures that all this information is organized and easily accessible, helping HR teams manage their workforce effectively. With Ruby, one can build an automated system that calculates salaries, manages taxes, and handles direct deposits accurately. As a result — reduced errors and employees are paid on time without any manual intervention. Ruby on Rails makes managing employee benefits straightforward and transparent. Detailed reports on employee satisfaction and retention rates help businesses make informed decisions to improve their workplace environment and retain top talent. Ruby on Rails transforms HR operations by providing tools that automate and simplify complex tasks. This allows HR professionals to focus on what truly matters: the people they work with. As for ERP systems, we at JetRuby developed an outstanding one that has transformed daily operations, improved teamwork, and simplified complex business tasks. Over 200 employees use our ERP system every day. A dedicated team of more than 20 engineers, testers, and analysts continually improves it with new features. We have over 15 years of experience in managing people and projects. Food Delivery Ordering food should be a delightful and seamless experience, and Ruby on Rails helps make that happen. Let’s explore how it enhances the online food delivery process. Ruby on Rails ensures that all information in restaurant menus is displayed clearly, helping you choose exactly what you’re craving. It helps to organize all orders so the food gets to you quickly and correctly. Built on Ruby on Rails, food delivery services can be sure that all payment transactions are safe and smooth, giving clients peace of mind when they pay. With Ruby on Rails, one can build a delivery service that plans the best routes for drivers and tracks their progress. This ensures that the food arrives promptly and in perfect condition. Receiving real-time updates about the order status, such as when it’s being prepared, out for delivery, or has arrived, becomes a reality with Ruby on Rails. This keeps clients informed and reduces any anxiety about the meal’s arrival. We at Jetruby are proud to have expertise in the field, bringing several food delivery services to life. Saffron Cooks, an app for premium food delivery service bringing a restaurant-like dining experience, is on the list. Fintech Applications Security and reliability are essential for financial technology, and Rails is designed to meet those needs because it has good security features that protect against threats like SQL injection and XSS. Its "convention over configuration" approach makes code reliable and easy to maintain, which reduces errors. The Rails community regularly updates the framework to keep applications secure. Rails also includes testing tools to ensure applications work correctly and can handle high traffic. Businesses use Rails to build secure platforms for: Fraud detection systems Transaction processing Financial trend forecasting The built-in security features in Rails protect sensitive data, ensure compliance with financial regulations, and reduce the risk of breaches. Our team created a fast and easy-to-use mobile app that saves users time and reduces stress during nights out. The app helps bar owners enhance their service, giving customers a modern experience. With NFC Moments, you can skip long pub lines and avoid slow payment processes. EdTech Platforms Rails is a strong choice for educational technology. It helps create Learning Management Systems (LMS) and other tools that automate teacher tasks and improve student learning experiences. Ruby gems ecosystem offers numerous plugins for features like user authentication, payment processing, interactive content, and more, reducing the need to build functionalities from scratch. The analytics and reporting features help monitor student performance and educational outcomes. Rails-powered platforms can offer: Admin tools to reduce manual work for educators Interactive dashboards for students and teachers Secure, user-friendly features to enhance education workflows JetRuby team has been teaming up with “NameCoach” for almost three years to enhance, model, and advance the platform, that helps prevent social discomfort when names are mispronounced in important situations. Back-end development for Mobile Applications While languages like Swift and Kotlin dominate mobile app development, Rails is excellent for building the back end of mobile apps. It ensures smooth communication between mobile devices and servers and manages data requests securely and efficiently. This makes Rails a reliable partner for businesses looking to connect their mobile applications to a powerful server-side infrastructure. Static Site Generators Rails and Ruby have long supported static site generators, which are lightweight, fast, and secure. Tools like Jekyll, built on Ruby, have been trusted solutions for over a decade. They offer simple yet powerful sites ideal for blogs, portfolios, and documentation. Automation and DevOps Ruby on Rails plays a key role in automation and DevOps tasks, making it easier for businesses to manage their infrastructure. It allows developers to create simple scripts for deployments and database changes. Tools like Heroku, Vagrant, Chef, and Puppet use Ruby to: Automate application installation and deployment Streamline system configuration Simplify maintenance of cloud infrastructure For businesses focused on efficiency, Rails delivers powerful tools to save time and resources. Data Processing and Web Scraping Rails is also effective for data processing, cleaning, transforming, and validating data for analysis. While Python is often used for parsing and analyzing data, Rails complements it and efficiently handles preparatory tasks. Additionally, Rails can perform web scraping for research and competitive analysis, extracting large amounts of data in an organized manner for further use. Ruby on Rails vs. Competing Technologies The choice of technology stack is a critical factor in any project. First of all, it impacts development speed, security, scalability, and cost. We will compare Ruby on Rails to Node.js, Python (Django), PHP, and Java. The table below lays out the advantages and disadvantages of each option, providing a practical guide for you to make a decision that aligns with your project’s needs and budget. [table id=36 /] Ruby on Rails is a fast, secure, and cost-effective framework, making it ideal for startups that want to launch products quickly. Moreover, with the right tools and setup, developers can use Ruby on Rails to build complex solutions that meet the needs of enterprise-level companies. While Python is the leader in AI and machine learning, Ruby on Rails is gaining ground in this area. Node.js is great for real-time applications, and Java suits large companies that need reliable solutions. PHP offers a simple, budget-friendly option for basic web projects. Each technology has strengths, so choose based on the project’s needs. Rails Isn’t Going Anywhere If you’re still asking, “Is Ruby on Rails in demand today?” the answer is clear. It’s getting faster, more secure, and more compatible with the latest tools and technologies. Rails continues to make developers' lives easier while helping businesses build scalable, cost-efficient applications. Rails is a safe and smart choice if you think about starting a project or improving your current application. It’s a trusted, evolving tool that adapts to the future: Rails supports AI workflows like predictive analytics and chatbots with gems like AI4r. Rails, with its simple syntax and domain-specific language (DSL), empowers developers to use high-level prompts efficiently. This aligns with the trend of prompt-driven development over manual coding. With its robust features and scalability, Rails remains a secure and top choice for eCommerce solutions, as evidenced by platforms like Shopify. By adopting AI, ML, and modern development practices, Rails is set to remain a leading option for businesses looking for innovation and scalability. If you want to know how Rails can help your business grow, let’s talk. How to Give a Green Light to Your Project with JetRuby Agency At JetRuby, we create custom, effective Ruby on Rails solutions tailored to your business needs. Our expertise provides a solid foundation for your growth. CTO as a Service Our CTO as a Service is your key to building and enhancing development teams. We thoroughly analyze your current processes to pinpoint issues and streamline your workflow, ensuring maximum productivity. We offer services within our Product Mechanics framework to improve your company’s processes: We interview your technical staff to understand your team structure and any process challenges. This usually takes 2-3 days. Next, we conduct a detailed audit of your operations at the management and team levels. This step helps us create a clear plan for necessary changes and takes about two weeks. We implement the changes and monitor processes to ensure they work effectively. We then continue to observe and adjust as needed to support ongoing improvement. We also facilitate transitions to managed delivery models for project stability, making your journey with us smooth and rewarding. Switching to Managed Delivery means we can help you with your development work while still having a reliable support team for your product. This way, we can focus on creating new features and managing your projects better. We’ll also watch your team’s work and fix any problems to keep things running smoothly. Benefits of Managed Delivery include: Consistent support for current products. More time for new features and projects. Ongoing improvements to your team’s workflow. Smooth shifts to new development phases. Quick issue resolution to maintain performance. Staff Augmentation Our Staff Augmentation service is your go-to solution when you need the right talent ASAP. We connect you with our skilled, self-motivated Ruby on Rails developers who can seamlessly join your team in just 2-3 weeks. This rapid onboarding allows you to scale up without compromising on quality. Our seasoned developers are adept at tackling challenges and accelerating timelines, while our transparent billing system keeps you updated on progress and costs. Partnering with JetRuby lets you leverage our Ruby on Rails expertise to enhance your projects. Whether you’re launching an MVP, building a new feature, or scaling an existing app, we’re here to make it happen together. Don’t let tech challenges hold you back. Contact JetRuby today to start building innovative, efficient applications. ### Uncovering 9 Reasons Why Ruby on Rails Is the Perfect Fit for Your SaaS Product Developing a Software as a Service (SaaS) product can feel like navigating a maze.  There’s an endless list of decisions to make.   The tech side alone can leave you spinning. Should you go with something simple and fast? Or flexible but time-consuming? And what if the clock’s ticking, your budget’s tight, and the pressure’s on to get it right the first time? With so many technology options available, narrowing down the choices might seem overwhelming. And the SaaS sector doesn’t stand still. The global Software as a Service (SaaS) market size is forecast to grow from $317.55 billion in 2024 to a mind-blowing $1,228.87 billion by 2032. North America SaaS market size It clearly shows harsh competition, so you should opt for the best SaaS frameworks. After doing some research, you must have heard about Ruby on Rails (RoR) and rumors around it. Why Ruby on Rails, exactly? Is it the right choice for a SaaS idea? Is Ruby on Rails dead? Is Ruby on Rails still relevant?  These questions pop up regularly. And we’ve got answers.  Yes, it’s a robust fit for any SaaS project. And no, it’s not dead at all. Ruby on Rails (RoR) has gained a solid reputation for its ability to deliver fast, scalable, and secure web apps and websites. In this article, we’re going to dive deeper into why Rails SaaS works so well. "As a software engineer, I’ve worked with many frameworks, but Ruby on Rails stands out for how it simplifies the complex. It’s like having a well-organized toolbox where everything you need is right there, ready to go. This allows us to spend more time crafting meaningful features that truly make a difference for our clients and their users." — Daniil, Software Engineer at JetRuby Key takeaways Rails' "convention over configuration" approach and built-in tools allow developers to create features faster and reduce time-to-market. With nearly two decades of use, Ruby on Rails has a proven track record of handling complex SaaS projects, offering stability and a robust developer toolkit. Techniques like caching, lazy loading, and seamless hosting compatibility ensure Rails can support growing user bases and traffic spikes. Successful SaaS products require ongoing updates and improvements. Rails leverage active community and robust support that bring long-term viability. Rails promotes rapid development, but SaaS teams must balance quick iterations with simple Ruby on Rails testing tools to maintain reliability and prevent technical debt. Why Ruby on Rails? 9 Advantages of Ruby on Rails that make it the best framework for SaaS applications Unlike traditional software, where users download and run the program on their own devices, SaaS operates entirely online. This means the software must be accessible, intuitive, and reliable every single time. Every single minute. And when you create a SaaS product, speed and efficiency are key. Because you want to get to market as quickly as possible.  Rails helps you do that. Ruby on Rails is a development framework that’s been quietly empowering some of the most successful SaaS products for over a decade.  Why? Because it simplifies the chaos. No extra fluff, no unnecessary complexity. And it provides everything you need in one package, so you don’t waste time reinventing the wheel. Let’s look at these Ruby on Rails benefits. Fast development Faster development means faster time-to-market.  So let’s start with one of RoR development’s best-known traits: speed. Ruby on Rails follows a principle called convention over configuration.  Conventions are a set of rules that guide developers through building things the “Rails way.” This means the framework has many built-in rules for how to structure your code. Instead of setting up everything from scratch, you can rely on these guidelines to build features faster. Another big advantage is that Rails is already configured and ready to use right away, so developers don’t have to spend time customizing or selecting components. For example, Ruby on Rails web developers don’t have to build basic elements like logins or user profile pages because Ruby on Rails already has tools for that. Framework maturity “Okay, so it’s fast. But is it reliable?” “How do we know it won’t crash when things get complicated?” A fair point.  Rails has been around since 2004, which might seem like forever in the tech world.  But this is a good thing. A mature framework means it’s been tested over and over again in real-world projects. It also means developers have already tackled and solved most of the common issues you might face. This approach results in fewer bugs, reliable libraries, and robust developer tools.  Ruby on Rails also has a huge development community that improves it constantly. A gentle learning curve However, not every developer has years of experience with every framework. What if your team includes juniors or newcomers? According to The Rails Doctrine, “programmer happiness” is the #1 pillar of Ruby on Rails. This framework proved to be beginner-friendly because it organizes code in a consistent and predictable way. This structure makes it easier for developers to understand the code.  And it’s twice as important when multiple experts work on the same project. Rails goes even further to help developers by using a Domain-Specific Language (DSL). A DSL is a mini, specialized language used within a larger programming language. It's a special syntax for describing a specific part or function of your application. As you already know, Rails is based on Ruby. This programming language has a natural syntax that feels almost like writing sentences in English. Combine it with Rails’ DSL and conventions methods, and you get the code that is intuitive and easy to follow. Rails also provide helpful error messages, which guide developers when they make mistakes. Seamless integrations Most SaaS products don’t exist in a vacuum. They must connect with other tools and services like payments, email, analytics, CRMs, or customer support.  Ruby on Rails makes external integration relatively simple with pre-built Ruby gems.  These are reusable libraries of code that you can plug into your app. Many of these gems handle integration with third-party services, like Stripe for payments or SendGrid for emails, in just a few lines of code. For example, A SaaS product can use a Stripe gem to handle credit card transactions or a Twilio gem to add messaging capabilities. Rock-solid security If your SaaS app handles customer data, security is mandatory. Rails comes with built-in tools to protect your app from common vulnerabilities. SQL injection protection. Rails uses something called "Active Record Query Interface." This tool ensures that any data entered into your app is automatically cleaned before being sent to your database. This process stops hackers from injecting harmful commands to steal or manipulate data. Cross-site scripting (XSS) protection. Rails has a built-in tool called "Auto-escaping." It automatically cleans up any data displayed in your app to prevent attackers from injecting harmful scripts that could run in a user’s browser. Cross-site request forgery (CSRF) protection. Rails includes a system to generate a unique "authenticity token" for every form submitted in your app. This token ensures that the actions (like transferring money or updating user data) are legitimate and come from a trusted user, not a fake or malicious source. It also has tools for enforcing SSL encryption, ensuring data is transmitted securely. Framework performance “But can it handle a growing number of users?” “What about spikes in traffic?” People sometimes wonder if Rails is “fast enough” for modern apps.  The answer is yes. With the right setup, Rails can handle heavy traffic and demanding workloads. It might not be the fastest framework, but it balances performance and ease of use. What exactly makes Rails perform well?  Rails uses a combination of techniques, like caching and lazy loading, to ensure fast load times and efficient data processing.  Instead of loading all data at once, Rails loads only what’s needed and when it’s needed. That’s what lazy loading does. As your app grows, Rails allows you to optimize performance with more advanced features. Recent 8.0 upgrades have improved processing speed and database efficiency.  Rails also works seamlessly with modern hosting services like AWS and Heroku, which provide the infrastructure needed to handle large numbers of users. ROR flexibility SaaS products evolve. You might start with a simple idea, but later you need to add features or pivot down the line. Rails makes it easier to adapt. What exactly makes Rails flexible?  Its modular structure allows developers to update parts of the app without breaking everything else. If you need to customize any aspect of your SaaS product, RoR is flexible enough to adapt to your specific needs. For example, you can add a new payment gateway or redesign a user interface without touching the core business logic.  If you’re running a SaaS for project management, you can seamlessly tweak the framework to handle unique workflows, like assigning tasks or generating reports. Rapid prototyping When building a SaaS, you must validate your ideas before building a fully-functioning product.  Ruby on Rails is perfect for this due to its built-in tools and Rails generators. Rails generators help developers quickly set up components like models, controllers, and views. Additionally, Ruby on Rails leverages ready-made solutions like Devise for user authentication and ActiveAdmin for building admin interfaces. RoR can handle common operations like creating, updating, and deleting records with minimal configuration. This allows teams to quickly test the core features of a product without building complex logic from scratch. Monolithic architecture RoR traditionally uses a monolithic architecture based on the model-view-controller (MVC) pattern. This approach organizes your code in a way that’s easy to manage and maintain. What does MVC mean? In simple terms, it separates your app’s data (Model), user interface (View), and how they interact (Controller).  As a result, the code is more organized and less prone to errors. If the project follows Rails conventions, most Rails developers will instantly recognize the structure and get started immediately. The code for the entire application (front-end and back-end) is housed in a single codebase. This simplifies development, as developers don’t need to manage multiple services or repositories. Rapid Team Expansion Scale your team quickly without wasting time or resources on hiring. Choose our staff augmentation solution and get the talent you need, when you need it. Hire Rails developers Popular SaaS solutions built with Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails has powered some of the most well-known SaaS platforms worldwide. These companies rely on Rails framework for its speed, flexibility, and ability to handle complex operations. Basecamp Basecamp is a project management tool that helps teams stay organized and productive.  It’s also the birthplace of Ruby on Rails.  David Heinemeier Hansson, Basecamp’s co-founder, created this framework to boost development while solving real-world coding challenges. Rails’ modular structure and ready-to-use components made it easier to develop features like to-do lists, file sharing, team communication, task tracking, messaging, and file sharing. Because Rails simplifies routine coding tasks, Basecamp launched faster, which gave them an edge in the competitive software market. Hey The same team behind Basecamp built Hey, a modern email platform designed to simplify inbox management. It prioritizes important messages, blocks unwanted emails, and organizes your communication.  The authors say this email and calendar platform alone combines the features of Gmail, Outlook, and Apple. Rails modular structure allowed the team to create advanced tools like custom workflows and filters quickly.  With less time spent on repetitive coding, they could focus on refining the user experience and launching Hey confidently in a crowded market. GitHub GitHub is the go-to platform for developers to store, share, and collaborate on code. Rails provided a structure that allowed GitHub to handle millions of repositories while maintaining strong performance. Built-in testing tools helped GitHub ensure stability with every new release. Zendesk Zendesk simplifies customer support with tools for ticket management, live chat, and analytics. Thanks to Rails ' support for APIs, Zendesk integrated seamlessly with third-party tools. This allowed businesses to connect Zendesk with their existing systems, like email and CRM software. Rails made it possible for Zendesk to quickly add new features, such as automated ticket routing and live chat, as customer needs evolved. Shopify Shopify helps businesses of all sizes create and run online stores. It’s one of the largest SaaS platforms built with Ruby on Rails. Rails allowed Shopify to offer customizable store templates. This modular approach allowed business owners to design their storefronts while keeping the backend stable and reliable. Its scalability ensured that Shopify could manage huge spikes in traffic during events like Black Friday. Rails enabled Shopify to balance user flexibility with system reliability, giving e-commerce entrepreneurs a platform they could trust. UserVoice UserVoice helps businesses gather and analyze customer feedback to improve their products and services. Rails’ efficient database management allowed UserVoice to quickly organize and process large amounts of feedback data. Rails provided tools to build analytics dashboards to help businesses spot trends and take action based on customer input. Airbnb Airbnb began as a small startup that connected travelers with people renting out their homes. Airbnb is more of a PaaS solution, but they used Ruby on Rails to power growth in the early stages. Rails’ rapid development framework allowed Airbnb to launch features quickly, like property listings and booking systems. Scalability features ensured that Airbnb’s platform could handle increasing demand without performance issues. Ruby on Rails: The Framework for Great SaaS Products Made Easy with JetRuby So, is Ruby still used after 20 years of existence? Definitely yes! Ruby on Rails popularity doesn’t fade away — it was ranked 18th in March 2024. RoR still remains one of the top choices among SaaS development frameworks. It offers businesses the tools to build products that are scalable, reliable, and quick to market.  But turning this potential into a finished product requires a skilled team that can deliver quality at speed.  At JetRuby, we help companies build successful SaaS products with our Staff Augmentation service.  You’ve got: Immediate access to top-tier Ruby on Rails developers with over 15 years of experience. Flexible team scaling to match your changing project needs, whether scaling up or down. Quick onboarding with cohesive teams ready to join your project in as little as 2-3 weeks. Full transparency with hourly rates and detailed time reports for budget control. Seamless collaboration through time zone overlaps and fluent English communication. Why Work with JetRuby? Our team has been mastering Ruby on Rails development for over 15 years now. We focus on building flexible, scalable SaaS solutions that adapt to your business needs, now and in the future. Proven expertise with over 200 successfully delivered projects and the World's Top 100 Ruby on Rails developers. Quality and security are based on ISO-certified and HIPAA-compliant processes to ensure your data stays safe. We handle the entire product lifecycle from development and testing to project management and UI/UX design. Contact JetRuby today to build your SaaS product faster, better, and with confidence. ### Top 8 Ruby on Rails Hosting Providers for Optimal Performance Ruby on Rails is one of the most trusted frameworks for building web applications. It helps developers create powerful, flexible apps and deploy and scale them quickly. But you need the right hosting provider to get the most out of it. The best Ruby on Rails hosting provider is supposed to offer excellent support and balance speed, reliability, security, and scalability. It should also keep your data safe and fit within your budget. But why does hosting matter for Ruby on Rails? Let’s keep this simple. Hosting is like the house where your web app “lives.” If you pick the wrong host, your app might slow down, crash under pressure, or face security risks. Whether you need premium or the cheapest Ruby web hosting services, this guide covers key factors to consider when selecting Ruby on Rails cloud hosting services. Key Takeaways A hosting provider must support the latest Rails versions for better features, stronger security, and faster performance. Consider your budget carefully. Start small if needed, but look for a provider that can grow with you. Selecting between VPS, PaaS, and IaaS depends on a project's specific resource needs and growth plans. JetRuby’s CTO as a Service can help optimize hosting strategies, build skilled development teams, and support long-term project success What to Look for in Ruby on Rails Hosting When it comes to web hosting, Ruby on Rails practitioners always aim for optimal performance and rock-solid security. To find the best Rails hosting solution, consider your specific needs and how the provider can meet them. Here are the main points to remember when hosting Ruby on Rails applications. Support for Advanced Versions Your hosting provider must support the latest versions of Ruby on Rails. Using the latest version gives you access to new features, security updates, and performance boosts. This helps keep your application current and secure. Regular Updates A hosting provider that regularly updates its infrastructure and software helps reduce security risks and improve system stability in your Rails applications. To reduce downtime or compatibility issues during upgrading, a hosting provider must leverage efficient Ruby on Rails deployment processes and precaution techniques: Continuous integration and deployment tools for quick and smooth updates. Rolling updates or blue-green deployments to keep services running during updates. Ruby on Rails versions and gem dependencies management to ensure compatibility and avoid disruptions. Automated tests to catch issues before deployment and reduce live problems. Regular backups and a rollback plan to quickly restore previous versions if needed. Performance post-update monitoring and issues alerts. Staging environments to test updates before going live, helping to spot problems early.   Read more about maintaining your Ruby on Rails application up-to-date!   Data Security To protect application and user data, look for strong security features such as SSL certificates, firewalls, regular backups, and compliance with industry standards. Strong data security becomes even more critical in industries like healthcare. For example, JetRuby team built a healthcare platform on Ruby on Rails with secure chat, HIPAA-compliant data storage, and patient scheduling. We integrated it seamlessly with Athena EMR to ensure compliance with industry standards. Scalability Imagine your app suddenly gets thousands of visitors. Without scalable hosting, your app could crash or slow to a crawl. Scalable hosting adjusts resources like memory and CPU power on demand. This ensures your app runs smoothly, even during traffic spikes. Database Compatibility Choose a Rails web hosting provider that supports your preferred databases, like PostgreSQL or MySQL. Make sure they offer simple ways to set up, maintain, and improve them. Look for features like automated backups and performance monitoring to help keep your database running smoothly. Customer Support: Your Safety Net Choose a host that offers 24/7 technical assistance. Problems can happen anytime, and when you know help is always available, it gives you peace of mind. Look for providers that offer multiple ways to contact support, like live chat, phone, or email. A detailed knowledge base with tutorials and FAQs can also help you fix minor issues on your own. Smart Budgeting Compare different pricing plans to find one that fits your budget while providing the necessary features and resources. Some providers offer free Rails hosting options, ideal for startups or small projects with limited budgets. When you create a Ruby on Rails application, consider the initial costs to build and launch it and the ongoing costs as it grows. These expenses include hosting the server, managing the database, integrating third-party services, and keeping the app updated. This strategy will help you plan for the future and keep your app running smoothly as more users start using it. Right Hosting Type: Shared or VPS The selection of hosting type depends on your project's requirements. For example: Shared Hosting is affordable yet has limited resources. Best for small apps or startups. VPS (Virtual Private Server) provides dedicated resources for growing apps. PaaS (Platform as a Service) is Cloud-based and easy to scale. Good for businesses. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)is highly customizable but requires more technical know-how. Let’s now look at some top hosting providers for Ruby on Rails applications.   Startup Growth Accelerated Accelerate your startup's growth with expert tech leadership! We guide your team, refine strategy, and guarantee timely, high-quality results. Get in touch   Best Hosting for Ruby on Rails: Top Providers With many options available, you need to find the one that meets your technical needs and helps your project grow easily. Let’s look at the best Rails cloud hosting providers and highlight their key features, pros and cons, and best use cases to help you make a good choice. Liquid Web Liquid Web is a web hosting company with 18 data centers worldwide. It is well-known for its premium managed hosting services. Liquid Web stands out in the web hosting market by providing a strong infrastructure, excellent customer support, solid security, and various specialized hosting options, including managed WordPress hosting, VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting, dedicated servers, and cloud hosting services. [table id=28 /] Hostinger Hostinger delivers affordable and efficient Ruby on Rails hosting solutions, making it an excellent choice for startups and small businesses seeking cost-effective yet reliable hosting. Hostinger, with its user-friendly interface and robust performance, simplifies the deployment and management of Ruby on Rails applications without compromising essential features. [table id=29 /] Kamatera Kamatera is a global cloud services platform provider with enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure products. With a global data center network and thousands of servers deployed worldwide, Kamatera serves a diverse clientele, including startups, app developers, international enterprises, and SMBs. [table id=30 /] Bluehost Bluehost is a widely recognized web hosting provider known for its comprehensive services, including shared hosting, WordPress hosting, VPS (Virtual Private Server) hosting, and dedicated servers. It is an excellent choice for beginners and experienced developers alike. It combines strong performance with user-friendly tools to help you easily deploy and manage Ruby on Rails applications. [table id=31 /] DreamHost DreamHost provides reliable Ruby on Rails applications hosting, focusing on performance, security, and customer support. Their services ensure your applications run quickly and smoothly, even during peak times. [table id=32 /] HostGator HostGator provides flexible hosting for Ruby on Rails applications, focusing on performance and growth. Its strong infrastructure and support make it suitable for projects of different sizes. HostGator’s plans easily adapt as your application develops. An important benefit is its fully managed VPS hosting, which handles server setup, monitoring, and maintenance. [table id=33 /] A2 Hosting A2 Hosting is renowned for its high-speed Ruby on Rails hosting. It prioritizes performance optimization and user-friendly features tailored for developers. With its Turbo Servers, A2 Hosting guarantees incredibly fast load times and exceptional reliability. The platform is crafted with developers in mind, offering advanced tools and configurations that make it easy to build, deploy, and manage Ruby on Rails applications. [table id=34 /] InterServer InterServer offers cost-effective and dependable hosting services for Ruby on Rails, suitable for projects of all scales. With a focus on reliable performance and highly competitive pricing options, InterServer guarantees that your Ruby on Rails applications operate seamlessly without straining your budget. Their price-lock guarantee provides stability, simplifying the planning and management of hosting expenses over time. [table id=35 /] Free Rails on Rails Hosting Options For developers and startups operating on a tight budget, free Ruby hosting can be an excellent way to get started without significant financial investment. While free hosting plans often have limitations such as restricted resources, limited support, and fewer customization options, they can be ideal for testing, learning, or small-scale projects. Here are some providers that offer free Rails hosting: Heroku Free Tier offers a simple way to deploy Rails applications with limited dyno hours. Render Free Plan provides free web services suitable for small Rails apps. The GitHub Pages option was not initially designed for Rails but can host static parts of your application. You might want to know more about hosting servers and technologies! Need Help Choosing the Right Hosting? Free Rails hosting is a good option for developers and startups with limited budgets, but it often has limits. As your project grows, you'll need better performance, security, and team management. Free solutions may not be enough in these areas. We help businesses like yours choose the right hosting provider and set up systems that keep your Ruby on Rails development team working smoothly. Instead of worrying about servers, workflows, and processes, you can focus on what matters most — growing your business. We handle the technical side of things and give you the support you need to move forward confidently. When you work with JetRuby, you get much more than just advice on hosting. You gain a reliable partner ready to help your business succeed at every stage. Here’s what we offer: A Skilled Ruby on Rails Team: You get access to experienced developers who know how to build quality software that meets your goals. Clear, Organized Workflows: We create straightforward processes that improve productivity and make teamwork easier. Technical Talent Development: We guide your IT team, helping them learn, adapt, and grow as they work with new technologies. Reliable Project Delivery: Our structured approach ensures projects finish on time and meet high-quality standards. Effective Management of Changes: If something needs adjusting, we handle it quickly and efficiently to meet your business needs. Custom IT Support: We tailor our approach to your business goals, ensuring our technical expertise perfectly matches your needs. With these benefits, you can build a stable, efficient development team that works without unnecessary delays or confusion. If you are a startup and thinking about how to ensure delivery processes, we have valuable insights for you! How We Work Our approach is designed to improve your team's performance. We follow a clear process to ensure every part of your workflow is as efficient and productive as possible. Here are the main steps in our work: In-Depth Interviews: We talk to your team to understand their roles and challenges. Process Audit: We analyze workflows, find bottlenecks, and create a two-week improvement plan. Implementation: We put changes into action and monitor performance. Managed Delivery Transition: We ensure a seamless switch to development, improving team stability and productivity. Growing a business comes with a lot of challenges. You need the right tools, the right people, and the right processes to move forward. But figuring out all of this on your own can feel overwhelming. With JetRuby’s CTO as a Service, you don’t have to do it alone. We step in to help you improve workflows, optimize hosting, and build a team that delivers results. Whether you’re just starting out or already scaling up, we give you the support you need to focus on your vision and build something amazing. Once we’ve established everything, you can keep working with us or switch to our other services. These include: Project Development: Building software solutions tailored to your business. Post-Launch Support: Making sure your product runs smoothly after launch. Optimization: Improving performance and efficiency to help your project succeed even further. If you want to improve your Ruby on Rails projects, build a strong development team, or simply stop worrying about hosting decisions, JetRuby’s CTO as a Service is here to help. We’re ready to give you the tools, expertise, and support you need to reach your goals. Contact us today to learn more about how we can work together. Let’s build something great one step at a time. ### Rails 8.0 Upgrade: A Game-Changing Omakase Experience Welcome to the latest Ruby on Rails news at our Rails omakase dinner! “A team of chefs picked out the ingredients, designed the APIs, and arranged the order of consumption on your behalf according to their idea of what would make for a tasty full-stack framework.” – DHH, Rails is omakase We often hear about the end of Ruby on Rails. It’s like the news of another Python “killer”. So is it finally dead this time? We don’t think so. Rails version 8.0 was just released recently. Let’s look at the updates! Key takeaways: Rails 8.0’s Kamal 2 and Thruster Proxy enable rapid, flexible deployments with minimal commands. These enable applications to scale effortlessly on cloud VMs or local servers. The introduction of Solid Adapters (Solid Cable, Solid Cache, Solid Queue) integrates pub/sub, caching, and job queuing directly with SQLite, reducing reliance on third-party services and lowering operational costs. Replacing Sprockets, Propshaft offers a streamlined asset pipeline compatible with contemporary JavaScript tools like bun, esbuild, and Vite, enhancing developer efficiency and reducing configuration complexity. Rails 8.0 includes a comprehensive authentication system generator and seamless integration with security tools (1Password, Bitwarden, LastPass), ensuring robust security and compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA. Deployment tools and dependency management improvements allow Rails 8.0 applications to handle higher traffic with lower latency, supporting sustainable growth and performance. Rails 8.0 is built to accommodate future advancements such as quantum computing, IoT, and blockchain, positioning applications for long-term innovation and competitiveness. Boost Your Business Unlock your enterprise’s potential with innovative, efficiency-boosting solutions. Partner with us today to achieve your business goals faster Become a partner What are the key New Features in Rails 8.0? Staying updated to the current Rails version is essential to leverage the latest advancements, security updates, and performance improvements. The release of Rails 7 marked significant enhancements over Rails 6. Rails 8.0 continues the omakase tradition by introducing groundbreaking features and enhancements that streamline deployment, reduce dependencies, and enhance developer productivity. Flexible Deployment with Kamal 2 + Thruster Rails 8.0 introduces Kamal 2 and Thruster Proxy, which make deploying Rails applications easier. With one command, Kamal 2 lets developers deploy their apps anywhere — on cloud VMs or local servers. Developers can enter the servers’ IP addresses and SSH keys and create production-ready environments in less than two minutes. This flexibility makes deployment simpler and helps with quick scaling when needed. Thruster Proxy works directly with the Puma web server, removing the need for extra web servers like Nginx. This integration speeds up the deployment process and improves performance with features like X-Sendfile acceleration, asset caching, and asset compression. With Kamal 2 and Thruster, Rails 8.0 provides a smooth deployment experience, allowing applications to handle traffic immediately without managing multiple services. This straightforward process gives developers peace of mind. Reduced Dependencies with Solid Adapters Rails 8.0 simplifies operations by launching Solid Adapters: Solid Cable, Solid Cache, and Solid Queue. These tools replace several third-party services, such as Redis and Memcached, and separate job frameworks. Now, Rails can manage pub/sub, caching, and job queuing directly using SQLite. This approach simplifies the technology stack, cuts costs, and maintains strong performance using fast disk storage. Solid Cable takes over Redis for pub/sub-tasks. It uses SQLite for quick message polling and retention, making debugging and handling messages easier. Solid Cache uses disk storage to cache data, eliminating the need for Redis or Memcached. This offers a larger, more cost-effective cache while supporting encryption and retention limits. Solid Queue brings job queuing into one system designed for SQLite. It provides strong controls for concurrency, retrying failures, and scheduling jobs—all without the complexity of multiple frameworks. These Solid Adapters make Rails 8 a more efficient and affordable choice, especially for startups that want to simplify their infrastructure while maintaining good performance. Modern Asset Management with Propshaft Rails 8.0 replaces the old Sprockets asset pipeline with Propshaft, a modern asset management system. Propshaft is built to support today’s JavaScript tools. It simplifies key tasks like loading assets and adding fingerprints, which helps reduce the need for complex configurations. This change makes it easier for developers to handle assets efficiently. Propshaft works well with tools like bun, esbuild, and Vite. By removing the difficulties of using Sprockets, Propshaft ensures that managing assets in Rails 8.0 is simple and effective. This allows developers to maintain and grow their applications quickly. Enhanced Security and Authentication Rails 8.0 addresses security concerns with its comprehensive authentication system generator. This feature provides a ready-to-use solution for setting up secure, session-based authentication systems, reducing the need for custom implementations and third-party vendors. The generator creates essential models, controllers, and mailers, ensuring that authentication is robust and easy to implement. Additionally, Rails 8.0 seamlessly integrates with security tools like 1Password, Bitwarden, and LastPass, which simplifies sensitive data management. These integrations also support compliance with data protection regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, ensuring that applications built on Rails 8.0 are both secure and compliant. Dockerfile Enhancements Rails 8.0 simplifies and speeds up Dockerfile setups for Rails applications, focusing on production readiness to improve deployment and reduce excess such as unnecessary dependencies or redundant code. The Dockerfile separates development and production needs, resulting in smaller container sizes. It uses secure base images and limits permissions to reduce risks. Improved caching reuses unchanged layers, speeding up builds and enhancing deployment times in CI/CD pipelines. With precompiled assets, better environment variable handling, and optimized database connections, the system ensures reliable performance in tools like Kubernetes or Docker Compose, providing a robust and stable environment. These updates make container creation easier, accelerate deployments, and ensure the system aligns with modern DevOps practices. Support for Emerging Technologies Rails 8.0 supports new technologies like Quantum Computing, IoT (Internet of Things), and Blockchain, keeping Rails applications relevant. Rails 8.0 allows developers to connect to quantum computing APIs like IBM Q or Amazon Braket, making building interfaces for quantum tasks easier. Additionally, Rails 8.0 helps developers manage IoT data better by processing real-time sensor data and managing connected devices. This is useful in automation, healthcare, and smart infrastructure. Rails 8.0 update enhances support for blockchain applications, enabling integration with platforms like Ethereum and Hyperledger. This simplifies the creation of decentralized applications (DApps) and managing secure workflows. Overall, Rails 8.0 adapts to new technologies while remaining user-friendly, efficient, and scalable. Common Business Pain Points Before discussing Rails 8.0's benefits, let’s examine how the Ruby on Rails update can address issues that slow down development, create security risks, and limit application growth. By understanding these challenges, businesses can see why upgrading to Ruby on Rails latest version is important. Addressing Compatibility and Legacy Issues Many organizations face a serious problem: their old codebases use outdated versions of Rails, like Rails 6, while the current Rails version offers ongoing support and updates. This can create security risks, compatibility problems with newer technologies, and challenges in finding developers who can work with these older versions. With support for Rails 6 ending soon, outdated versions will no longer receive compatibility patches or performance updates. Rails 8.0 provides a clear way to move from Rails 6 or Rails 7 without causing major disruptions. It includes helpful tools and resources that make the upgrade process easier for developers, ensuring a smooth transition. Organizations can leverage these resources to reduce risks and take advantage of the latest features in the Rails ecosystem. Enhancing Security and Compliance Older Rails versions may lack the latest security features, making applications vulnerable to attacks. Maintaining compliance with modern data protection regulations becomes challenging without up-to-date frameworks. The new authentication generator in the Rails 8.0 upgrade makes setting up secure, session-based systems easier, reducing the need for third-party tools and lowering the risk of vulnerabilities. Rails 8.0 also works well with security tools like 1Password, Bitwarden, and LastPass, which protect sensitive information. These tools help meet rules such as GDPR and CCPA by providing strong options for data protection and secure secret management. Improving Performance and Scalability Rails 8.0 effectively solves performance and scalability issues that can trouble older Rails applications. This improvement is especially helpful as more users join and the application's demands grow. Rails 8 upgrade introduces Solid Adapters: Solid Cable, Solid Cache, and Solid Queue. These features improve performance by reducing dependencies and using fast disk storage. They replace Redis for pub/sub-functions and allow disk caching instead of needing Redis or Memcached. They also manage job queuing without separate frameworks. This flexibility helps deploy applications across different systems, ensuring they can scale efficiently as demand grows. These improvements enhance application performance and scalability, allowing startups to handle more traffic and user interactions smoothly. Reducing Operational Complexity and Costs Managing multiple services like Redis, MySQL/PostgreSQL, and web servers such as Nginx can make operations more complicated and costly. Maintenance can be difficult and expensive, especially for startups with limited resources. Rails 8.0 simplifies things using Solid Adapters, which replace several external services with SQLite-based solutions. This change reduces the number of dependencies, lowers costs, and removes the need for expensive third-party services. Thanks to Thruster Proxy, it also eliminates the requirement for extra web servers, like Nginx. These updates cut infrastructure complexity, leading to significant cost savings. This allows startups to manage maintenance more efficiently and focus their resources on developing and improving their products. Modernizing Development Workflow Slow and outdated development workflows and asset management systems slow down development and make adopting modern practices harder.. Rails 8.0 moves from the old Sprockets asset system to Propshaft, a modern asset management tool that works well with current JavaScript workflows. Propshaft focuses on key tasks like loading assets and fingerprinting, making asset management easier and reducing the need for extra setup. This upgrade helps developers work more efficiently by offering a simpler way to handle assets, which fits with tools like bun, esbuild, and Vite. Providing Expert Guidance and Support Upgrading can be complicated and overwhelm teams, especially if they lack strong technical leadership or experience with Rails upgrades. JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot service offers expert advice and support for startups upgrading to Rails 8.0. The service offers clear guidance for each step of the upgrade process, focusing on performance improvement and security upgrades tailored to the startup's needs. Real examples of successful upgrades show how JetRuby reduces risks and provides useful insights, helping teams confidently transition to Rails 8.0. Enhancing Developer Experience and Productivity Many developers feel frustrated when using older versions of Rails. These versions can slow down their work and lack the modern features they need. This frustration can lower their productivity and job satisfaction. Rails 8.0 empowers developers with features like the authentication system generator and improved Dockerfile, which streamline development workflows. The Rails 8 upgrade simplifies deployment and dependency management, allowing developers to focus more on coding and less on setup and maintenance tasks. This empowerment leads to faster development cycles, higher job satisfaction, and the ability to deliver high-quality features more quickly.   You might want to know what to do when you fail to deliver on time as a startup. Rails 7 vs Rails 8.0 Ruby on Rails software remains at the forefront, delivering powerful tools and innovations to streamline the developer experience. Rails 8.0 builds on the strengths of Rails 7 and introduces significant upgrades that enhance flexibility, performance, and security. Let’s dive into what makes the latest version of Rails a game-changer. [table id=27 /]   You might also want to read about the reasons why top companies like GitHub and Airbnb rely on Ruby on Rails!   Why Choose JetRuby for Your Rails 8 Upgrade JetRuby has a proven track record and specialized knowledge in efficiently handling rails releases. Our team of experts understands all migration complexities and ensures a seamless transition that minimizes downtime and preserves application integrity. Rails 8 upgrade offers a curated set of tools and best practices that simplify web development and ensure robust, scalable, and secure applications. As the Rails current version approaches its peak in the Rails world 2024, upgrading to the latest version of Rails is crucial to maintain security, support, and competitiveness. JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot service is ready to help startups navigate this upgrade by providing expert guidance, tailored solutions, and comprehensive support. CTO Co-Pilot Service JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot service provides strategic leadership and technical expertise without needing a full-time CTO. This service relieves startups seeking expert guidance in navigating the complexities of upgrading to Rails 8.0. Our CTO Co-Pilot specialists offer comprehensive support, from initial assessment and migration planning to performance optimization and security enhancements post-upgrade support, allowing you to focus on your core business. Every startup has specific business needs and technical setups. JetRuby understands this and offers customized upgrade paths that align with your needs. This ensures that the migration to Rails 8 is tailored to support your growth and operational goals. Whether you need assistance with deployment strategies, dependency management, or security integrations, JetRuby provides solutions that fit your unique context, making you feel understood and catered to. By choosing Rails 8.0 and partnering with JetRuby, you ensure your Ruby on Rails new applications are built on a solid, modern foundation poised for future growth and innovation. Contact us for more details! Contact us for more details! ### Native vs Hybrid apps: A Detailed Comparison Imagine you're about to launch a new mobile app for your business. You have a great idea, but now you need to decide: native vs hybrid app? Your choice can significantly affect your app’s performance, user experience, and success. These terms often come up in mobile app development discussions, and although some people use them interchangeably, they are quite different. Hybrid app development combines both native and web technologies. It uses frameworks like Ionic and Apache Cordova. Ionic is a popular open-source software development kit (SDK) that helps create high-quality mobile and desktop apps using web technologies. Apache Cordova allows developers to build native mobile apps using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. These frameworks let the app use web code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) inside a native shell. This means the app can access native features. However, this approach can be slower and less efficient. In contrast, native apps are built for a specific platform, like iOS or Android. They use the device’s hardware and software to provide excellent performance and user experience. Native apps work best for complex features that require high performance. Understanding the difference between native app and hybrid app development can help a business make the right choice. Do you need better performance, or speed and cost are more important? Let’s explore these approaches to help you decide the best option for your mobile app performance. Key takeaways When choosing between native and hybrid app development, focus on your business goals and consider your budget against the need for app performance. In the native vs hybrid app debate, native apps provide fast, high-quality experiences and better performance through deep integration with device features. Long-term maintenance and planning for future growth are essential for ongoing app success. Community support can help you choose a framework that fits your needs. Hybrid frameworks like React Native and Flutter have strong communities that contribute helpful libraries and tools. Native Apps: The Gold Standard for Performance What are native apps? Native apps are built specifically for platforms like iOS or Android using platform-native languages like Swift or Kotlin. This singular focus allows for unmatched performance and seamless user experiences. Why Choose Native? Native apps are optimized for their platform, offering faster load times, smooth animations, and reliable functionality. Depending on its complexity, a native application might take under 2 seconds to load, whereas a hybrid application could take up to 4 seconds. Native apps leverage platform guidelines to deliver intuitive, polished user interactions tailored to the device’s operating system. They strictly follow design principles like Material Design for Android and Human Interface Guidelines for iOS, ensuring consistency and familiarity for users. Native development enables deep integration with device-specific capabilities like GPS, camera, and biometric authentication. Additionally, native apps can use the latest hardware advancements immediately upon release. Advanced security features and performance scalability make native apps ideal for complex, feature-rich applications. Native apps can implement platform-specific security measures, such as Apple’s Secure Enclave or Android’s SafetyNet, providing robust protection against threats. Challenges Making separate apps for iOS and Android can create problems that raise costs and delay launch times. It is essential to address these problems for a successful app release. Cost Creating separate apps for iOS and Android increases expenses and workload. Each platform requires its own team and ongoing maintenance, which increases costs. Time-to-Market Having two codebases slows down the development process. This can lead to delays in releasing features and responding to user feedback. Development Complexity and Skill Requirements Native development requires proficiency in platform-specific languages (Swift, Kotlin), which can limit the pool of available developers and increase training costs.   Plan for Success Visualize your product, define architecture, avoid early mistakes, and ensure clear requirements, while getting accurate budget and timeline estimates for better resource planning Get in touch   Hybrid Apps: Efficient Cross-Platform Solutions Hybrid apps use a single codebase for multiple platforms, making them faster and cheaper to develop. Frameworks like React Native, Flutter, or Ionic allow businesses to create versatile apps that work across iOS and Android with minimal duplication of effort. Why Choose Hybrid? A single codebase significantly reduces development and maintenance costs, making it an attractive option for businesses with tighter budgets. Launching on multiple platforms simultaneously allows you to reach users quickly and gather valuable feedback. Updates apply across platforms simultaneously, simplifying maintenance and ensuring feature consistency. Hybrid apps can evolve as business needs grow, enabling adding new features without starting from scratch. Frameworks like React Native and Flutter have large communities and extensive libraries, which provide developers with robust support and resources. Challenges Hybrid applications are a flexible way to develop software across different platforms. However, they also have challenges. This section examines the main issues with hybrid apps. Performance Limitations Hybrid apps may lag behind native apps in speed and responsiveness, particularly for feature-heavy or high-performance needs. Compromised UX The user experience may not feel as seamless or tailored as native apps. Access to Advanced Device Features While hybrid apps can access device features via plugins, there may be delays in supporting new or advanced features, and plugin reliability can vary. Security Implications Hybrid apps might face additional security challenges due to their reliance on web technologies, potentially exposing vulnerabilities not present in native apps. User Experience (UX) Considerations Design consistency and responsiveness are two key factors in User Experience (UX). These influence how users interact with an application. Following design guidelines and ensuring smooth interactions improve usability and satisfaction, helping native apps stand out from hybrid ones. Design Consistency Native apps adhere strictly to platform-specific design guidelines, such as Material Design for Android and Human Interface Guidelines for iOS, ensuring consistency. Hybrid apps rely on web technologies and may struggle to maintain this consistency, leading to a less intuitive user experience.   Find out the Secrets of Effective User Interaction!   Responsiveness Native apps typically offer more responsive and fluid interactions than hybrid apps that rely on web views. In the native vs hybrid app comparison, this difference is noticeable in animations, gestures, and transitions since native apps provide a smoother and more natural feel. Development Complexity and Skill Requirements This section explains the details and skills required for native and hybrid development, explores the native and hybrid app differences in maintenance challenges, and discusses how accessing advanced device features affects decision-making. Skill Sets Needed Native development requires expertise in platform-specific languages (Swift for iOS, Kotlin for Android), while hybrid development relies on web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Organizations focused on high performance often choose native app development, hiring developers skilled in Swift and Kotlin to optimize apps for each platform. In contrast, companies aiming for faster, cost-effective launches may opt for hybrid development. They hire developers with web skills in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, allowing for a unified codebase that simplifies platform development. Maintenance Challenges Native development offers better performance and access to platform-specific features, but it can be complex and time-consuming due to multiple codebases. This may lead to challenges in maintenance and scaling. In contrast, hybrid development uses a single codebase, making maintenance easier and improving scalability, which saves time and resources. Access to Advanced Device Features While the article mentions access to device features via plugins, addressing potential limitations is important. Hybrid apps may experience delays in accessing new platform-specific features as frameworks need to update their plugins accordingly. Additionally, the reliability of third-party plugins can vary, potentially introducing compatibility issues or requiring custom solutions to bridge gaps between web-based code and native functionalities. Developers and organizations should opt for hybrid apps for better cross-platform efficiency and faster time-to-market while being aware of potential delays in updates and plugin issues. Native app development is better when a project requires the latest features, superior performance, and greater reliability, even if it costs more and takes longer. This choice ensures the approach aligns with the project's needs and goals. Security Implications This section examines the difference between native and hybrid apps in terms of security implications. Native apps use built-in protections from their platforms, while hybrid apps might be riskier because they depend on web technologies. Native vs Hybrid App Security Native apps can more effectively leverage platform-specific security features, such as iOS’s Secure Enclave or Android’s SafetyNet, providing robust protection against data breaches and unauthorized access. In contrast, hybrid apps might face additional security challenges because they rely on web technologies, which can lead to issues like cross-site scripting (XSS) or insecure data storage. Web Technology Vulnerabilities Hybrid apps’ dependence on web technologies exposes them to common web vulnerabilities. Ensuring secure communication, data encryption, and regular updates is crucial to mitigate these risks in hybrid application development.   Want to know why 90% of Mobile Apps are vulnerable?   Comprehensive Cost Analysis This section shows how each approach affects your budget and financial planning so you choose the most cost-effective option for your mobile projects. Native vs Hybrid App Initial Development Costs Native application development typically incurs higher initial costs because it involves developing separate codebases for each platform. In contrast, hybrid app development leverages a single codebase, reducing overall development expenses. Update Costs Updating native apps requires handling multiple codebases, which increases ongoing costs. With their unified codebase, hybrid apps simplify the upgrade process and reduce long-term expenses. Scalability Costs As an app grows, native development may require significant investment to scale across platforms, while hybrid apps can scale more efficiently by reusing existing code and resources. Native development offers high performance and smooth integration with device features, making it ideal for businesses ready to invest significantly, though it comes with higher costs. In contrast, hybrid app development is a cost-effective choice with a faster time-to-market. It reuses existing code and resources, allowing for easier scaling across platforms. This option is best for startups and businesses that want to grow their user base quickly while staying flexible. Long-Term Maintenance and Scalability Here, we look at how different development methods affect code management and adaptation to new platform updates so that developers can make better choices that facilitate easier updates, consistent performance, and growth. Codebase Management Maintaining multiple codebases for native apps can increase complexity and potential inconsistencies across platforms. Hybrid apps benefit from a single codebase, simplifying updates and feature additions. Ultimately, the choice between native and hybrid development depends on factors like performance, resources, speed of delivery, and maintenance needs. By weighing these aspects, organizations can decide on the best approach for their goals.   Stay informed of how transitioning to updated systems can lead to numerous benefits!   Future-Proofing Hybrid frameworks continuously evolve to support new platform features, but implementation may be delayed. Native apps can immediately integrate the latest platform updates and technologies, ensuring they remain up-to-date with the latest advancements. Community and Ecosystem Support A strong community supports teamwork and innovation, while a solid ecosystem provides the tools for easier development. In the following sections, we will look at top frameworks and libraries that improve the functionality and reliability of hybrid apps. Framework Popularity and Support Frameworks like React Native, Flutter, and Ionic have large, active communities that offer many libraries, tools, and resources. This support accelerates development and troubleshooting, making hybrid app development more accessible and efficient. Library Availability The availability of third-party libraries and tools enhances hybrid apps' functionality and ease of development. However, the quality and maintenance of these libraries can vary, impacting the reliability of hybrid solutions. Future Trends in Mobile Development New technologies and industry changes are reshaping application development and deployment. So, what are the recent advances in cross-platform frameworks and web technologies that will guide the future of mobile development? Technological Advancements Emerging technologies, such as advancements in cross-platform frameworks and improvements in web technologies, are continuously bridging the gap between native and hybrid development. Innovations like Flutter’s web support and React Native’s performance enhancements are making hybrid apps increasingly competitive. Industry Adoption The mobile development industry is shifting towards more flexible and efficient approaches. As businesses prioritize faster time to market and cost-effectiveness, hybrid and cross-platform solutions are gaining popularity. However, native development remains crucial for applications where performance and user experience are paramount. Native vs Hybrid App: How to Decide? Your choice should reflect your business goals, budget, and target audience. Choose Native Apps When: Performance and user experience are top priorities. You need to leverage device-specific features extensively. Your budget and timeline allow for platform-specific development. Choose Hybrid Apps When: You need a cost-effective solution to launch quickly across multiple platforms. Your app’s primary focus is functionality over high-end performance. Before investing further, you plan to test the market or gather initial user feedback. JetRuby’s Approach to MVP Development At JetRuby, we guide businesses through this critical decision-making process, offering tailored solutions to meet unique goals and constraints. Whether you need a native application, a hybrid app, or an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to start your journey, our process ensures rapid results without sacrificing quality. Delivering Business-Driven MVPs Businesses often face tight timelines. JetRuby specializes in delivering functional MVPs within 3–4 months, enabling clients to address pressing needs quickly while considering long-term scalability. The MVP centers around features that drive key business objectives, such as streamlining sales, integrating payment systems, or enhancing customer interactions. By targeting critical pain points, we deliver immediate value. Our MVPs are designed as scalable foundations. After initial deployment, advanced features such as data analytics, automated reminders, or marketing tools can be seamlessly added as businesses grow. JetRuby works closely with internal teams to align the MVP with broader business goals and existing systems. This ensures seamless integration and maximizes the app’s impact.   Get some clear signs when it’s time to pivot your business strategy - during the MVP phase or shortly after.   Transitioning from Native to Hybrid Case A client contacted JetRuby to develop a mobile application on native Android technology. Their familiarity with the platform and the need for rapid development made this the logical starting point. The primary goal was to validate their idea quickly while ensuring a high-quality user experience for Android users. JetRuby's team worked closely with the client to deliver a functional native Android app within a tight timeline. The app proved the business idea and received positive feedback from users within two to three months of its release. However, the client wanted to expand to iOS without increasing the development workload. JetRuby saw an opportunity and suggested using a hybrid approach with Flutter. This cross-platform framework allowed the team to build the iOS app while keeping the Android version aligned with the same codebase. We developed a native Android app to test our idea and quickly gather user feedback. Next, we introduced a Flutter app for iOS. Once it had the same features as the Android version, it replaced the native Android app. Now, the Flutter app works on both platforms. This makes development and maintenance easier while providing a consistent experience for users. The client now has a flexible and affordable app that works well on Android and iOS. This case shows how JetRuby's move to hybrid development can make the app more scalable and efficient while lowering long-term costs. Why Choose JetRuby for Your App Development? At JetRuby, we recognize that the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a critical first step in bringing your product to market. This phase focuses on delivering the core functionality required for your target audience to begin using the product. Our approach prioritizes speed and efficiency, allowing you to launch faster than your competitors while minimizing time and costs. Rapid Market Entry We specialize in developing a streamlined version of your product that quickly addresses the key business problem. This enables you to enter the market and gain early traction without delays. Cost-Effective We help you test your business hypothesis with minimal investment by focusing on only the most essential features. This approach reduces development costs and ensures you can collect meaningful feedback early. Minimized Risks An MVP reduces the risks associated with full-scale development by validating market demand and your core assumptions before scaling further. The Early Feedback Launching quickly lets you gather valuable user insights and investor feedback, refining your product based on real-world data and market expectations. Strategic Adaptability A fast market launch enables you to stay ahead of competitors, adapt your product strategy, and make data-driven decisions for future development. How JetRuby Delivers MVPs Our approach helps you achieve business goals and get quick results: We focus on the features that address your audience's main challenges, ensuring the MVP is effective and useful. Using a step-by-step development approach, we can deliver a functional MVP in just 3 to 4 months, ready for user testing and feedback. We work closely with your team to ensure the MVP aligns with your vision and adapts based on market insights. With JetRuby’s MVP services, you gain the tools to test your idea, engage early users and investors, and set the foundation for scalable growth while minimizing risks and maximizing efficiency. Start Small, Scale Smart Choosing between native and hybrid app development, and understanding the native and hybrid app difference, doesn’t have to be daunting. Starting with a simple, well-designed MVP lets you validate ideas, gather user feedback, and refine your product iteratively. At JetRuby, we prioritize your business goals. We ensure your app is viable and primed for future success. Whether you’re building a native or hybrid app, our team is here to help you realize your vision. Take the next step in your app development journey today! Contact JetRuby to discuss your needs and create a solution that drives growth and innovation. ### What Is a CTO? Unveiling the Truth About CTO Meaning in Business Imagine starting your day as a Chief Technology Officer (CTO), also known as the Chief of Technology. Your day might begin with a meeting with other executive leaders. In this meeting, you, as the CTO, help turn the company’s five-year vision into the technology strategies needed to achieve it. While being a CTO might sound typical, the scale, impact, and complexity of a large company make this role very different from those in smaller businesses. This is especially true for teams and leaders who report to the CTO. But what is a CTO in business, and what does a CTO do in such a complex environment? A comprehensive CTO role description outlines key CTO responsibilities, demonstrating how this leadership position supports nearly every part of the business. This includes supporting customer service, managing the supply chain, analyzing data, and developing products. Your challenges are unique and are at the forefront of understanding technology and implementing innovative solutions. Let's dive in! Key takeaways: Enterprise CTOs prioritize aligning IT strategies with long-term business goals to drive value and competitive advantage, ensuring that technology investments and initiatives are purpose-driven. Enterprise CTOs focus on harmonizing complex technology ecosystems with business objectives, balancing innovation with operational stability. Managing large-scale IT infrastructures, including cloud platforms, ERP systems, and AI-driven analytics, requires a deep understanding of interoperability and scalability. The CTO's role emphasizes collaboration with C-suite peers, department heads, and external stakeholders to ensure that technology initiatives meet organizational and market demands. Enterprise CTOs navigate budget allocation processes and optimize resources through vendor management, technology consolidation, and sustainability practices. Effective enterprise CTOs rely on transformational and servant leadership styles to inspire innovation and manage large, distributed teams. With trends like quantum computing, IoT, and blockchain, the enterprise CTO is a critical driver of digital transformation. JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot service offers tailored expertise for startups and midsized companies, providing strategic leadership without the need for a full-time CTO. What Is a CTO’s Key Responsibility? As the CTO of an enterprise, your role is essential to the organization's success. Your decisions and strategies shape the company’s technology and affect its performance. You constantly: Developing Long-Term Technology Strategies Craft and execute comprehensive technology plans that align with the company’s strategic goals. Ensure enterprise technology is seamlessly integrated into the organization’s operations to drive growth and efficiency. Evaluating and Selecting Technologies Assess emerging and existing technologies to identify solutions that support business objectives. Conduct cost-benefit analyses to balance innovation with operational stability. Prioritize scalable and interoperable technologies that meet organizational needs. Engaging with Stakeholders Collaborate with board members, department heads, external partners, and customers to align technology projects with organizational and market requirements. Act as a bridge between technical teams and non-technical stakeholders to foster alignment and accountability. Overseeing Complex IT Landscape Manage and optimize large-scale IT infrastructures, including cloud platforms, ERP systems, and AI-driven analytics. Ensure systems are reliable, scalable, and secure while supporting millions of users and critical business processes. Proactively monitor and address potential system disruptions to maintain smooth operations. CTOs manage various technology tools, including cloud platforms, resource planning systems, CRM tools, and data analytics platforms. Combining these systems is challenging and requires a solid grasp of how they work together and can grow. As chief technology officer, you interact with many stakeholders, including board members who focus on strategy, department heads who report to the CTO for specific technology support, external partners providing specialized services, and customers who rely on secure and dependable systems. Good stakeholder management helps ensure that technology projects align with business goals. For example, what does a CTO do when leading the integration of a new AI analytics platform into an existing system? This means that a CTO has to work with data science teams, check compatibility with current systems, address security issues, and present the plan to senior executives for approval.   Make sure you master innovation and responsibility equally during AI development!   In addition to such meetings, the CTO’s day may include reviewing system performance reports, talking with department heads about their technology needs, and attending industry conferences to learn about the latest technology trends in technology leadership and innovation management. To learn more insights about the CTO role in a business, read about two different styles of technology leadership - The Player-Coach CTO and the White-Collar CTO! The Orchestrator What does CTO mean in business at different scales? Well, the role shifts dramatically depending on the size and complexity of the organization. In startups, it focuses on hands-on innovation. In enterprises, it revolves around strategic alignment and scalability. An enterprise CTO is mainly a coordinator. Unlike a startup CTO, who directly works with code, or a CTO in a midsized company, who balances strategy with implementation, the enterprise CTO manages various tech teams. They collaborate with Vice Presidents, directors, and team leads who report to the CTO across different departments. Their main challenge is to manage technology in line with the company’s long-term goals. They ensure that all technology components work together as a whole. Stability and scalability are top priorities because systems must support millions of users and comply with strict regulations. To further delineate the orchestrator role, consider the following comparison: [table id=25 /] Important leadership skills for an enterprise CTO include delegating tasks, communicating effectively, and managing cross-functional teams. These skills help technology teams work together towards common strategic goals. Enterprise CTOs rely on established frameworks to manage IT services efficiently and navigate the complexities of scaling technology in alignment with business strategies. These frameworks provide a structured governance, operational excellence, and innovation approach. Below are expanded details on key frameworks: Scalability: ITIL ensures IT services can grow within the organization. Alignment: COBIT provides alignment between IT initiatives and strategic business objectives. Efficiency: Lean IT and Agile ITSM emphasize reducing waste and improving responsiveness. Reliability: SIAM enables a cohesive service delivery model that improves quality, reduces costs, and aligns IT services with business needs, ensuring seamless integration and reliability. By leveraging these frameworks, CTOs create structured, scalable, and adaptable IT environments that align with organizational goals and drive innovation. Resource Management in Enterprise Environments Among the chief technology officer roles and responsibilities, resource management is a critical area where the enterprise CTO’s role diverges significantly from that of their counterparts in smaller organizations. In a startup, resources are often limited, and CTOs are known for their resourcefulness. They might leverage open-source solutions or innovate within budget constraints. The enterprise CTO, however, has a broader toolkit but must navigate a complex budget allocation process. Larger budgets create more bureaucratic layers, and while resources are more available, securing approval for high-cost projects can be a delicate balance between innovation and fiscal responsibility. Budget Allocation Processes Budget allocation typically involves multiple steps in large enterprises, including return on investment (ROI) analysis, risk assessments, and obtaining approvals from stakeholders. This process ensures that funds are allocated efficiently and align with strategic priorities. Resource Optimization Strategies Enterprise CTOs optimize resources through vendor management, technology consolidation, and leveraging economies of scale. Common strategies include negotiating bulk software licenses or consolidating disparate systems to reduce maintenance costs. Tools and Technologies Specific tools that aid in resource management include enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, project management software like Jira or Asana, and financial planning tools such as SAP or Oracle Financials. These tools help track expenditures, manage budgets, and forecast future resource needs. Sustainable Management & Technology Modern enterprises increasingly prioritize sustainability. CTOs manage resources with environmental impact in mind by implementing energy-efficient data centers, promoting green IT practices, and ensuring that technology initiatives support the company’s sustainability goals. Once we understand the CTO's primary responsibility, we can delve deeper into the leadership styles that drive success in large enterprises. Leadership Styles in Large Enterprises The leadership style in enterprise businesses sets this role apart. In a smaller company, a CTO may participate actively in close-knit team meetings and engage with each member. However, the CTO must cultivate a strategic leadership approach in a large company, relying on directors and senior managers to carry out their vision. Team-building is done at a different level. It focuses on creating a culture of trust and collaboration across departments, where teams like DevOps and data science align on shared goals, even when working remotely. Find out key reasons why companies choose outsourcing! Leadership Models Effective leadership models for enterprise CTOs include transformational leadership, which inspires and motivates teams toward innovation, and servant leadership, which focuses on supporting team members to achieve their best work. Common Leadership Challenges Enterprise CTOs face challenges such as maintaining innovation within a structured environment, managing remote or distributed teams, and fostering diversity and inclusion. Overcoming these challenges requires adaptability, strong communication skills, and a commitment to creating an inclusive workplace culture. Talent Development Enterprise CTOs are crucial in talent development and retention. This includes implementing mentorship programs, providing continuous learning opportunities, and creating clear career paths to help employees grow within the organization. Cultural Transformation The role of a CTO is essential for driving cultural change toward a tech-forward mindset. The CTO leads efforts to promote digital literacy, encourage collaboration across departments, and foster an environment where technology drives business success. The Multifaceted Role of the Enterprise CTO Ultimately, the enterprise CTO is a blend of strategist, diplomat, and risk manager. They constantly align technology with business strategy, innovate carefully, and balance present demands with a vision for the future. This role demands patience, foresight, and an ability to maintain harmony across vast, interconnected systems. Startup CTOs focus on speed and innovation, adapting quickly to change. Midsized company CTOs balance growth and stability. Enterprise CTOs lead large organizations by creating scalable and sustainable strategies, ensuring long-term success. Integrating Themes The CTO’s role combines strategy, diplomacy, and risk management in daily tasks. For instance, during a major system upgrade, the CTO plans the technical approach, works with department heads to allocate resources, and evaluates risks to maintain smooth business operations. Soft Skills These include negotiation, emotional intelligence, and adaptability. They enable the CTO to manage relationships effectively, navigate organizational politics, and respond resiliently to unforeseen challenges. Future Trends Emerging trends like quantum computing, blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) redefine the meaning of CTO IT in business, requiring leaders to adapt their strategies to remain competitive. Understanding these technologies' potential impacts helps in strategic planning and ensures the enterprise remains competitive. Metrics for Success Enterprise CTOs measure success using various Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), including System Uptime(Availability), Mean Time to Repair (MTTR), Project Delivery Success Rate, Innovation Adoption Rate, customer satisfaction(CSAT), and Return on Investment (ROI) for technology initiatives. These metrics provide tangible benchmarks for assessing the effectiveness of technology strategies.   Read about Rails’ built-in protections against XSS, SQL injection, and CSRF.   Additional Support with JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot Service JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot service provides flexible technical support that adapts to your requirements. This service is designed for companies with a CTO officer and offers extra expertise in specific technology areas. Service Offerings: Solving complex technical challenges related to software architecture or infrastructure. Assisting in adopting new technologies and development methodologies to enhance team efficiency. Conducting in-depth research and testing to aid in informed technical decisions. Service Mechanics: The CTO Co-Pilot integrates seamlessly with your existing team, assigning a specialist with expertise in the required areas. Transparent communication and a pre-agreed task schedule ensure that the Co-Pilot effectively addresses your specific challenges. Benefits: Highly experienced specialists in frontend, mobile, backend, and DevOps. Support temporarily or for specific projects. Avoid high recruitment costs for specialized talent.   Unlock your tech potential with CTO as a Service or CTO Co-Pilot. Empower your business to thrive!   Steering the Future Enterprise Chief Technology Officers (CTO officers) are more than tech experts. Ultimately, what does a CTO do? They bridge the gap between technology and business strategy to make innovation and stability work hand in hand. They align complex technology systems with business goals, ensuring stability while encouraging growth and change. Their role requires adaptability, foresight, and strong leadership, pushing the boundaries of possibility. As we look ahead, enterprise CTOs must embrace new technologies like quantum computing, blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) while maintaining operational stability and scalability. Their success will depend on how well they balance innovation, teamwork, and efficient resource use in a changing digital world. JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot service is designed to support this success. It provides expert help to enterprises, startups, and midsized businesses. For example, our team leverages AI test automation tools for unit tests and other AI-fueled solutions to turbo-boost efficiency and save valuable resources. Whether solving specific problems or speeding up innovation, JetRuby offers strategic guidance to turn complex technical issues into competitive advantages. Take your business to the next level with JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot service. Explore tailored support to ensure your technology leadership aligns perfectly with your organization’s vision and growth trajectory. ### Ruby on Rails AI Code Reviews Made Smarter Manual code reviews are an important part of software development but can be difficult. Developers spend too much time on the same issues, distracting them from solving bigger problems. Even with careful checking, important bugs and security risks can sometimes be missed, creating unnecessary dangers in the code. The quality of reviews often depends on the reviewer’s skill, leading to inconsistent results among teams. As work increases, reviewers and team leads face more pressure, which makes it easier to overlook details and feel worn out. However, using AI in code review processes can help tackle these problems. This article examines how AI code review processes work. Key Takeaways Manual code reviews can be time-consuming and inconsistent. Integrating AI tools automate repetitive tasks, allowing developers to concentrate on more strategic and innovative aspects of their projects. AI-driven reviews are more accurate in identifying bugs and vulnerabilities. They ensure that critical issues are addressed promptly and effectively, improving the overall quality and security of the software. AI ensures that coding standards and best practices are uniformly applied throughout the codebase. This consistency reduces discrepancies and enhances the code's maintainability and readability. Combining AI with specialized services, such as JetRuby’s CTO as a Service and Staff Augmentation, provides a comprehensive approach to development. This blend of automated efficiency and expert oversight ensures high-quality outcomes and supports the scalable growth of Ruby on Rails projects. AI tools learn and adapt to a team's coding styles and practices. This continuous improvement ensures that AI's feedback and suggestions remain relevant and increasingly tailored to the project’s evolving needs. What is AI Code Review? AI code review is a modern way to use machine learning to check and improve code. It helps find problems and provides practical feedback. Unlike traditional methods that mainly look for obvious issues, AI code reviews adjust based on data and provide smart, tailored advice for your project. Static Code Analysis AI code reviews start with a static analysis that scans code for bugs and inefficiencies before submitting it. This early detection helps catch issues sooner, reducing future debugging and keeping the codebase cleaner. Natural Language Processing (NLP) AI also uses NLP to check the clarity of documentation and comments. It ensures clear explanations and instructions, improving communication among development teams. Predictive Analytics AI analyzes past data trends to predict possible future problems in the code. This helps developers address risks early, which reduces disruptions and improves overall stability.   *Discover how database constraints like unique indexes and foreign keys safeguard your app! Learning from Data AI not only analyzes but also learns. It adapts to your project’s coding styles, gradually improving its suggestions as your team’s practices change. Auto-Correction AI can also suggest or apply fixes for common problems automatically. This speeds up the review process, allowing developers to focus on more complex tasks. Language Agnosticism AI tools work with different programming languages and frameworks. Whether you use Ruby on Rails or another language, AI can fit into your workflow smoothly. Combining these features, AI code review transforms the development process, offering quicker, smarter, and more consistent results.   *Take a look at the current best practices and tools for deploying a Rails app in 2024! How Do AI Code Reviewers Work? AI code reviewers improve the code review process by automating important tasks in development. These tools help spot issues and smooth the workflow, allowing teams to keep their code high-quality without too much effort. Automated Code Analysis AI tools quickly scan code for bugs, security risks, and inefficiencies. This process is faster and more consistent than manual reviews, catching problems before they become serious. Style Enforcement AI reviewers ensure that team members follow the same coding standards. This helps create a cleaner and easier-to-manage codebase, reducing disagreements about style or formatting. Testing Optimization AI solutions check test coverage and find untested areas that manual reviews might miss. This strengthens the testing process and lowers the chances of future failures. Visual Aid These tools often create visual aids, like diagrams or infographics, to show how AI fits into the development process. This makes it easier for teams to adopt these tools and see their benefits. All these features work together to make code reviews quicker, more reliable, and less stressful for development teams. Benefits of AI Code Reviews AI introduces a host of transformative benefits to development teams: Saves time on routine tasks, letting developers focus on more creative work. Finds errors that humans might miss, helping to fix critical issues. Handles large codebases easily, keeping quality high regardless of project size. Reduces boring tasks for developers, promoting teamwork and creativity. Sets consistent standards across the team, improving overall code quality. AI-Enhanced Efficiency Transform your business! With AI as a powerful support tool, our skilled engineers work more efficiently and effectively, enhancing outcomes and driving profitability! Get in touch Key Areas to Focus On During Code Reviews A good code review does more than fix mistakes; it ensures the code is strong, easy to use, and meets project goals. Teams can build a solid foundation for high-quality work and long-term project success. Code Quality and Readability Clear and readable code helps everyone work together effectively. Following naming conventions and the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle makes it easier for future developers to understand and update the code. Functionality Code should work in perfect conditions and when things go wrong. Reviewers can prevent production issues by testing edge cases and ensuring all features are complete. Rails Best Practices Following Rails conventions helps maintain efficiency and clarity. Using the MVC architecture correctly, following RESTful patterns, and utilizing ActiveRecord effectively keeps the application clean and easy to manage. Security Security is crucial with every line of code. This means cleaning inputs to avoid injection attacks and setting up proper access controls. Prioritizing security helps reduce risks and builds user trust. Performance Improving performance ensures the application runs well, even with many users. Developers should refine database queries, manage background jobs effectively, and use caching when needed to enhance speed and reliability. Test Coverage Good test coverage acts as a safety net for the application. Thoroughly testing important parts of the code helps teams find problems early, increasing their confidence in its stability and reliability. Each of these areas is important for code reviews. Together, they help ensure the final product is secure, efficient, and easy to maintain while meeting modern Ruby on Rails development standards.   *Trying to develop a brilliant new idea for your startup? Check out our step-by-step brainstorming guide! Useful Tools for Code Reviews Selecting the right tools can significantly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of code reviews in Ruby on Rails projects. Below are essential tools categorized by their specific functionalities and platform compatibility. For Ruby on Rails: RuboCop (Linters and Formatters) RuboCop enforces Ruby and Rails best practices, ensuring a consistent code style across your project. RuboCop helps maintain readability and uniformity in the codebase by automatically identifying and correcting code style violations. Brakeman (Static Analysis) Brakeman specializes in detecting security vulnerabilities within Rails applications. It performs comprehensive security scans, helping developers identify and address potential risks early in development. SimpleCov (Testing) SimpleCov measures test coverage, providing insights into how much of the codebase is tested by automated tests. This ensures that code changes are thoroughly tested, reducing the likelihood of bugs slipping through. Cross-Platform Tools: GitHub Copilot GitHub Copilot leverages AI to provide code suggestions, accelerating the development process. It assists developers by offering relevant code snippets and autocomplete suggestions, enhancing productivity and reducing the time spent on repetitive coding tasks. CodeClimate CodeClimate offers automated code analysis and insights into technical debt, helping teams maintain high code quality across various platforms. It provides detailed reports on code health, highlighting areas that need improvement and facilitating continuous codebase optimization. Best Practices for Effective Code Reviews To make your code reviews more effective, follow these best practices: Prevent Reviewer Fatigue Schedule short review sessions. This helps keep reviewers alert and focused, reducing mistakes. For example, limit review sessions to 60 minutes and take regular breaks to maintain high concentration levels. Manage Pull Requests Efficiently Use small, frequent pull requests. This keeps the workflow steady and makes reviews easier by reducing complexity. For instance, breaking down large feature implementations into smaller, manageable chunks can streamline the review process and facilitate quicker feedback. Foster Positive Communication Communicate respectfully when giving feedback. Use clear language that encourages improvement and teamwork. An example would be constructively framing feedback, such as, "Consider refactoring this method for better readability," instead of being overly critical. Promote Team Cohesion Encourage open discussions about coding standards. This helps align the team and maintains consistency in coding practices. For example, hold regular meetings to discuss and agree upon coding guidelines, ensuring everyone is on the same page. Ensure Constructive Feedback Implementation Check that the feedback is understood and put into action. This maintains high-quality standards across the codebase. For instance, follow up on feedback by reviewing the updated code to ensure the suggested changes have been appropriately implemented. *Read our practical guide to the AI and ML trends in agriculture, and your awareness of AI-enhanced farming solutions will hit fresh highs! JetRuby’s Services to Consider JetRuby helps improve development processes by providing expert guidance and flexible resources. Our CTO as a Service helps build a reliable Ruby on Rails development team on your side, organize their work, and improve internal processes. CTO as a Service This service is for clients without a development team or who want to change their current CTO-led structure. We address the key challenges of creating a strong IT department by focusing on delivery, managing requirements, finding talent, and ensuring technological skills. Key Benefits: - Build a reliable Ruby on Rails team tailored to your needs. - Establish strong processes for delivery, managing requirements, and talent sourcing. - Provide experienced leadership to help your IT department succeed. Staff Augmentation In addition to CTO as a Service, JetRuby offers Staff Augmentation to provide on-demand access to skilled Ruby on Rails developers. This service is ideal for rapidly scaling your team to handle larger workloads without compromising quality. Key Benefits: Quickly scale your team with experienced Ruby on Rails professionals. Adjust team size based on project demands efficiently. Optimize budget allocation by accessing resources as needed without long-term commitments. By integrating AI-driven code reviews with JetRuby’s CTO as a Service and Staff Augmentation offerings, you can achieve robust code quality assurance, streamlined workflows, and sustainable growth in your Ruby on Rails projects. Ready to elevate your code review process? Contact JetRuby to discover how AI code review tools and our CTO as a Service can transform your Ruby on Rails projects. Start enhancing your code quality today! ### Web App vs Website: Master Your Online Presence People often confuse the terms website and web application, leading to misunderstandings. While both are accessed through web browsers, they have different functions and levels of interactivity. This confusion results from advances in web technology and the growing complexity of online platforms. Businesses, developers, and users must understand the difference between web app and website to use and interact with these digital tools effectively. This article addresses common misconceptions and outlines the key differences to clarify when to use each. Web app vs website, what to choose for your business? Let's dive in to find out. Key Takeaways Websites are ideal for static, information-focused platforms like blogs, portfolios, or corporate profiles. Web applications provide dynamic, interactive user experiences suitable for e-commerce, collaborative tools, or data-driven platforms. Budget, scalability, and user needs are critical factors in deciding which solution aligns with your business. Web apps require higher technical expertise and costs but deliver more advanced functionality and personalization. A phased approach often works best: start with a website for quick launches, then scale to a web app as your needs evolve. What is a Website? A website is primarily a collection of static information accessible via the internet. Think of it as a digital brochure or portfolio showcasing your business, products, or services. Websites are ideal for company sites, blogs, and portfolios. Additionally, many companies maintain a website and a web application to address different aspects of their online presence. Characteristics of Websites: Text, images, and videos remain consistent until manually updated. Features basic functionalities like navigation menus, contact forms, and image galleries. Built using foundational technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Real-world examples include: The New York Times: Maintains a comprehensive, well-organized website that efficiently delivers news and information through a clean design and easy navigation, reinforcing its authority in the digital age. Wikipedia: A vast knowledge repository with a simple, user-friendly interface that allows millions to access and contribute information, making it an indispensable educational tool. IKEA: An extensive product catalog with detailed descriptions and images. Its clear and informative layout lets customers browse and plan purchases effectively. What is a Web App? A web app offers dynamic, interactive experiences tailored to user actions. Unlike static websites, web apps process real-time data and facilitate complex interactions. Many businesses use websites for informational purposes and web apps for interactive functionalities to provide a comprehensive user experience. Characteristics of Web Apps: Content updates in real-time based on user actions. Features user authentication, data manipulation, and personalized experiences. Can be built with advanced frameworks like ReactJS, Angular, or Vue.js. Real-world examples include: Google Workspace: Provides web applications like Docs, Sheets, and Slides for real-time collaboration and accessibility from any device, enhancing productivity for businesses and educational institutions. Salesforce: A robust web-based CRM platform that allows businesses to manage customer interactions and analyze data without extensive on-premises infrastructure. Its integration capabilities and real-time analytics make it a critical tool for modern businesses. Slack: This web application centralizes team communication through channels, direct messaging, and tool integrations, fostering a collaborative and efficient work environment. Difference Between Website and Web Application Understanding the difference between a website and a web application is important when planning your digital strategy. Although both can be accessed through web browsers., they have different purposes and functions. [table id=24 /] Now that we’ve outlined their characteristics, let’s explore how to decide between a website vs application based on your business needs. Scale with the Best Hire the best Ruby on Rails developers for scaling your business today — contact our sales and schedule a call. Hire developers What Should I Choose for My Business? Several factors influence the choice between web app vs website. Sometimes, a website and a web app together can be the best way to meet different needs and enhance your project's impact. When to Choose a Website If your primary goal is to inform visitors about your business, showcase your portfolio, or provide content through blogs and articles. To engage in SEO strategies, drive traffic through informative content, and establish authority in your industry. When you want to build and maintain a strong online brand identity with visually appealing design and static information. When to Choose a Web Application If you plan to sell products or services online, manage inventory, process payments, and handle customer accounts. For businesses offering services that require user interaction, scheduling, bookings, or personalized dashboards. To create tools for internal use, such as project management systems, HR portals, or data analysis platforms. When managing subscriptions, user roles, and providing exclusive content or features to members. Hybrid Approach: Combining Both Businesses often benefit from a hybrid approach that incorporates both a website and a web application. For example: A company may have a main website that presents information about its services and an integrated web app that allows clients to manage their accounts or access specialized tools. News websites might include web app functionalities like comment sections, user profiles, and personalized content feeds. Build with JetRuby At JetRuby, we specialize in website and web application development, ensuring your business gets the best solution tailored to your needs. If you're debating about website vs web application options, JetRuby offers professional web development services, creating simple websites, complex e-commerce platforms, and custom web applications. Our approach includes: Defining product vision and validating ideas with proofs of concept. Prototyping with wireframes to visualize user experiences. Iterative development with regular updates and thorough testing. JetRuby ensures your website adds measurable value to your business by focusing on usability, functionality, and scalability. In addition to development services, JetRuby provides staff augmentation services designed to integrate highly skilled developers into your team. Why Choose JetRuby’s Developers? Our developers are Ruby on Rails experts from the global TOP100, bringing over 15 years of experience and 200+ successful projects. Close time zones and English fluency ensure seamless communication. Easily scale your team up or down with a 10-day notice. Beyond development, we offer project management, business analysis, and UI/UX design. This cohesive integration ensures that your team benefits from immediate productivity and robust solutions, and JetRuby ensures your web applications are reliable and performant. Transform your digital presence with JetRuby’s tailored solutions. Whether you start with a sleek website or build a feature-rich web app, we’ll guide your business to success. Contact us today to create a platform that drives results. ### Leveraging Modern Frontend Tools in Legacy Rails Monoliths Even in 2024, many companies still rely on legacy Rails monoliths based on older versions of Rails, such as Rails 4 or earlier. These applications often use outdated tools like jQuery (a popular library for making interactive websites) and the Rails asset pipeline (a system for managing website files like JavaScript and CSS). Why haven’t they upgraded? For many teams, it’s not that simple. Fully switching to modern technologies can cost a lot of money and time. Plus, they’re often under pressure to release new features quickly, which means they can’t hit a pause button for a big upgrade. Our team was in a similar situation. We only recently started upgrading our Rails app from version 4 to version 5. With limited resources and constant demands to roll out new features, it hasn’t been easy.  But here’s the thing: we’ve been using React in our Rails 4 app for over a year now. And guess what? It helped us work around many of the old system’s limitations. In this article, we’ll share our journey. We’ll explain how we gradually moved important parts of our app to React and eventually transitioned these features to a separate Single Page Application (SPA).  This transformation turned out to be critical as this updated part of our app now generates almost half of our project’s income. Understanding the Application and Its Challenges Our application is a Rails 4 monolith running on Ruby 2.5.0. It relies on tools like jQuery (in its first version) and various plugins, using Rails views, ERB.js partials, and a mix of CSS methodologies.  This setup may have worked when the app was first created, but became a headache over time. Here’s why: It’s hard to maintain. The codebase is huge, messy, and often undocumented. This means new developers, and even experienced ones, struggle to figure out how things work. Slow performance. Rails 4’s “asset pipeline” is outdated and slow. It doesn’t support modern ways to write JavaScript or CSS transpiration, making everything feel clunky. Limited ecosystem. Finding tools that work well with this old system is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Large files, slow loading. Because of its outdated setup, the app’s pages take a long time to load. Users have to wait longer, and the slow execution of JavaScript makes the experience worse. Styling chaos. Various styling tools and frameworks lead to a disorganized, inconsistent CSS landscape. Exploring Potential Solutions When faced with the challenges of our outdated Rails frontend, we considered several options. Each had its pros and cons, depending on what we wanted to achieve and the resources we had. Upgrading the current setup. We could modernize by updating jQuery and CSS frameworks. This would make the app easier to maintain, but it required highly skilled developers and a lot of time. Building a separate frontend application. Another option was to create a standalone frontend app that communicates with the Rails backend via API. While this approach is ideal for creating a modern, flexible frontend, it’s resource-intensive, which we didn’t have at the time. Using the Hotwire ecosystem. Hotwire is a set of tools designed to make Rails apps faster and more interactive without relying heavily on JavaScript frameworks. It includes Turbo (for fast page loads) and Stimulus (for adding interactive features). Unfortunately, Turbo doesn’t work with Rails 4. While Stimulus could handle some interactivity, it might not resonate with all frontend developers. Integrating modern frontend tools within the monolith. Our final option was to use bundler tools like Webpack to bring in modern frameworks such as React directly into the current Rails app. As a result, we could gradually introduce new technologies without overhauling everything at once.  Our Chosen Solution We decided to go with the fourth option. This approach seemed the most practical, with Webpack as our bundler and React as our frontend library. It allowed us to modernize step by step while staying within our team’s capabilities. This choice was based on several practical reasons: Session authentication. We didn’t need to switch to complex systems like JWT (JSON Web Tokens) or design separate user processes. Our existing session authentication approach worked well. Minimal backend changes. Adapting the backend to support JSON API responses required only minor adjustments. Frontend autonomy. With React in place, frontend developers could focus on their work without waiting for help from Rails developers. Modern ecosystem. We could leverage React and its extensive ecosystem of npm packages for both new feature development and the migration of legacy code. Flexible bundling. Webpack offered the flexibility and scalability we needed to handle both new features and legacy code. To integrate React and Webpack with our Rails 4 application, we used react-rails (version 2.7.0) and webpacker (version 4.3.0). While these are no longer officially recommended, they were the best options compatible with Rails 4. Benefits of This Approach Our chosen solution gave us several advantages: Streamlined setup. We avoided spending time on setting up a dev server and build pipeline, thanks to Webpacker’s Ruby helper methods. React components in Rails. The react_component helper allowed us to integrate React components right into Rails partials. This made it possible to pass props directly between Rails and React without extra coding.  Server-side rendering (SSR). We could achieve SSR without a separate app, allowing us to maintain performance. Seamless CI/CD Integration. Webpacker smoothly integrates bundling into the Rails asset pipeline, so we didn’t have to add extra steps to our CI/CD process. We explored alternatives, such as vite_rails with inertia.js, but they had compatibility issues with Rails 4. Creating a bespoke setup without abstractions was another option but would have required excessive resources we didn’t have.  Navigating Limitations with React and Webpacker Using React and Webpacker with Rails 4 came with limitations. The highest supported versions of react-rails and webpacker were 2.7.0 and 4.3.0, respectively. While these allowed us to work with React 18 and TypeScript 5, Webpacker 4.3.0 was stuck with Webpack 4.  This older version of Webpack restricted us from using the latest Node.js versions and npm packages. Additionally, Webpacker’s built-in abstractions made custom setups tedious. To address these limitations, we decided to upgrade the tools used by these gems. This involved: Custom webpack configs. We replaced the default Webpacker configurations with custom raw Webpack configs for each environment. We built these custom configs based on Webpacker 4’s source code.  Upgrading dependencies. Moving to Webpack 5 allowed us to use latest plugins and tools. During this process, we removed outdated plugins and replaced them with modern, efficient alternatives. Manual bundle management. While we could still use the javascript_pack_tag in Rails views, switching to raw Webpack configs meant manually specifying each new bundle entry in the Webpack configuration. This was a cheap price to pay for having clear webpack configs instead of magical objects provided by webpacker. One issue we faced was that client-side rendering worked smoothly, but server-side rendering (SSR) stopped working. At the time, we didn’t need SSR for critical features, but we knew it might be important later. To prepare, we resolved this by monkey-patching the Webpacker gem as well as adding execjs and mini_racer gem’s latest versions. Migrating Critical Business Functionality On the backend, we adapted existing endpoints to respond with JSON using Rails' respond_to method. We replaced some JavaScript response endpoints with JSON-only responses while retaining the old functionality as a fallback. Feature flags allowed us to switch between the old and new UI seamlessly. For the frontend, we set up necessary providers (like theme and react-query providers) and wrapped react-rails components in these providers. Initially, we had multiple react-rails components, which we later consolidated into a single one.  As we refined the UX/UI and added more features, we introduced react-router for client-side navigation. Eventually, we moved all critical functionality to a dedicated SPA. Integrating Webpacker with Webpack 5 also helped us move away from the Rails asset pipeline. This change made development faster and reduced CI/CD times for asset compilation.  Transform Your Legacy Rails Monoliths With the Right Team Stuck with an older Rails monolith? It doesn’t mean you’re out of options for upgrading your legacy frontend. There’s no need for a massive resource allocation to migrate your legacy frontend to modern technologies or to build a separate frontend application. You can improve your app without disrupting your workflow by taking small, strategic steps. Like adding React for new features and gradually updating legacy code.  This approach lets you stay on track with your business goals while keeping costs manageable. Over time, your legacy system can evolve into a faster, more flexible and responsive application that meets today’s needs. However, even with a solid plan, finding the right talent to handle this process can sometimes feel like a challenge.  This is where JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation service becomes a game-changer. We provide access to skilled Ruby on Rails developers who feel like an extension of your team. They understand how to approach complex legacy systems and help you solve real business problems without adding unnecessary stress. Here’s how this service helps businesses like yours: Fast access to experts. Gain access to highly skilled developers within just 2–3 weeks, with the flexibility to adjust team size based on your project’s needs. A team that works together. Our developers work together as a cohesive unit, eliminating adaptation delays and boosting productivity from day one. Real experience you can trust. With over 15 years of experience and more than 200 projects completed, JetRuby’s team ensures your app modernization runs smoothly. Transparent costs. You receive a detailed monthly report showing exactly how many hours each developer worked and what they achieved. There are no hidden fees or unexpected charges.  Data security and compliance. JetRuby follows the highest standards for data protection, including HIPAA compliance and ISO certification, so you can trust us with sensitive information. More than just development. Our services go beyond coding. If needed, we offer support with project management, business analysis, and UI/UX design to give you a complete solution. Flexibility when you need it. Depending on your project's requirements, you can scale the team size up or down. This ensures you never pay for more resources than you need. No collaboration barriers. Our developers share U.S. working hours for at least 4 hours daily, making communication smooth and efficient. If you need additional details or have any questions, please contact us any time you see fit! ### How to Pivot: Navigating Winning Startup Pivot Strategy A startup pivot happens when a business decides to change direction without losing sight of its ultimate goal. Sometimes the plan doesn’t match reality. A pivoting approach is about being smart enough to notice that and brave enough to make a change. It’s a strategy for survival and growth when the original plan isn’t delivering the results you expected. So instead of starting from scratch, you take what you’ve learned and apply it in a new way. But what are the signs it’s time to pivot? How do you do it without losing your way? And what lessons can we learn from companies that pivoted and made the most of it? In this article, we’ll discuss the types of pivots, why they matter, and how to pivot your business successfully. Let’s dive in! Key takeaways Every startup pivot varies, from focusing on a standout feature (zoom-in pivot) to targeting a new audience (customer segment pivot) or adjusting the business model. Choosing the right type can reshape your business trajectory. Customers are the ultimate validators of your idea. Regularly gather and analyze feedback to pinpoint misalignments and areas for improvement. Their insights can guide a pivot strategy tailored to real needs. Use business metrics like retention rates, revenue growth, and customer acquisition costs to evaluate your startup’s performance. Data highlights weak points and ensures your pivot decisions are grounded in evidence. Testing with an MVP clarifies what’s working and what needs improvement. It’s a cost-effective way to refine your product and align it with market expectations before scaling. Tools like SWOT analysis and customer journey mapping provide a structured framework for making informed pivot decisions, reducing risks, and maximizing opportunities. 6 Common types of pivots to consider Let’s first look at these business pivot types to understand how a pivot works. Zoom-in pivot This happens when a startup realizes one specific feature or aspect of its product is getting all the attention. Instead of offering a wide range of features, you narrow your focus to make that one feature the star.  Instagram originally started as a check-in app called Burbn, but they noticed users loved photo-sharing. That was their big pivot, and it turned them into one of the biggest platforms on the planet. Zoom-out pivot On the other hand, sometimes a product might be too narrow. You might need to expand if your initial offering isn't enough to satisfy the broader market. A zoom-out pivot is about adding features or services to the original idea to make it more appealing to a larger audience. Think of how Twitter (now X) started as a side feature within another service called Odeo. When podcasting didn’t take off, X grew from a small niche into the massive platform it is today. Customer segment pivot This happens when your original audience isn’t biting, but another group is unexpectedly interested. In this case, you switch gears and target a different customer group. Let’s take a Slack pivot, for example. Although it was initially created for gamers, its owners found its true home in workplaces. They shifted their focus, and now it’s a go-to communication tool for businesses. Customer need pivot What if the problem you thought your product was solving isn’t the real problem? This happens when a startup realizes that while the target audience is right, the problem they’re solving is not what customers actually care about.  For example, a company may start by offering a fitness app, but through customer feedback, they learn that users are more interested in wellness tracking instead. Revenue model pivot Sometimes, the way you make money just isn’t working. Maybe you started with a freemium model, but customers don’t pay for premium features. A revenue model pivot means switching how you charge for your product. You could switch from ads to subscriptions or vice versa.  Take YouTube as an example. Initially, they allowed free uploads and watched ads. But as the platform grew, they pivoted to include a subscription model with premium content. Technology pivot This is when a business discovers a more efficient way to achieve the same goal using different technology. If your current tech isn’t scalable or efficient enough, this pivot helps you apply new tools to reach the same objectives, often at a faster pace or lower cost. Take one of the best business pivot examples. Netflix started as a DVD rental service, but as streaming technology improved, they pivoted to focus on streaming movies and shows. This change opened up a world of new opportunities and revolutionized entertainment. When it’s the right time to pivot business strategy? An MVP, or Minimum Viable Product, is your product’s first real test in the market. It’s designed to gauge how your idea performs with early users and whether it solves the problem it was meant to address. So here comes your first MVP launch.  But what if the feedback isn’t what you expected? Or the numbers don’t line up with your goals?  This is where a pivot in business might be the next step. Let’s explore some clear signs that it's time to make a change, whether during the MVP phase or shortly after. When you fail to hit the product-market fit Here’s the deal: if your product doesn’t solve a problem people care about or doesn’t solve it well enough, it’s a red flag.  Let’s say you launch an app that helps people track their daily habits. It has flashy features and a sleek design, but early users complain it’s too complicated to use. They’re dropping off because the app isn’t making their lives easier. How do you pivot here? Look closely at who your target audience is and what they truly need. You could narrow your focus to a smaller, more specific audience. You redesign the app for busy working parents who need simple tools to manage their routines. Or you tweak the features to prioritize ease of use over flashy extras. Peloton is a good example. They started as a high-end stationary bike company but realized their customers valued community and engagement. They pivoted to offer on-demand fitness classes, transforming exercise into a connected experience. When someone else does it better Even the best products face competition. Sometimes, competitors introduce a solution that is better than yours. They’re offering more features, better pricing, or a smoother experience.  If your MVP is suddenly outdated or overshadowed, it’s time to re-evaluate. What can you do? Differentiate yourself. You pivot to focus on features or experiences that your competitors don’t have or can’t replicate.  Ask yourself, “What can we do better?”  Being smaller often means being more flexible, take advantage of that. And instead of trying to do everything, do one thing exceptionally well. When users tell you something’s wrong Feedback from your users is gold, even when it’s negative. Especially when it’s negative. No one enjoys criticism, but negative feedback often carries invaluable insights. If you keep hearing the same complaints, it’s a signal that something about your product isn’t working. What should you do next? Go beyond surface-level fixes, dig deeper to find the root cause, and close those weak spots.  If users find your onboarding process confusing, simplify it. If users can’t find something or can’t use features properly, make the interface intuitive. If they struggle with performance, invest in optimization. For instance, PayPal’s early days were plagued with user complaints about security and ease of use. The company invested heavily in fraud prevention and user-friendly design, which turned them into a trusted payment platform. When you lack technological advancements What seemed cutting-edge when you started six months ago might be outdated by the time your MVP hits the market. If new tools or methods emerge that make your solution look clunky, it’s time for a lean startup pivot. Your next steps? Adopt and integrate the new technology into your product to improve your offering. Consider Shopify, which started as an e-commerce platform for small businesses. Over time, they embraced emerging trends like AI-driven recommendations and augmented reality for product visualization. Besides, you can hire a CTO for your startup who will help you integrate new technologies seamlessly.  When people leave faster than they arrive High user churn is one of the clearest signs something isn’t working. If people download your app, sign up, and visit your website but do not stick around, it’s time to investigate. Maybe users like the idea of your product but realize it doesn’t deliver long-term benefits. Maybe the features are too generic, or the experience doesn’t feel rewarding.  What can you do? Make the experience more engaging. Introduce features that encourage long-term use, like daily reminders, progress tracking, milestone rewards, gamification elements, or social sharing options.  If those don’t work, consider whether your product’s focus needs to shift entirely. When the numbers just don’t budge Revenue growth is a sign that your product has long-term viability. If your MVP isn’t gaining traction or revenue stops growing, it’s time to assess why. Sometimes the problem lies in your pricing model. Maybe you’re targeting users who love your product but aren’t willing to pay for it. Or perhaps your market is too small to support the kind of growth you’re aiming for. For example, if your product appeals to students but costs as much as professional software, they might not buy in. What’s the pivot? Experiment with different pricing models. Offer freemium options, tiered pricing plans, or discounts for specific groups. When Adobe realized their one-time software sales didn’t generate long-term growth, they shifted to a subscription model with Adobe Creative Cloud. This strategy pivot created a steady, predictable income stream. Expanding your market can also work wonders. For example, a language-learning app originally aimed at tourists might pivot to target students and professionals to increase a potential user base. 8 Steps to run a successful startup pivot strategy Below, we break down each step with key details that demonstrate how it adds value to your business pivoting. Combined together, they can help you create a customer-focused product and deliver on time.  1. Perform a SWOT analysis Before making any big moves, evaluate where you stand.  A SWOT analysis is a strategic tool to analyze internal and external factors that influence your business.  It gives you a snapshot of your business health, pinpoints areas for improvement or untapped potential, and provides a roadmap for strategic decision-making. Strengths. Identify what differentiates your business. This could be unique products, a skilled team, or a strong market presence. Leveraging these assets ensures your pivot builds on a solid foundation. Weaknesses. Analyze areas where your business is underperforming. Addressing these weak spots, such as resource gaps or lack of expertise, mitigates risks during the pivot. Opportunities. Pinpoint external trends that could benefit your pivot, such as emerging technologies, untapped markets, or shifting consumer preferences. Threats. Assess external risks like new competitors, economic challenges, supply chain disruptions, or regulatory changes. Recognizing threats early helps in crafting contingency plans. 2. Evaluate customer feedback Customer feedback offers direct insights into user needs, preferences, and pain points. To pivot effectively, you must understand where your product aligns or fails to align with customer expectations. Gather qualitative and quantitative feedback through surveys, user interviews, and customer support interactions. Ask users what features they value or want improved. Focus on recurring themes to identify high-impact changes. Prioritize actionable feedback that directly informs product improvements. By aligning your pivot with validated customer needs, you reduce the risk of wasted resources and increase the likelihood of market acceptance. 3. Analyze business metrics Numbers tell a story. Dive into business KPIs to understand where your startup is thriving and where it’s falling short. Customer acquisition cost (CAC). Is it too high compared to your revenue? High CAC may indicate marketing inefficiencies or a lack of product differentiation. Retention rate. Are customers leaving too soon? Low retention suggests a disconnect between user expectations and product delivery. Revenue growth. Is your income stagnant or declining? Stagnant or declining growth signals the need for a strategic shift. Profitability. Are you spending more than you’re earning? Assess whether your pivot aligns with long-term financial goals. Use analytics tools like Google Analytics to track these metrics over time. 4. Assess the competitive landscape Take a hard look at your competitors. Are they doing something better, faster, or cheaper than you? Evaluating your competitors helps you identify gaps in their offerings and areas where your product can stand out. Compare features, pricing, unique selling points (USPs), and user experiences to uncover opportunities for differentiation. Monitor market leaders for trends and strategies that align with user demand. Identify underserved niches that your pivot can target. Look for reviews of your competitors. What are their users praising or complaining about? Create a competitive matrix to visualize how your product stacks up in terms of features, pricing, and value. 5. Consider your current resource allocation A successful pivot requires efficient use of available financial, human, and technological resources. Evaluate team capabilities to ensure the skills match the pivot’s demands. Assess whether existing tools and infrastructure can support the new direction. Find out if you have the funding to execute the pivot. Prioritize cost-effective adjustments to avoid overextending resources. Finding a perfect tech co-founder for your tech startup would greatly increase your chances. 6. Set clear objectives and develop a new startup pivot strategy You need a roadmap. Define what success looks like and create an actionable plan to get there. Set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound). Align your objectives with the insights gained from SWOT, feedback, and metrics. Break objectives into short-term and long-term startup milestones. Adapt team roles and responsibilities with the pivot’s objectives. A well-defined strategy provides a clear roadmap, aligns all stakeholders, and ensures measurable and trackable progress. 7. Build an MVP (Again) A pivot requires testing a new concept. Build a revised MVP to validate your new direction. Focus on core functionalities that address the pivot’s primary goal. Release the MVP to a select group of users to gather targeted feedback. Iterate based on real-world insights to refine the product. You can also use low-code platforms or high-fidelity prototypes to speed up development. 8. Post-pivot: monitor and analyze A pivot doesn’t end when your new MVP launches, there’s a life after MVP. Track its performance to ensure your changes are hitting the mark. Track user engagement to measure the adoption of new features or changes. Monitor retention rates to evaluate the long-term success of the pivot. Analyze revenue trends to assess financial stability and growth. Gather feedback from customers and stakeholders to refine strategies further. Set up dashboards to track these metrics in real time, and hold regular review meetings to stay agile. Startup pivot made seamless with JetRuby’s MVP services When pivoting businesses, the right partner can make all the difference. With JetRuby’s MVP Development Services, you gain a trusted partner equipped to help you transition smoothly, test hypotheses effectively, and bring your ideas to life in a streamlined, cost-efficient way. How JetRuby drives startup pivot strategy success through MVPs: Every pivot starts with a deep understanding of your goals. Our Business Analysts work with you to refine requirements, ensuring alignment with market demand. Our UX/UI Designers create intuitive, audience-focused interfaces that make your MVP usable and appealing right out of the gate. A Solution Architect ensures your MVP is scalable, secure, and capable of adapting to future growth or adjustments. With a dedicated Project Manager guiding the process, you stay informed at every stage. We have feedback loops built into our workflow to ensure your vision is reflected in the final product. Our QA Engineers rigorously test your MVP to resolve critical bugs and ensure a seamless user experience. What sets JetRuby apart? JetRuby’s ISO-standard engineering process ensures each MVP meets global quality benchmarks.  But beyond technical expertise, we focus on delivering real business value: Faster feedback cycles. Early user feedback helps you fine-tune your pivot strategy with confidence. Tailored team composition. From developers to designers, each project is staffed with specialists who understand your unique needs. Market-driven approach. Every decision is backed by insights into your target market and user expectations. Seamless transition to full product development. Once your MVP proves its potential, our team supports you in scaling or evolving the product. Increased flexibility. Early results allow you to adjust your strategy based on real-world data, not assumptions. If you need strategic pivot consulting or you have any questions left, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line! ### The Startup Survival Guide: What to Do When You Fail to Deliver On Time For startups, building a successful product can be exciting at first. But then ideas turn into plans, and plans turn into deadlines. Harsh deadlines. Have you ever been in that moment when you stare at a roadmap, and instead of progress, all you see are red flags of delay? Why a startup can't deliver on time? Why do startups miss deadlines? These are questions every startup founder asks at some point. Let’s be real. Startups don’t miss deadlines because they don’t care or lack ambition and passion. And it’s not always because their idea isn’t viable and good enough. They miss them because they’re juggling ten things at once with fewer hands than they need. Or a lesser budget. It’s like trying to build a plane while flying it. Most of the time, it’s all about startup resource challenges, whether it’s people, time, or money. Here’s a short list of common reasons why startups fail on delivery: Teams are too small to handle the workload There’s a skill gap that slows everything down Unforeseen issues like bugs cause additional delays Poor communication leads to confusion Too many features and functionalities are scheduled at once Goals are set without accounting for realistic timelines Priorities shift, causing constant changes to the plan The result? Delays, stress, and disappointed users. This vicious cycle can damage trust and momentum. Oh, and don’t forget the pressure from investors who want progress immediately. But here’s the thing: no one gets it right the first time, and that’s okay. The good news? These problems don’t have to stop you. They’re signs that something needs to change. So, how do you take control of the chaos and steer your delivery process back on track?  Let’s figure it out, one step at a time. Key takeaways Prioritization frameworks (like Eisenhower Matrix, RICE, and ICE) help streamline workloads and ensure critical tasks are completed in the first place. Outsourcing tasks or using staff augmentation services, such as those offered by JetRuby, can quickly fill skill gaps, reduce hiring timelines, and bring in specialized expertise without long-term commitments. Focus on delivering a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) with essential features to meet user needs. Adding unnecessary features early on can lead to delays, resource depletion, and market irrelevance. Treat technical debt as an ongoing priority. Allocate dedicated time in each sprint to prevent long-term challenges like slow development and higher maintenance costs. Building scalable processes, tools, and teams ensures startups can adapt quickly to market changes and maintain momentum even under resource constraints. Addressing resource shortages in startups You’ve got a brilliant idea, but turning it into a working product feels like trying to run a marathon while carrying your entire team on your back. And resources like time and money seem to vanish just when you need them most. Your small team is stretched so thin that every deadline feels like a crisis. Critical tasks get delayed because the same team members are expected to cover too many responsibilities. For instance, your lead developer debugs code while designing the UI or managing customer support, and the marketing lead manages social media, SEO, sales funnels, and investor relations. Both have to do this manually. This multitasking slows everything down, reduces focus, and increases errors. When crucial roles are overloaded, creativity dies. Instead of innovative solutions, your team starts delivering "good enough" results. And that’s a no-go strategy in competitive markets. Dangers to watch for: Saving money on tools often leads to delays that cost more in the long run. Deadlines slip because the team can’t keep up with the workload. Overloading your team can lead to exhaustion and higher turnover rates. A constant rush to meet deadlines leaves no room for strategic thinking. Important details get overlooked when resources are stretched too thin. So, what’s the solution? It’s not like you can magically conjure money or clone your best developer. But there are practical steps. Related reading: Discover more about effectively allocating and managing limited resources in your startup by exploring the basic startup costs. Prioritize like a pro, not a perfectionist Every startup founder thinks EVERYTHING is urgent. But here's the truth: it's not. Yes, your team might be small and missing key experts, but sometimes success means making the most of the resources you have right now. To optimize the workload, break down tasks into essential (must-do) and non-essential (can wait) categories. Use frameworks like the Eisenhower Matrix and RICE & ICE prioritization models to focus on what’s urgent and important. List your tasks, then slash half. Let’s look at this table to see how these models work: [table id=23 /] How to use this table: Long-term goals: use RICE to prioritize projects that align with your strategic vision. Day-to-day tasks: apply the Eisenhower Matrix to organize tasks by urgency and delegate where possible. Quick decisions: leverage ICE to rank tasks or initiatives when speed is your priority. Also, consider leaving buffer time for unexpected problems. Things WILL go wrong, it would be wise to build that into your timeline. Related reading: Identify common startup problems that could hold your team back. Automate repetitive tasks Automation often falls low on a startup’s priority list. Founders and teams manage endless tasks, focusing on immediate concerns like feature releases or onboarding clients.  However, skipping automation often means spending too much time on repetitive, manual processes. Over time, this inefficiency can weigh teams down. The first step is to identify repetitive tasks that consume the most time or have the highest error risk. These are prime candidates for startup automation tools. DevOps practices can improve the entire development process. For example, you can use CI/CD pipelines to automate code testing and deployments.  Automation tools like Zapier, HubSpot, and Trello can help you focus on more important business goals. For example, you can set up an automated system to log new leads from your website directly into a CRM, cutting out manual data entry. You can also automate email follow-ups and notifications for team updates. Tools like Notion, Asana, or ClickUp centralize task management and help the team stay on the same page. But automating your entire business at once is not a good idea. Start where it matters most and choose solutions that scale with you. During the early stages, you can use Google Sheets for budgeting instead of investing in expensive software. When managing revenue streams gets complicated, you can upgrade to QuickBooks or Xero. Difficulty hiring in-house talents quickly You need people yesterday, but finding the right specialist can take months. Meanwhile, the pressure builds. Your product launch is looming, investors expect results, and your current team is managing responsibilities they aren’t trained for. Unlike established companies, startups often lack the resources and brand recognition to tap into extensive talent pools. Screening, interviews, and onboarding take up valuable time that founders or managers could spend elsewhere. Combine this with tight budgets and fast-changing needs, and the hiring process becomes a headache. Besides, larger companies offer higher salaries, better benefits, and job security. Things startups often can’t compete with early on. What happens? Founders either hire the wrong people out of desperation or wait so long to find the “perfect” candidate that projects stall. Both scenarios cost time and money. Dangers to watch for: A bad hire can disrupt team dynamics and cost thousands in training and replacement. While you search for help, your team covers the workload, leading to mistakes and frustration. Hiring delays often result in missed deadlines and unhappy stakeholders. So, how exactly can startups solve these challenges? Related reading: If you’re planning your next hire, check out this detailed startup hiring plan to find the best talent for your business. Outsource your work Sometimes, it’s better to partner with a seasoned software development company if you need in-depth expertise and the guarantee of project success within limited timelines. For instance, JetRuby offers a cost-efficient Staff Augmentation service. This service provides a dedicated team of self-motivated experts who will seamlessly integrate into your team within 2-3 weeks and help quickly bring your project on the market.  But we will get there later. You can also outsource non-core activities to freelancers using talent platforms like Upwork or Toptal. Thinking “I’ll just do it myself” seems fine at first, but it drains you long-term.  Consider delegating. Focus on must-have skills over “nice-to-haves.” Think about what’s critical right now. For example, a social media manager might be urgent to boost brand visibility, while a senior accountant can wait until revenue grows. Sometimes, outsourcing can compromise quality. But only if you don’t set clear expectations upfront.  Write detailed briefs, conduct regular check-ins, and keep outsourced work aligned with your internal goals. Ensure outsourced tasks are documented and manageable so there’s no gap when transitioning back to the internal team. A few tips to consider: Highlight what excites working at your startup: opportunities for growth, flexibility, or the chance to work on something innovative. Share team stories on LinkedIn or feature your culture in posts, showcasing real employees and their impact. Don’t make it sound like fluff. People want to see real examples, not generic “we value teamwork” platitudes. Partner with startup-focused recruiters who often have pre-vetted candidates who match your needs. Developing too many features at once Startups often fall into the trap of feature creep with grand ambitions, trying to pack their product with too many functions from the start. “Oh, let’s just add one more feature to keep everyone happy. What could possibly go wrong?” - a startup owner may ask. Spoiler alert: everything. Everything can go wrong if someone tries to scale a mountain without the right team or tools. Instead of excelling in one area, a product becomes average at many things. Adding more features increases complexity, testing time, and bugs. Developers, designers, and marketers fail to keep up, leading to burnout. Have you ever heard of Duke Nukem Forever, the game that took forever, literally? When 3D Realms announced it in 1997, it promised to revolutionize gaming. Instead, it became a poster child for over-scoping and under-delivering. They tried to do too much: switching engines, chasing perfection, and endlessly tweaking. Meanwhile, competitors launched, thrived, and moved on. For over a decade, Duke Nukem Forever remained stuck. It used to hold the Guinness world record for the longest development for a video game, at 14 years and 44 days, Another example — a startup wants to launch a productivity app. Instead of starting with a basic task manager, they also build a calendar, AI reminders, team chat, and analytics. By the time they’re done, the market has moved on. How exactly can startups avoid this trap? Related reading: Understand why hitting startup milestones is vital before funding. Simplicity wins Ask yourself: “If we don’t do this right now, will it kill our product?” If the answer is no, move it to later. For example, instead of creating five features for a product launch, release a simple beta with one module that solves one pain point and delivers real value to customers.  Customers don’t want a million features — they want a solution to their problem.  Spotify didn’t start with curated playlists, they began with basic streaming and scaled from there. That said, focus on a minimum viable product (MVP) first.  For a food delivery app, this could mean just listing restaurants and processing orders. No loyalty programs, no fancy recommendations, no user profiles. It’s not yet time for them. Build the MVP, get user feedback, and iterate. From this moment, you can integrate new features and functionality enhancements. A few tips to consider: Use frameworks like MoSCoW (Must-haves, Should-haves, Could-haves, Won’t-haves) to categorize features. Share prototypes regularly with investors and potential customers. Their feedback helps you stay on track and avoid unnecessary complexity. Using tools like Jira or Asana to document every change request will help you establish a transparent process with a clear version history. Dealing with startup technical debt Technical debt is the long-term consequence of taking shortcuts in development, like writing quick-and-dirty code to meet a deadline. While this approach can get a feature live quickly, it accumulates hidden costs over time. The rushed code may lack proper documentation or testing, making it harder for developers to update or fix. Inefficient code slows down a product, leading to user frustration. As debt grows, teams spend more time fixing old problems than building new features. Teams often underestimate the time and resources needed to resolve technical debt in early-stage startups. What starts as "We'll fix it later" morphs into "This will take six months and a dedicated team." High technical debt can scare off potential investors, who see it as a sign of poor long-term planning. How can startups solve technical debt? Related reading: Learn about solving key business problems in startups. Adopting a "debt-first" culture Think of technical debt like credit card debt. Sure, you can ignore it for a while, but compound interest (or user churn) will hit you harder than expected. Teams should address technical debt regularly, just like they would schedule new feature development. Don’t wait for a “perfect time” to address debt. Make it part of your roadmap rather than an afterthought. For example, allocate 20% of each sprint to refactoring code or improving system architecture. Fixing one issue per sprint is better than letting it grow unchecked. A few tips to consider: Proper documentation helps current and future developers understand the shortcuts taken and why. Instead of leaving a quick patch undocumented, a developer can note the workaround in comments and add it to the backlog for later optimization. Tools like SonarQube and Code Climate can identify problem areas in real time, helping teams prioritize what to fix. Strengthen your team with JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation and deliver on time Hiring full-time employees may seem like the logical solution for long-term projects requiring ongoing product support, feature updates, or enhancements.  However, it comes with significant drawbacks. For one, it’s expensive. Bringing someone on board permanently means bigger fixed costs, and for startups handling tight budgets and uncertain projects, that’s a tough pill to swallow. Plus, parting ways isn't always simple if things don’t go as planned. In some states, firing employees can be costly and time-consuming due to legal hurdles, severance pay, and other financial headaches. On the flip side, contractors offer flexibility but come with their own risks. Contractors may not always integrate seamlessly into teams or align with company goals. Even when things are running smoothly, there’s the looming possibility that they’ll leave before the job’s done. And when they do, you’re back to square one. So, where does that leave you? JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation service provides companies with access to highly skilled developers who seamlessly integrate into in-house teams. Unlike freelancers or contract workers who may require significant onboarding, JetRuby’s developers are experienced professionals who work as part of cohesive teams.  No awkward adjustment periods, no misaligned processes. They fit into your workflow, giving you the flexibility and expertise you need right when you need it. This service is ideal for businesses facing: Tight deadlines and urgent staffing needs Limited internal expertise for specific technologies or project demands Concerns over the quality or speed of their current team’s output Pro tip: Explore why startups consider IT outsourcing to automate processes and enhance productivity. Here’s how Staff Augmentation solves these issues: Our developers are ready to join your team within 2–3 weeks. Whether you need one specialist or an entire team, we ensure rapid onboarding without disrupting your workflow. Unlike individual freelancers, our developers already work as a synchronized unit. This eliminates adaptation delays and ensures efficient collaboration from the start. You can easily adjust your team size based on your project’s needs. With a simple monthly notice, you can increase or decrease resources, giving you control over your budget and strategy. We take the burden off your shoulders. You won't have to worry about HR processes, benefits, or compliance risks — it’s all included in the service.  You only need to focus on assigning tasks to your team. We handle the rest, from payroll to legal obligations. Our developers work in time zones close to the U.S., guaranteeing at least 4 hours of overlap for live discussions. Fluent English communication ensures seamless collaboration. We create clear documentation and run thorough tests to deliver a stable, reliable product you can trust. Related reading: If you're unsure whether your business fits the startup mold, read more about the differences between a startup vs a small business to define your approach. Why JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation Stands Out Here are the unique advantages that set JetRuby apart in the competitive market for Staff Augmentation services: Top talent and expertise Access developers ranked among the world’s top 100 Ruby on Rails experts. Benefit from a team with over 15 years of experience and 200+ successful projects. Trial period with zero risk Try our services for two weeks with a money-back guarantee. Assess team performance and integration before committing further. Transparency and accountability Detailed monthly reports track work hours, providing clear insight into productivity and costs. Hourly rates include all technical support, from hardware to infrastructure, with no hidden fees. Quality assurance and security ISO certification and HIPAA compliance ensure your data is handled with care. Developers leverage Ruby on Rails best practices, delivering reliable, high-quality code. End-to-end support services Beyond development, JetRuby offers testing, project management, and UX/UI design if needed. This comprehensive approach simplifies vendor management and accelerates project timelines. JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation service combines speed, quality, and flexibility, making it the perfect solution for scaling teams and meeting product goals. Get started today with a no-risk trial. Contact JetRuby now to build a team that takes your project to the next level. ### Don't miss Ultimate Power Play: Player-Coach vs. White-Collar CTO   The Player-Coach CTO and the White-Collar CTO are two different styles of technology leadership. Each one affects a company's operations and innovation differently. The player-coach CTO is actively involved in daily development work and provides hands-on technical expertise. In contrast, the white-collar CTO offers strategic oversight and shapes the company's technology direction from an executive level. This article will discuss these two CTO models, their differences, and how each can serve different business needs. We'll also introduce our CTO services, designed to bring flexibility and impactful technology leadership to your organization. Key Takeaways Player-coach CTOs offer hands-on technical support, while White-Collar CTOs focus on strategic management and long-term planning. Combining technical expertise with strategic vision enhances team performance and aligns technology with business goals. Selecting the right CTO model based on your company’s unique needs and objectives is essential for sustainable success. Choosing the wrong model can result in leadership gaps, excessive costs, restricted customization options, and scalability challenges. Fractional CTOs, CTO-as-a-Service, and virtual CTOs provide diverse leadership solutions for startups and mid-sized companies. JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot service merges the strengths of both CTO models, delivering tailored, flexible leadership that drives growth and innovation. What is a Player-Coach Model, and How Does It Work? The Player-Coach CTO model blends hands-on technical skills with leadership responsibilities. The CTO manages the team in this role and actively participates in coding and problem-solving. He also offers a direct line of mentorship and technical support. This hybrid approach works well for companies that need a leader to guide the team and a technical expert who understands the day-to-day coding challenges. Player-Coach CTO work The Player-Coach CTO primarily aims to bridge the gap between management and development. He ensures the team delivers high-quality products on schedule with solid technical oversight. He also addresses issues quickly and adjusts to changes, which is crucial for dynamic projects. This close involvement fosters a collaborative team environment where the CTO’s technical contributions and accessibility motivate and guide the team. Balancing coding with leadership requires careful time management and clear prioritization to meet team guidance and long-term project goals. Key Pain Points a Player-Coach Helps Resolve Strategic technical guidance offers numerous benefits, yet risks and challenges can impact project outcomes and team dynamics. Below are key areas to consider when balancing high-level leadership with technical execution. Their hands-on approach quickly solves technical problems. This reduces downtime and keeps projects on schedule. When Player-Coach CTOs engage with their team, they can improve morale and create a positive work environment. They do this through direct mentorship and support. They close skill gaps in the team by offering training and development. This ensures the team remains skilled and knowledgeable about the latest technologies. Their dual role helps the team communicate and work together better, resulting in smoother and more efficient workflows. They can quickly adjust to changing project needs by actively participating in coding and development. Risks and Challenges Taking on both technical and leadership roles can create potential hurdles for a Player-Coach CTO: Balancing hands-on tasks with leadership duties can lead to burnout and make strategic planning less effective. If he focuses too much on immediate technical tasks, he might miss critical long-term goals for the business. What is a White-Collar CTO Model, and How Does It Work? Organizations leverage the White-Collar CTO model to align their technology decisions with their long-term business goals. In this approach, the CTO is a technology leader and a business strategist focused on decision-making. His duties go beyond technical development — a White-Collar CTO manages teams and works across various departments. White-Collar CTO work A White-Collar CTO connects technology projects with the company's key business goals. Instead of handling daily tech tasks, they focus on long-term technology strategies that improve the company's performance. They concentrate on important technology investments and make sure each decision adds real value to the business and strengthens the company's position in the market. Key Pain Points White-Collar CTOs Help Resolve White-Collar CTOs address various business challenges within an organization. Provide a clear technology plan that supports the company’s vision and goals. This ensures that tech projects are focused and work towards a common purpose. Make strategic choices about how to use resources, including budgeting for technology and managing staff, to boost productivity and return on investment (ROI). CTOs ensure tech infrastructure grows seamlessly with the business, supporting expansion without delays. They proactively manage data security, compliance, and vendor risks and protect the company's assets and compliance posture. Risks and Challenges In leadership's approach to development, several risks and challenges can emerge, including: May miss out on the finer technical details, potentially leading to gaps in understanding critical development challenges. Limited hands-on involvement can create a distance between leadership and the development teams, possibly affecting team morale and alignment. Focusing on long-term planning might lead to neglecting immediate technical needs and operational efficiency. Player-Coach vs. White-Collar CTOs: Pros and Cons for Each Both Player-Coach and White-Collar CTOs offer distinct advantages and face unique challenges. The table below outlines each approach's key pros and cons to help you determine which best suits your organization's needs. [table id=21 /] By evaluating these aspects, you can better determine which CTO style aligns with your company's operational dynamics and strategic objectives. Player-coach and White-Collar CTOs each have pros and cons, but they may not suit every organization. Alternative models like Fractional CTO and Virtual CTO offer flexible solutions for startups and small to mid-sized companies needing adaptable leadership. Next, we discuss Flexible CTO Models. Flexible CTO Models A fractional CTO is a part-time or project-based technology executive, either in person or remotely, who works closely with a company as needed. They provide hands-on support for specific initiatives and integrate with the leadership team to drive technology projects and strategy. A virtual CTO is a remote technology executive who offers ongoing, high-level strategic guidance. They provide oversight and advice without deep day-to-day involvement, making them ideal for companies seeking regular, flexible access to expert technology direction. In short, a Fractional CTO takes on a more hands-on, flexible role, while a Virtual CTO provides strategic oversight from a distance. Choosing the right CTO model, whether a traditional role or a flexible solution, helps businesses align technology leadership with their growth and innovation strategies. Here’s a quick comparison to help identify which option might be the best fit for your business: [table id=22 /] While Fractional and Virtual CTO models provide adaptable and cost-effective leadership tailored to your business needs, they also present certain limitations. Let’s examine the hidden obstacles that can arise with ready-made CTO solutions. The Hidden Challenges of Ready-Made CTO Solutions Businesses often use ready-made CTO solutions, such as fractional CTOs, CTO-as-a-Service, and virtual CTOs, to meet their technology needs. However, these approaches come with several challenges. Part-time fractional CTOs can create gaps in leadership and disrupt long-term projects. Virtual CTOs operate remotely, restraining effective communication and limiting immediate, hands-on support during critical times. These solutions typically follow a one-size-fits-all model and don’t address each business’s unique challenges and growth objectives. Predefined strategies might not adapt to specific cultural and operational needs, and scalability can be an issue as companies evolve. Without a deep understanding of a company’s long-term goals, these CTO models may prioritize short-term fixes over sustainable technology planning. On the other hand, the Player-Coach CTO and the White-Collar CTO bring distinct strengths and approaches that can shape a company’s operational effectiveness and innovation strategies, each offering unique benefits to different business contexts. How JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot Service Can Help Organizations often look for a flexible solution to support their existing CTO, regardless of their leadership style. Whether your CTO takes a hands-on approach or focuses on business decisions, JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot service is designed to enhance their work. We assign a skilled, self-motivated technical expert with managerial competencies who acts as a Co-Pilot for your CTO. He adapts to your requirements and addresses whatever challenges and tasks your team may not have enough time or resources to handle. Our CTO Co-Pilot service offers: Technical Consulting We assist with resolving complex software architecture and infrastructure issues, offering clients high-level technical insight when needed. New Technology Integration Our team supports adopting new technologies and development practices to boost productivity and keep projects current. Decision-Making Support CTO Co-Pilot conducts detailed analyses and testing options to guide critical technical decisions. Our experts offer an audit, cost breakdown, and step-by-step implementation plan, and we can manage the implementation upon request. Risk-Free Team Enhancement We provide specialized expertise as needed, hourly, without requiring clients to expand their team or take on long-term commitments. To further enhance your technical capabilities, JetRuby offers the CTO Co-Pilot program. Here are the key benefits of partnering with us through CTO Co-Pilot: Tailored Onboarding Each engagement begins with a thorough needs assessment, aligning the CTO Co-Pilot’s approach with client goals for immediate and long-term growth. This process identifies critical gaps, such as limited in-house expertise in Frontend, Mobile, Backend, or DevOps, often reflected in prolonged job vacancies or resource constraints. Proven Impact Clients report a 30% faster project turnaround thanks to JetRuby’s expert CTOs, who effectively tackle technical challenges and strategic planning. Success stories from healthcare and finance highlight the model’s efficiency and adaptability. Flexible Engagement Models CTO Co-Pilot can serve as a short-term solution or a longer-term partner. Clients can access expertise without the risks of full-time hires or additional internal processes. Final Call: Finding the Right CTO Fit Choosing between a Player-Coach and a White-Collar CTO is an important decision. The best choice depends on your company’s stage, team structure, and growth goals. Here are some steps to help you decide: Look at your current technical challenges. Are they hands-on tasks or strategic issues? If you are unsure about a long-term CTO, consider hiring a Fractional CTO or using a CTO-as-a-Service. This can help you test different leadership styles with less risk. Contact a CTO advisory service like JetRuby’s CTO Co-Pilot. They can offer options that combine technical and strategic support. This way, you can evaluate the fit and value without the commitment of a full-time hire. At JetRuby, we believe each business has its unique story, far beyond the confines of one-size-fits-all solutions. We craft bespoke strategies that resonate with your organization’s distinct challenges and dreams. Our seasoned CTOs seamlessly integrate with your team, navigating the intricate landscapes of technology to ensure every move aligns with your growth aspirations. To learn how JetRuby can help your organization navigate complex technical landscapes, contact us to discuss a tailored approach that meets your needs. ### Top Ruby Gems for Productivity and ...some Fun! If you’ve been working with Ruby for some time, you have probably heard the term Gem. It’s a pre-built package of code you can add to your Rails application to unlock new features without reinventing the wheel. These Gems are a significant part of what makes the Ruby ecosystem so popular when developing web applications. Finding the right gems can be a game-changer, from managing compatibility issues across different dependencies to handling technical debt as applications scale. In the following sections, we’ll dive into the key benefits of using Ruby gems and explore some of the most essential ones that can elevate your Rails projects. Let’s look at how the right gems can make a real difference by boosting productivity and enhancing functionality. Key takeaways Ruby Gems unlock essential features in Rails apps, streamlining workflows and keeping projects running smoothly for developers, project managers, and team leads alike. From Pry for debugging to Sidekiq for background processing, this gem collection simplifies everything from configuration to testing, making development effortless. JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation provides Ruby experts who integrate and configure gems seamlessly, tailoring solutions to fit your project’s unique requirements. The Ruby community continuously refines gems, keeping them functional, secure, and up-to-date. Thanks to these dedicated contributors, your gems stay as fresh as ever. Coding doesn’t have to be all serious — gems like Lolcat and Dad_jokes add humor to the process, making even the toughest coding sessions more fun. JetRuby offers end-to-end support, ensuring every gem is optimized and integrated so your team can enjoy the full potential of a smoothly functioning Rails project. Key Ruby Gems Benefits and Features Ruby Gems provide valuable benefits that can streamline development and enhance functionality. Here’s a look at the key advantages that make Gems essential tools for developers and project teams. Gems allow you to reuse existing code, saving time and effort by avoiding the need to write functionality from scratch. Gems provide pre-built solutions, speed up and simplify the development process, and helps you focus on building unique features. The Ruby community develops and maintains many gems, offers robust support, and continuously improves based on collective feedback and contributions. Gems offers specialized functionalities such as security enhancements, performance optimization, and more, allowing you to easily integrate advanced features into your application. This selection of Ruby gems covers debugging, testing, performance, configuration, and even some humor. Chef Mixed Popular Gems Blend Each gem serves a distinct purpose. Whether it improves application performance, maintains organization, or enhances your Rails application configuration. Let’s see which Ruby Gems will add sparkle to your Ruby on Rails applications. Bundler: Keeping It Together What it is used for. Bundler helps manage an application's dependencies and ensure all necessary gems are installed correctly and work well together. Without Bundler, handling these dependencies would be difficult and prone to mistakes. Benefits. It eliminates version conflicts and ensures that teams work with a stable codebase. This reduces onboarding time for new developers and ensures consistent application performance across development, testing, and production environments. For businesses, this means smoother operations and minimized risk of compatibility issues. Tech details. Bundler locks gem versions in a Gemfile.lock and manages dependencies across environments. It simplifies the installation and maintenance of gems, ensuring that all necessary libraries are installed and compatible, making application deployment smoother and more predictable. Pry: The Debugging Genie for Ruby Developers and Engineers What it is used for. Pry is a powerful debugging tool that allows developers to inspect, debug, and modify code directly in the runtime environment. Benefits. By reducing time spent on debugging, Pry allows developers to focus on high-value tasks, ultimately improving productivity and reducing project delays. For businesses, this means quicker delivery timelines and fewer bottlenecks in the development cycle, making Pry a cost-effective solution for maintaining high code quality. Tech details. Pry inserts a REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop) into the code, enabling real-time inspection and modification of variables. It also supports command history, syntax highlighting, and plugins, making it versatile for complex debugging needs in Ruby applications. Minitest: Lightweight Testing That Keeps Code Lean and Reliable What it is used for. Minitest is a Ruby testing framework that is well-suited for simple projects thanks to its straightforward and lightweight design. It ensures applications work as expected by catching errors early, reducing maintenance costs after deployment, and enhancing customer satisfaction with reliable software. Benefits. Minitest’s simplicity is a major asset for agile teams. It easily supports continuous integration environments, and its quick setup and execution make it ideal for faster feedback loops and efficient development cycles. Tech details. The gem includes unit and integration testing tools, integrates easily with CI/CD pipelines, and allows teams to identify and resolve issues early. It’s an excellent choice for maintaining stability without the complexity of heavier testing frameworks. For those seeking even more power in their testing toolkit, RSpec is a robust gem with advanced features. We’ll discuss RSpec’s capabilities later. Sidekiq: The Wizard of Background Task Processing What it is used for. Sidekiq handles background processing tasks like sending emails, processing images, or handling other resource-intensive operations asynchronously. Benefits. By offloading heavy tasks to background processing, Sidekiq keeps the main application responsive, providing a smoother user experience and allowing more scalability. For businesses, this translates to a high-performing application that can handle large user loads without slowing down. Tech details. Sidekiq uses Redis for job management and supports concurrent task processing. This gem is optimized for high throughput and allows applications to scale seamlessly by managing tasks in a non-blocking, asynchronous manner. Dotenv: Configuration Made Easy What it is used for. Dotenv simplifies the management of environment variables by storing them in a .env file, allowing easy configuration across different environments. Benefits. Dotenv ensures configuration consistency, reducing the chances of errors during deployment and making transitions between environments (test and development) smoother. This is especially beneficial for project managers overseeing multiple environments, as it minimizes delays caused by configuration mismatches. Tech details. Dotenv loads environment variables from a .env file, making them accessible in Rails applications without hardcoding them into the codebase. It’s particularly helpful for securing sensitive information, such as API keys, by keeping them out of the main code. Meet ActiveAdmin! What it is used for. ActiveAdmin is a popular framework for creating admin dashboards in Ruby on Rails applications. It provides pre-configured, customizable interfaces, making managing content, user data, and application settings easy Benefits. ActiveAdmin accelerates setting up an admin interface, reducing development time and costs. Its flexibility allows business owners to manage data and user interactions without extensive coding. This agility is particularly beneficial for businesses needing frequent updates or scaling quickly, as it simplifies administrative tasks and improves operational efficiency. Tech details. ActiveAdmin uses a DSL (Domain-Specific Language) in Ruby, making building and customizing admin panels straightforward. It integrates seamlessly with Rails models and controllers, supporting pagination, filtering, and sorting to enhance user navigation. Locked and Loaded: Sorcery and JWT Sessions for Rock-Solid Authentication What it is used for. Sorcery is used for session-based authentication in monolithic web applications built on Ruby on Rails. For mobile and SPA (Single-Page Applications), JWT (JSON Web Token) authentication through the jwt_sessions library is recommended, providing secure token-based login across sessions. Benefits. Sorcery simplifies session-based authentication, offering robust security for applications requiring centralized user access control. For mobile apps or SPAs, jwt_sessions enables flexible, scalable authentication, enhancing security and performance by offloading server resources. This dual setup allows businesses to securely support traditional web and mobile platforms without compromising user experience or data protection. Tech details. Sorcery: Creates secure, session-based authentication and includes features like password encryption, user login, and logout management. jwt_sessions: Provides token-based authentication by generating secure JWTs, ideal for mobile and SPA applications. It is configured to handle refresh tokens, expiring access tokens, and protection against replay attacks, making it secure for RESTful APIs and multi-platform applications. Shrine’s Holy Grail for File Management What it is used for. Shrine is a flexible file upload toolkit for Ruby applications. It handles file uploads and storage, including images, documents, and other media. Benefits. Shrine provides a highly customizable, reliable solution for file management. It supports direct uploads to cloud services like AWS S3 and Google Cloud Storage, which reduces server load and enhances application speed. For businesses dealing with large volumes of media, Shrine’s flexibility and efficiency can reduce storage and bandwidth costs while maintaining a seamless user experience. Tech details. Shrine works with various backends (FileSystem, AWS S3, etc.), supporting background processing, caching, and handling large files. It also integrates easily with Rails and offers plugins for tasks such as image processing, versioning, and data validation. Bug-Busters: A Testing Dream Team for Flawless Rails Apps What it is used for. This collection of testing tools and libraries covers various testing needs in Ruby on Rails applications. They ensure the application performs as expected under different scenarios, handling everything from unit tests to data generation and HTTP request stubbing. Benefits. A robust testing suite protects against bugs and ensures application stability, reducing potential downtime and maintenance costs. By leveraging these tools, businesses can enhance application quality, prevent errors in production, and confidently scale features, which translates to higher customer satisfaction and trust in the product. RSpec: A comprehensive tool for setting up test suites in Rails applications. Capybara: Used for integration testing, particularly for simulating real user interactions, making it ideal for testing complex user flows in monolithic applications. VCR: Records API requests and responses, allowing tests to run with the same data repeatedly, even without network access, which is ideal for apps that rely on external services. WebMock: Enables stubbing HTTP requests in tests so that you can simulate network responses without actual external API calls. Ffaker: Generates test data for scenarios requiring randomized content, helping simulate diverse user data in tests. FactoryBot: Creates “factories” for test objects, allowing you to generate consistent test data across test suites. DatabaseCleaner: Manages and clears test data between tests, ensuring isolated tests and preventing data conflicts during test runs. Faraday & Typhoeus: HTTP Dream Team What it is used for. Faraday and Typhoeus work together to handle HTTP requests in Ruby applications. Faraday manages middleware, while Typhoeus excels in managing concurrent requests. Benefits. These gems streamline communication with external APIs and ensure applications retrieve data quickly and efficiently. This improves user experience by enabling real-time data retrieval and interaction, which is essential for applications that rely on third-party data. Tech details. Faraday provides a flexible HTTP client with built-in middleware support, while Typhoeus uses the libcurl library for speed and concurrency. Together, they enable efficient API handling and data exchange, making them ideal for Ruby applications requiring robust API integrations. All work and no play makes coding dull While the Ruby ecosystem is rich with powerful gems that supercharge your coding skills, it also has a playful side. Did you know that some Ruby gems are designed purely to add a bit of fun to your development process? These quirky additions might not make you a coding legend, but they'll splash your console with vibrant colors, deliver cheesy jokes, and turn each commit into a mini-party. Let's explore some of the true MVPs of your Gemfile: Lolcat, Jokr, Dad_Jokes, and Lolcommits. (Please note that since these gems are fun-only, some of them might be slightly outdated) Lolcat Ever glance at your plain, drab terminal and think, “This could use some color!”? Enter Lolcat, the gem that turns your text output into a vibrant cascade of colors. Who says debugging logs can’t have style? With Lolcat, even the most mundane scripts come to life with a colorful display — but beware, the mesmerizing hues might just distract you from the task at hand! Jokr Do you feel like your code needs a touch of humor? Meet Jokr, the gem that brings a lighthearted break to your command line. Imagine this: you’re buried in debugging, frustration building — and suddenly, “I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised.” These jokes may not be comedy gold, but they’ll bring a smile to your face, making debugging a bit more bearable. Dad_jokes If Jokr isn’t enough, dad_jokes steps up the humor to full “dad mode.” Type a command, and you’re treated to classic, eye-roll-worthy punchlines. “Why don’t skeletons fight each other? Because they don’t have the guts.” It’s like having your dad right there in the terminal, adding a touch of levity to your debugging sessions. Lolcommits For those intense, late-night coding sessions, lolcommits captures a snapshot with every commit, documenting your transformation from a “bright-eyed coder” to a “coding zombie.” If you want to relive the highs, lows, and existential crises, lolcommits has you covered — just keep in mind, these snapshots may not be LinkedIn-ready! With this selection of popular Ruby gems, your team can handle everything from background processing to debugging and configuration more efficiently. These gems simplify development processes and enhance productivity. It Takes a Village to Raise a Gem The Ruby community is the backbone of gem development. It continuously provides updates, resources, and support to keep gems functional, secure, and compatible with evolving Ruby versions. Community members contribute new features, fix bugs, and enhance security. Community-Driven Excellence: Extensive Documentation: Popular gems often come with comprehensive guides, making integration straightforward. Active Support: Engage with developers on forums, GitHub, and platforms like Stack Overflow to resolve issues swiftly. Continuous Improvement: Regular updates and patches keep gems up-to-date with the latest Ruby advancements. At JetRuby, we’re proud contributors to the Ruby community. With over 8 gems and 26+ million downloads, our commitment ensures developers access dependable, high-quality resources. Integrate with a skilled team Implementing feature-rich Ruby Gems can transform your project’s efficiency and functionality, leading to successful, scalable products. At JetRuby, we harness these powerful tools to deliver tailored solutions that meet your unique needs. For example, one of our e-commerce clients needed a solution to handle high volumes of background tasks, like order processing and notifications, without impacting the user experience. Our team integrated Sidekiq to manage these tasks asynchronously, ensuring a responsive and high-performing application — even during peak shopping times. The result? A 40% improvement in response times, with user satisfaction at an all-time high. In another project, a healthcare company sought to improve troubleshooting across a complex codebase. Our experts leveraged Pry, a powerful debugging gem, to quickly identify and resolve issues, reducing downtime and expediting development. This proactive approach helped the client deliver features ahead of schedule, leading to a smoother and faster release process. Why Choose JetRuby for Staff Augmentation? Our Staff Augmentation service connects you with Ruby experts with over 15 years of experience. Here’s how we help teams overcome the everyday challenges of modern software development: Filling Skill Gaps and Enhancing Team Capabilities: In a recent onboarding with a fintech client, JetRuby’s experts helped fill skill gaps by providing specialized knowledge on gems like Bundler and RSpec, which are crucial for dependency management and testing. Our developers reduced friction in a high-stakes environment. Managing Dependencies Across Complex Projects: Our team used Bundler for dependency management during work with a SaaS company managing multiple integrations. We reduced deployment issues by 30% and helped the team focus on delivering features, not fixing conflicts. Onboarding Support for New Developers: JetRuby’s staff augmentation team also excels in providing support during onboarding, particularly in projects with intricate setups or large legacy codebases. For instance, our Ruby experts prepared customized documentation for a logistics project. They held interactive sessions on using gems like Dotenv for environment configuration, speeding up the onboarding of new developers by 50%. Every gem set to shine! From testing and project management to design, JetRuby’s holistic approach ensures that every gem is configured and used to its full potential. We integrate experienced developers into your team, maintain high standards, and accelerate project progress. Therefore, your team can focus on innovation and delivery with the support of seasoned Ruby professionals. Ready to elevate your Ruby projects? Contact JetRuby today to learn how our experts can help you implement these gems flawlessly. ### Ready to scale? Is It Time to Hire a CTO for Your Startup? Launching a startup often means juggling multiple roles, and one common challenge founders face is managing the technical aspects of their business. Let’s say there’s a young founder who starts as an interim CTO of a startup. Initially, he’s focused on coding and architectural design, but he soon realizes that the CTO role is much broader than just being the "tech guy." As he grows into the position, he learns that a CTO has to manage security and compliance and align technology with business goals. It goes far beyond development skills. And the pressure to quickly gain this extensive experience can be overwhelming. Next step: The founder brings in an experienced CTO through a service like CTO as a Service (CTOaaS) and gets the leadership needed to steer the company’s tech strategy. This approach allows the founder to focus on his strengths in development. Let’s now highlight the next steps and find out when a startup should hire its own CTO. Why Hire a CTO? Randomly hiring developers or freelancers without technical oversight can lead to costly mistakes. On the other hand, hiring a seasoned CTO is challenging because the role demands more than just coding expertise. A CTO oversees development, makes key technical decisions, and ensures that technology aligns with the company's broader vision. CTO can bring additional value to the project by adding fresh ideas and innovation or sharing valuable connections from the IT network that can benefit the project. While some founders may believe a CTO’s role is solely to keep projects on track, a skilled CTO assesses the feasibility of plans and identifies the most efficient, cost and risk-effective implementation methods. A strong CTO avoids inefficiencies, controls the budget, and equips the development team with tools and knowledge for effective management. CTO experts help prevent developers from spending too much time on tasks or “gold plating” that slow things down and draw the budget. This is especially critical for medium and larger projects, where mismanagement can lead to lost market opportunities. For larger or more complex projects, having a CTO or a technical co-founder is essential to ensure success and drive the company forward. Building an Internal CTO: Desirable Yet Demanding Developing a CTO internally is desirable but is time-consuming and complex due to several challenges. Comprehensive Skill Development A successful CTO needs a mix of deep technical expertise, strategic vision, and strong team management skills. Technical Skills and Knowledge Strategic Vision and Business Acumen Leadership and Team Development Communication and Stakeholder Management Problem-Solving Governance and Compliance Financial Management and Budgeting Building such a leader internally is time-consuming and requires ongoing investment in technical skills, strategic planning, and leadership development. Evolving Demands with Company Scaling As a company scales, the demands on the CTO evolve significantly. What works at an early startup phase is often very different from what’s required in later stages of growth and maturity. The CTO’s role shifts from the goal of achieving product-market fit with a short-term vision to a long-term vision and strategy, focusing on long-term planning, sustainability, and aligning technology with the company’s vision. Resource-Intensive Process Internally developing a CTO demands substantial resources: High costs associated with specialized training and ongoing learning. Investment in coaching for leadership development. Long hiring processes and specialized talent acquisition requirements. Increased costs associated with scaling teams and technologies. Organizational Resistance Developing a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) internally is challenging due to organizational resistance. Company culture and employees may hesitate to embrace new leadership or technological changes. This resistance can appear as reluctance to adopt new processes, skepticism about the CTO’s vision, or fear of shifting power dynamics. Overcoming these barriers requires effective change management, including clear communication, stakeholder involvement, and fostering a culture of adaptability and continuous improvement. Retention and Succession Planning Successfully retaining talent and preparing future leaders require organizations to actively engage employees and develop their leadership potential. Employee Engagement: Creating meaningful work and career growth opportunities to retain talent. Identifying High-Potential Talent: Recognizing and preparing future leaders through targeted development. Mentorship Programs: Facilitating knowledge transfer and leadership development through mentorship. Continuous Evaluation: Regularly reassessing succession plans and employee performance. Retaining high-potential employees is essential, as competitors frequently target them for future CTO roles. Organizations must offer clear career paths, competitive salaries, and a supportive work environment to keep these talents engaged. If your organization isn't ready for this investment, CTOaaS offers an effective alternative by providing immediate access to experienced technical leaders who can guide your tech strategy from day one. CTOaaS professionals bring hands-on strategies, connections, and shortcuts proven by successful projects. This helps your startup grow faster without delays from building internal talent. Why JetRuby? At JetRuby, we excel in talent management, refined over 14 years. Our team of over 100 Ruby on Rails developers, trained through our Ruby on Rails Academy, can scale client teams swiftly —often within 10 business days. Our ISO 30414 and ISO 10018 certifications demonstrate our commitment to people management. They ensure our team members are 35% more efficient than industry peers. This efficiency allows clients to save time and resources while receiving high-quality outcomes. We leverage AI-supported development to automate routine tasks for faster and more reliable results. Our proprietary tool, ITD.HUB, provides real-time transparency, which allows our clients to monitor project progress and maintain control throughout development. As part of our audit and implementation process, we focus on four critical areas: Product management We assess how product managers communicate requirements to development teams, ensuring seamless translation of product goals into actionable tasks. Delivery processes We evaluate the effectiveness of development methodologies, task estimation, planning, deadline adherence, release quality, and project portfolio management, including rapid development strategies and Proof of Concept (PoC) testing for product hypotheses. Talent management We analyze recruitment methodologies, strategies for employee development and engagement, tools for motivation and retention, and their alignment with company goals. Technology & infrastructure We examine your current technology stack and infrastructure to ensure tools and systems are optimized for efficiency and scalability. The Benefits of JetRuby’s CTOaaS JetRuby’s CTO as a Service (CTOaaS) helps companies efficiently build or strengthen IT teams, enhancing agility and performance. Our services offer immediate, expert-led support for creating tech teams, boosting existing departments, and maintaining cost-effective, transparent operations through tools like ITD.HUB. CTOaaS provides the resources and insight needed to achieve business goals without compromising control over strategic direction. Building IT departments from scratch We help build IT departments from the ground up. Backed by our expertise in managing squads of over 300 engineers, we create and develop effective tech teams that deliver results. Strengthening existing teams If your IT department is overwhelmed by workload or quality issues, we offer additional expertise, resources, and technologies to boost performance and streamline processes. Time and cost efficiency CTOaaS offers immediate access to a wealth of expertise without the lengthy and expensive process of hiring a high-level CTO. You quickly adapt to market changes and stay competitive. Complete transparency with ITD.HUB Our proprietary tool, ITD.HUB, offers full visibility into your development processes, allowing you to monitor and control your team’s work in real time. Avoiding vendor lock-in With CTOaaS, you maintain full control over your project and strategic decisions. We only provide the tools, technology, and expertise you need to meet your goals, and you retain authority over your company’s direction. A Strategic Solution for Immediate Leadership JetRuby's CTO as a Service provides a strategic and streamlined solution for companies looking to avoid the challenges of developing a CTO internally. By engaging a seasoned CTO through our model, you gain instant access to expert leadership capable of optimizing your technology strategies and driving sustainable growth. No delays and uncertainties in nurturing talent from within. Whether you need to build an IT department from scratch, strengthen an existing team, or streamline your operations, JetRuby’s CTOaaS provides the experience and resources necessary to help your company thrive. ### Revive Legacy Software with Ruby on Rails Now! Imagine running a modern business with software that frequently crashes, processes data slowly, and lacks essential security updates. This is a common reality for many companies relying on legacy systems. Frequent software crashes lead to unexpected downtime, disrupting daily operations and delaying projects. This unreliability reduces employee productivity and damages customer trust, driving them to more dependable competitors. Slow data processing doesn’t let you make timely decisions, respond to customer needs, and maintain a competitive edge. Delays affect everything from customer service to sales transactions, resulting in lost sales opportunities and decreased customer satisfaction. Lacking essential security updates exposes your business to cyber threats. Outdated software is a prime target for hackers, leading to data breaches that compromise sensitive information like customer data and financial records. Maintaining legacy systems also means escalating maintenance costs and difficulty finding skilled professionals to manage outdated technologies. This stifles innovation, preventing your business from adopting new tools that drive growth and efficiency. By upgrading to modern solutions, companies can enhance performance, bolster security, and improve satisfaction for employees and customers. Let’s find out how transitioning to updated systems can lead to these benefits, with a focus on Ruby on Rails (RoR) as a highly effective solution. And JetRuby’s CTO as a Service provides the leadership and expertise for a smooth transition. How Legacy Code Harms Modern Tech Companies Outdated codebases may be a huge burden for modern IT companies, causing maintenance, flexibility, security, and talent acquisition inefficiencies. Here's a breakdown of how these issues manifest: Increased Maintenance Costs Older codebases often have no documentation and require significant maintenance resources, leading to inefficiency and inflated costs. Limited Flexibility Legacy systems lack flexibility, making it difficult to adapt to changing market demands or scale products. Security Vulnerabilities Old-hat software doesn’t have modern security measures, increasing the risk of breaches and cyber threats. Talent Acquisition Challenges Finding developers familiar with outdated systems is difficult, and maintaining these systems diverts focus from innovation. How to Know When Your Legacy System Needs Modernization When legacy systems start slowing down operations, failing to scale, or becoming costly to maintain, it’s a clear sign they require modernization. Here's how you can identify if it's time for an upgrade: Weak Performance Modernization is key if your application’s performance is sluggish, and your employees and customers face difficulties. Slow, unresponsive applications reduce productivity as employees struggle with inefficient tools, and customers become impatient with poor experiences. Users facing delays or crashes are more likely to abandon your service for faster alternatives, resulting in lower customer retention. Slow systems hinder your ability to quickly adapt to market changes and customer needs, leading to missed real-time opportunities and delayed decisions. Businesses with outdated systems fall behind competitors using modern, agile platforms that support faster, more efficient operations. Outdated Functionality Modernizing your software is crucial when it no longer meets your business needs, struggles to scale, or fails to integrate with current technologies. Here are key signs that your software may be outdated: Limited compatibility with other tools, impacting efficiency. Software no longer receives updates, increasing risk. Fewer skilled developers are available for older technologies. Outdated software is more prone to security risks. Struggles to handle increased demands as the business grows. Cumbersome interface frustrates users, reducing productivity. Rising Costs and Misalignment with Business Goals Outdated software can transform from an asset into a financial burden, creating strategic misalignments within your business. Consider the following issues: Expenses outweigh benefits, straining budgets. The software no longer supports evolving business objectives. Maintenance costs divert funds from growth initiatives. Limited adaptability restricts response to market changes. Falling behind technologically limits operational effectiveness. Deloitte's “Unleashing business value from technology investments” Report   Make sure to secure Outdated software often lacks the critical protections required. Below are the key security vulnerabilities that expose legacy systems to cyber threats: Legacy systems often lack the latest security features, such as encryption standards, multi-factor authentication, or patch management, making them prime targets for cyberattacks. Many outdated systems no longer receive security updates or patches from vendors. This leaves known vulnerabilities unaddressed, increasing the risk of exploitation by attackers aware of these weaknesses. Without regular updates, legacy systems can become a breeding ground for malware and ransomware attacks. Legacy systems are often incompatible with current security solutions like intrusion detection systems, firewalls, and antivirus programs. This limits the ability to monitor and protect the infrastructure effectively. Older systems do not meet modern compliance standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA) and expose businesses to heavy fines and legal repercussions. Legacy systems often have weak access and user authentication controls, making them vulnerable to insider threats. For instance, Equifax suffered a massive data breach in 2017 due to vulnerabilities in its outdated software, exposing sensitive information of millions of consumers. This resulted in legal issues and a significant loss of customer trust. Modernizing their systems earlier could have helped prevent these risks. Application Modernization: Large and Mid-Sized Enterprises Several large companies have modernized their legacy systems to avoid significant operational risks: Commonwealth Bank of Australia (2018) Following the nationwide outage, the bank revamped its outdated systems and transitioned to cloud-based infrastructure to meet the growing demands of digital banking. Toys "R" Us Once a retail giant, it failed to modernize its e-commerce platform and relied heavily on third-party partnerships. The inability to invest in a scalable online platform contributed to its bankruptcy in 2017. Blockbuster A market leader in video rentals, Blockbuster was slow to embrace digital platforms like streaming, leading to its decline and eventual collapse. Borders The book retailer failed to update its inventory and e-commerce systems, outsourcing online sales to Amazon, which led to its bankruptcy in 2011. Avon The cosmetics company suffered major setbacks in 2013 due to outdated enterprise software, lost representatives, and decreased sales. These examples demonstrate how even mid-sized companies, which may seem stable, can experience significant setbacks if they do not invest in tech innovations in time. Modernizing Your Legacy System with Ruby on Rails Migrating legacy code to Ruby on Rails can revolutionize your business processes and offer several advantages: RoR allows developers to build and deploy applications quickly, shortening time-to-market for new features and products. RoR promotes modular, maintainable code, simplifying updates and reducing technical debt. RoR offers built-in security features that protect against common vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS). Whether small or large, RoR’s flexible architecture scales with your business, ensuring smooth performance as your demands grow. Why CTO Leadership is Essential for Legacy Code Modernization Modernizing your legacy system with Ruby on Rails can be transformative. However, for a successful transition, strong leadership is just as important as the right technology. That’s where skilled CTO leadership comes into play. With a clear strategy, experienced team-building, and risk management, a CTO can guide the modernization process, maximizing your return on investment and ensuring a seamless shift to modern technologies like Ruby on Rails. Here’s how CTO leadership drives success in legacy code modernization: Strategic planning. They assess the legacy system and create a roadmap for transitioning to modern technologies like Ruby on Rails. Team building. An on-demand CTO structures a high-performing development team aligned with the company’s long-term goals. Risk management. A seasoned CTO identifies and mitigates risks, such as data loss and service downtime, ensuring a smooth transition. Maximizing ROI. Backed by their multi-year expertise, CTOs ensure that modernization efforts focus on high-impact areas only to deliver the fastest returns on investment. Why Choose JetRuby’s CTO as a Service Over Staff Augmentation? While Staff Augmentation can temporarily increase your team’s capacity, it lacks the strategic oversight necessary for comprehensive modernization projects. Here’s why JetRuby’s CTO as a Service is the superior option: Comprehensive leadership. Our CTO as a Service provides team lead-level expertise to oversee the entire project, ensuring modernization aligns with your business goals. Stable team development. We build a cohesive, high-performing team to drive long-term success. Tailored solutions. Unlike Staff Augmentation, CTO as a Service delivers custom solutions tailored to your business needs. Legacy systems can jeopardize your business’s growth, but with a strategic modernization effort using Ruby on Rails, you can enhance agility, improve security, and scale for the future. JetRuby’s CTO as a Service offers the leadership and expertise needed to ensure a successful transition, helping you build a foundation for long-term success. We help businesses transition from short-term gains to long-term growth. By prioritizing efforts that deliver returns in the years to come, we help companies lay the groundwork for sustained success. When promoting and evaluating digital self-service adoption, we focus on the years ahead to ensure our customers are positioned for future success. This forward-thinking strategy gives our clients a competitive edge. Done right, this recalibration can set us apart in a meaningful way. ### Tech Leadership Arena: CTO as a Service & CTO Co-Pilot Think of the headaches that come with building a technology stack from scratch — the endless budgeting, installations, and constant upkeep. What if you could skip all that and simply access what you need, whenever you need it? That’s the promise of the "Everything as a Service" (XaaS) model, led by giants like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. XaaS allows organizations to outsource some functions to service providers who handle the heavy lifting. This approach lets businesses focus on big-picture goals, cut costs, and increase flexibility. Here’s how XaaS models help: Improve efficiency with centralized management, deliver real-time analytics, and cut down maintenance needs. Service managers handle infrastructure to minimize downtime. Provide businesses with ready-to-go online platforms. As a result, they launch new apps or products much faster instead of spending weeks setting up physical servers and installing software. Support scalability and let organizations adjust resources as needed, making it easy to meet demand without high investment and global expansion. Help control costs by shifting expenses from capital to operational, making advanced tools more accessible with low upfront costs and automatic upgrades. Handle all the routine technical work, like keeping software up-to-date, fixing bugs, and making sure the system is secure. Reduce hardware costs to run services. Instead of buying expensive equipment like servers and storage, companies only pay for what they use. Enable easy cloud migration and improved data flow, helping companies focus on innovation and customer service. Access to advanced tech like AI and IoT without major investment encourages growth and helps stay competitive and agile. Here are a few XaaS service types to consider: In 2021, the global XaaS market was valued at USD 191.83 billion, with a projected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.3% from 2022 to 2030. This fast growth comes from the rise of cloud computing, remote access, and subscription-based models. These models let businesses pay only for what they need and reduce upfront costs. Here’s how exactly: CTO as a Service (CTOaaS) extends this model, giving businesses access to expert technical leadership on demand. Like XaaS, CTOaaS allows companies to adapt quickly by providing guidance in technology strategy, digital transformation, and team management without a full-time CTO. XaaS and the Rise of CTO as a Service (CTOaaS) CTOaaS provides on-demand expert guidance and strategic technical oversight without hiring a full-time Chief Technology Officer (CTO). This model is gaining significant traction among mid-sized companies, startups, and enterprises undergoing rapid digital transformation, especially those lacking in-house technical leadership. When implementing new technology stacks, CTOaaS professionals select and integrate a client-oriented set of tools to ensure a smooth transition with minimal disruption. For digital transformations, they create strategic plans, help employees adjust to updated systems, and introduce innovative solutions that align with the business’s vision. CTOaaS also helps IT departments identify bottlenecks and enhance team skills through leadership and training. As part of the broader XaaS trend, CTOaaS enables companies to leverage the latest technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Let’s see how CTOaaS benefits businesses. [table id=19 /] XaaS & CTOaaS: Boosting Efficiency Across Industries Media and entertainment, healthcare, BFSI (banking, financial services, and insurance), oil and gas, and IT and telecom sectors are increasingly adopting XaaS models. By shifting from large upfront investments to pay-as-you-go services, these industries lower initial costs and improve budget flexibility. For example, businesses can use services like Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage to store large volumes of files without the need for physical servers. These platforms allow companies to automatically scale their storage according to real-time demands. If a business experiences a surge in data during peak seasons, the system adjusts automatically. Automated monitoring tools, such as Azure Monitor or Datadog, provide real-time insights into data performance. They track metrics like data retrieval times and storage capacity usage. If the system detects an issue, such as slow response times, it can alert IT teams instantly. Integrating CTO as a Service (CTOaaS) and CTO Co-Pilot services further amplifies these benefits by offering strategic technology leadership and hands-on support. CTOaaS, combined with other fractional executive services like CFOaaS and CMOaaS, ensures well-coordinated strategic planning across various departments. This fusion helps: Unify technology, finance, and marketing strategies to support overall business goals. Facilitate regular collaboration and information sharing among executives for cohesive decision-making. Combine insights from different departments for more informed and holistic strategic decisions. Coordinate initiatives and optimize resource allocation across departments. Enable integrated risk assessments and proactive problem-solving across technology, finance, and marketing. Align scalable technology infrastructure with sustainable financial models and effective marketing strategies. Which Solution is Right for You? With the above-mentioned advantages in mind, let’s compare CTO as a Service (CTOaaS) and CTO Co-Pilot to help determine which model best aligns with your organization’s strategic technology needs and operational goals. [table id=20 /] CTO as a Service (CTOaaS) is ideal for organizations that need comprehensive technology leadership to build or revamp their IT departments, especially during significant transitions like digital transformation or startup growth phases. It offers extensive support in establishing high-performing teams, managing delivery, and addressing IT challenges. CTO Co-Pilot is best suited for companies with a CTO but require additional specialized support for specific projects or initiatives. It provides targeted assistance in strategic planning, technology upgrades, and process improvements without the commitment of a full-time executive. By understanding these distinctions, businesses can select the service that best aligns with their strategic technology needs and operational goals. Implementing CTO as a Service: The NameCoach Case The NameCoach project, which works with enterprise clients such as LinkedIn, Salesforce, and Google, faced significant challenges in scaling its development processes. As the company grew, the development team struggled with prioritizing tasks across multiple products, resulting in chaotic workflows and unpredictable product releases. This chaos was exacerbated by frequent support requests and an absence of a long-term product roadmap. To address these issues, NameCoach opted for CTO as a Service (CTOaaS), bringing in external strategic leadership to guide the technical direction and improve development efficiency. Key steps in the implementation Restructuring the Development Framework JetRuby’s CTOaaS introduced the LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum) framework to handle the complexity of managing multiple development teams. LeSS helped unify the product backlog, streamline task prioritization, and ensure that all teams worked towards the same business goals. This was a crucial change from the previous chaotic development cycles, where priorities were unclear and teams switched between products without proper planning. Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities The CTOaaS service implemented a clear division of responsibilities using a RACI matrix. This tool clarified who was responsible for specific tasks, accountable for delivery, consulted on key decisions, and kept informed. The roles of the CTO, product managers, and team leads were all clearly defined, leading to better communication and accountability within the team. Results Development velocity increased by 103%, as teams received clear, prioritized tasks and could focus on execution without delays. Bug rates dropped by 63%, indicating a substantial improvement in product quality. The development process is transparent, and upper management can monitor progress more effectively and make better-informed decisions. Through the CTOaaS model, NameCoach was able to overcome the typical scaling challenges, stabilize its development processes, and deliver higher-quality products more predictably. The Future of CTO Services CTO as a Service (CTOaaS) and CTO Co-pilot are transforming technology leadership for modern businesses. According to Triton Market Research, the Global Everything as A Service (XaaS) Market is estimated to witness revenue growth at a CAGR of 20.94% during the forecast period 2023-2030. In 2022, the market attained $567.41 billion and is expected to reap revenue worth $2610.98 billion by 2030. This rapid growth reflects the increasing demand for adaptable, cloud-based technology solutions, placing CTOaaS and CTO Co-pilot at the forefront of this expansion. CTOaaS provides organizations with access to experienced technology leaders who optimize IT infrastructure and manage digital transformation efforts without the need for a full-time executive. In parallel, CTO Co-pilot services deliver continuous support and collaboration, ensuring that IT strategies align with business goals and are responsive to emerging trends. These services enhance cybersecurity, facilitate proactive problem-solving, and promote sustainable IT practices. As the XaaS market expands, CTOaaS and CTO Co-pilot services are becoming popular within organizations that want to navigate technological complexities and maintain a competitive edge. If you have any questions left, please don’t hesitate to contact us. ### Revitalize Your Enterprise: Overcome Stagnation with AI and Staff Augmentation We often receive strange calls about computer viruses, unpaid tax claims, threats, or road accidents we supposedly had — events that, of course, never happened. These aren’t just random errors or cases of mistaken identity; they’re part of a broader, troubling trend. Fraud and mis-selling are on the rise, and this is no coincidence. In a world of economic stagnation, where legitimate business opportunities are increasingly scarce, some entrepreneurs resort to unethical methods to sustain themselves. Stagnation isn't just about flat productivity, wages, or investments; it seeps into every aspect of our lives. These scams reflect more than personal hardship — they signal deeper issues within the economy. With fewer legitimate paths to growth, some businesses and individuals turn to fraud. While it’s not the only consequence of stagnation, it serves as a stark reminder that when growth stalls, so do opportunities. Though stagnation may seem like an unavoidable part of the business cycle, with the right strategies - such as staff augmentation and addressing technical debt - businesses can overcome these barriers and return to a growth trajectory. Let’s explore how this works. Recognize the Causes A critical challenge for enterprises is recognizing that stagnation often arises when too much effort is dedicated to maintaining existing infrastructure rather than pushing forward with innovation. This problem is compounded by technical debt, where legacy systems and outdated technologies are patched together, requiring more attention and resources than they are worth. As a result, businesses find that despite their best efforts, progress is slow, and product development lags behind market needs. Another issue is the lack of skilled personnel to implement crucial new features and processes. As businesses grow, they often find that their internal teams are not adequately equipped or are overburdened, leaving little room for the development of new, high-impact innovations. This bottleneck can be a major reason for stagnation. Staff Augmentation JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation is designed to solve these problems by providing immediate access to highly skilled developers who can augment your existing team. Rather than hiring permanent staff, which can be a time-consuming and costly process, Staff Augmentation offers a flexible solution where developers are added to your team based on current project needs. These developers are not freelancers or short-term contractors — they are part of a cohesive, well-integrated team that can hit the ground running from day one. Key Benefits of Staff Augmentation Immediate access to expertise JetRuby developers bring deep knowledge and experience, allowing your business to accelerate development without the delays of onboarding new, full-time staff. Seamless integration Our developers are experienced in working as part of cohesive teams, meaning they integrate quickly into your processes without the adjustment period typically seen with new hires. Flexibility and scalability Staff Augmentation allows you to scale your team up or down depending on your business needs, ensuring that you have the right number of developers at the right time without long-term commitments. By leveraging Staff Augmentation, your business can allocate resources where they are needed most, whether that’s developing innovative new features or maintaining your infrastructure more efficiently. Expertise That Delivers Faster, Higher-Quality Results One of the unique strengths of JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation service is that our developers bring expert-level skills and leverage advanced AI-backed tools to deliver faster higher-quality results. This ensures that your project is completed more efficiently and with fewer errors than traditional development methods. JetRuby developers use AI to automate repetitive tasks, streamline processes, and predict potential issues before they arise. This allows them to focus on high-impact areas of development, improving the overall quality of the product while speeding up delivery. As a result, tasks are often completed up to 30% faster, giving your business a significant edge in terms of both time and cost savings. How AI-backed development helps: Automated testing and code review AI tools help automate essential but time-consuming tasks like code testing and review, ensuring that bugs and security vulnerabilities are caught early in the process. Predictive analytics AI allows our developers to predict project bottlenecks and allocate resources more efficiently, ensuring that the development process stays on track. Optimized workflows By automating routine processes, AI frees up developers to focus on more strategic, value-driven tasks, leading to higher-quality outcomes. Reduce Technical Debt with Expert Assistance Technical debt is one of the primary drivers of enterprise stagnation. Over time, legacy systems accumulate patches, workarounds, and inefficiencies that slow down future development. These outdated systems create a burden on internal teams, as they are forced to spend most of their time maintaining old infrastructure rather than developing new features or products. JetRuby’s developers are experienced in addressing and reducing technical debt. By utilizing AI tools, our team can identify and address inefficiencies in your system, optimizing your infrastructure for greater scalability and performance. This allows your internal team to refocus on innovation, while our developers handle the technical debt that has been holding you back. Steps to reduce technical debt: System audits We perform in-depth audits to identify where technical debt is accumulating and how it can be reduced. Process optimization Our developers implement best practices to streamline workflows, making systems more efficient and easier to maintain. Ongoing maintenance By continuously monitoring and updating your systems, we help ensure that technical debt does not accumulate again in the future. Overcome Enterprise Challenges JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation is designed to help businesses overcome the common challenges that lead to stagnation, including resource shortages, technical debt, and slow product development. Our developers provide the expertise, flexibility, and scalability that enterprises need to stay competitive in a fast-moving market. Resource shortages By bringing in our developers through Staff Augmentation, you gain access to expert-level talent without long-term hiring commitments. The internal team focuses on high-priority tasks while our developers handle the rest. Technical debt management Our team specializes in reducing technical debt, ensuring that your systems run more efficiently, and freeing up resources for innovation. Slow product development With JetRuby’s developers on board, your team can accelerate product development, meeting deadlines faster and with higher-quality outcomes. Our developers are ready to tackle new feature development or assist with maintaining existing infrastructure. Cultural fit and adaptability Our developers work within your time zone and adapt seamlessly to your processes, ensuring smooth collaboration and minimal disruption to your operations. Grow Through Stagnation Enterprise stagnation doesn’t have to be a roadblock to growth. By leveraging Staff Augmentation and AI-backed development, JetRuby provides the expertise and flexibility needed to address both technical debt and resource shortages. Our developers offer immediate assistance with current projects and optimize your systems for long-term success. With the ability to scale your team, tackle technical debt, and improve overall productivity, JetRuby is the ideal partner to help your business overcome stagnation and drive innovation forward. Let JetRuby help you reinvigorate your enterprise, reduce inefficiencies, and create a roadmap for sustainable growth. Our Staff Augmentation service, combined with AI-backed development, ensures your business stays competitive and ready for the future. ### The End of Ruby on Rails: Upgrade Now and Thrive with JetRuby! At JetRuby Agency, we understand that while technology constantly evolves, certain frameworks, like Ruby on Rails, delivers lasting value. Ruby on Rails goes beyond being a framework — it's a philosophy for building clean, efficient code. However, as with all software, each version eventually reaches its End of Life (EOL), meaning it no longer receives official support, updates, or security patches, leaving applications vulnerable. New Ruby on Rails maintenance policy Recently Ruby on Rails has introduced a new maintenance policy that can be confusing for new and existing projects. The new policies apply to releases starting with Rails 7.2. One of the most significant changes is that releases will now have a fixed maintenance period of 1-2 years. New features will be added every six months, but only in major and minor releases, not in patch releases. If there isn’t a new release within a year, support for the latest release will be extended until the next one. Bug fixes will be applied to minor releases for one year from their release date, with fixes backported to the latest stable version when necessary. For example, support for Rails 7.2.1 (released on December 1, 2024) will continue until December 1, 2025. Current bug fix support dates are 7.2.x until August 9, 2025, and 7.1.x until October 1, 2024. Security fixes are provided for up to two years after a minor release, after which the version is marked end-of-life (EOL). The current timelines for security support include 7.2.x until August 9, 2026, and 7.1.x until October 1, 2025. Security support is vital for ensuring project compliance, and developers should keep track of these updates to maintain app security. You can find updated support details and end-of-life dates to keep your project compliant at endoflife.date/rails. Keep track of Rails’ official EOL dates to ensure your application remains secure. Upgrading keeps your app protected and introduces new features and performance enhancements. Why Upgrade the Ruby on Rails Version? Security Updates within Rails Versions Upgrading your project's Rails version is vital for security. Unsupported versions leave your application vulnerable to known security flaws that can be exploited. Every new release of Rails contains security patches, making it vital to stay current. In a world where cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated, staying ahead of security threats is non-negotiable. By upgrading, you protect your application from current and emerging threats, which builds user trust by ensuring their data is secured with the latest security protocols. Functional Improvements and Tech Debt Reduction Beyond security, upgrading brings functional improvements that can significantly enhance application performance. Every Rails release optimizes backend operations, improving load times, database interactions, and responsiveness. Upgrading also helps reduce tech debt. Outdated code creates bottlenecks and increases development costs, making upgrades essential. A Rails upgrade enables teams to refactor outdated functionalities, streamline processes, and focus on innovations without being held back by old code. This aligns your application with modern technologies, ensuring competitiveness and long-term scalability. Potential Challenges After Updates Lack of Backward Compatibility Rails upgrades may introduce changes that are not compatible with older code. This can result in higher development costs as teams may need to rewrite or refactor parts of the application. It’s important to carefully evaluate the impact before proceeding for larger projects. Inability to Roll Back Updates Legacy projects can be difficult to roll back if issues arise during an update. Complex codebases, especially those developed over time by multiple teams, can make rolling back an update time-consuming and disruptive, leading to prolonged downtime. Inconsistent Library Updates When Rails releases a new version, some libraries update faster than others, creating compatibility issues. Some libraries (gems) may depend on an older version of Rails, making it difficult to update both the framework and its dependencies simultaneously. Beyond Tools: Expertise That Delivers Results Contact Our Legacy Modernization Expert Book an introductory call with our subject matter expert on updating the legacy Ruby on Rails codebase, and share your pain points, so we can handle them jointly. Book a Call Sergey Goncharov Head Of Business Unit The success of any project isn’t just about the technology — it’s about the expertise of the team behind it. At JetRuby, we’ve spent years cultivating expert Ruby on Rails developers who follow best practices and stay up-to-date with the latest advancements. Whether you’re building an MVP or a large-scale enterprise application, our team knows how to optimize Rails for security, scalability, and performance. Here's how our Tech Leads ensure the seamless and secure implementation of updates: Ensuring Security Our Tech Leads stay informed on the latest Rails versions and their End of Life (EOL) dates. They maintain timely updates to protect our applications from vulnerabilities, prioritizing upgrades when security patches are released to mitigate potential threats. To further enhance security, we utilize tools like Brakeman, a Ruby library that checks code for common vulnerabilities, and other services that notify us of the end-of-support dates for both the framework and the libraries we use. Tech Leads continuously monitor these dates to ensure compliance with security standards. Planning and Strategy Our Tech Leads collaborate with project stakeholders to strategically plan updates, integrating them smoothly into the development cycle. They assess the impact on current features, schedule any required downtime, and ensure minimal disruption to the workflow. Technical Guidance JetRuby's Tech Leads provide expert technical direction throughout the update process, ensuring best practices are followed. They oversee testing on new Rails versions, address compatibility issues, and review dependencies to ensure optimal performance. To maintain security throughout the update process, we use advanced scanning tools like Snyk and AWS image scanning to detect vulnerabilities in the codebase and its dependencies. Additionally, we incorporate tools like Brakeman, a Ruby library that identifies common code vulnerabilities, for thorough code reviews. Our Tech Leads also track end-of-support dates for the language, framework, and libraries in use, ensuring we stay proactive in addressing potential security or compatibility risks. Code Quality and Performance Regular updates offer performance improvements, and our Tech Leads ensure that new Rails features are leveraged to boost efficiency. They refine the codebase, remove deprecated functionalities, and uphold long-term code quality. Team Collaboration and Training Tech Leads cultivate a collaborative environment by informing the team about the benefits of upgrading and providing training on new Rails features. This ensures the team remains aligned and proficient with the latest tools and versions. Through these efforts, JetRuby guarantees that our applications stay secure, efficient, and prepared for future growth. Rails is the Answer, and JetRuby Makes It Work With the release of Rails 7.2, the maintenance strategy for Rails applications is shifting significantly. For teams using older versions, it’s essential to understand the impact of these updates. Operating on an unsupported or soon-to-be End of Life (EOL) version exposes your project to serious risks, including security vulnerabilities and performance issues. Staying informed about the new maintenance policies will allow your team to plan effectively and prioritize upgrading to a supported version. If you're ready to upgrade your Rails application but unsure where to start, we’re here to help. Let us handle the upgrade and ensure your application remains secure and up-to-date! ### Why Managed Delivery is a Software Development Breakthrough Choosing the right delivery model is key to ensuring project success. Various software delivery models present distinct advantages tailored to the specific requirements. Traditional models like Waterfall emphasize linear, sequential phases, while Agile focuses on iterative development, and DevOps integrates development and operations for continuous delivery. Although these models vary in approach, they all require effective organization and management to achieve successful outcomes. What is Managed Delivery? The Software Delivery Management (SDM) model is transforming modern software development. Unlike traditional delivery models that often rely on fragmented processes and isolated teams, SDM unifies all facets of the software delivery pipeline into a cohesive, transparent system. This model integrates data from every stage of development, from back-office operations to the delivery toolchain, offering organizations a holistic view of the software in progress and its business impact. The SDM model proves particularly valuable for breaking down silos within organizations, facilitating better collaboration, and enabling more informed decision-making. By centralizing access to real-time data, SDM ensures that all teams - from development to operations - are aligned on project objectives, timelines, and business goals. Additionally, SDM tools allow companies to optimize and adapt their software to meet market demands. This comprehensive and integrated approach ensures the delivery process is streamlined, efficient, and geared toward driving business growth. In Managed Delivery, a specialized team or vendor takes full responsibility for delivering a project or specific outcomes, overseeing every aspect of the development process. This model ensures that projects meet deadlines, remain within scope, and adhere to the budget while maintaining high-quality standards. Through diligent management of planning, execution, monitoring, and communication, Managed Delivery offers a structured and accountable approach to software development, providing clients with assurance and optimal results. How It Works Clear Project Scope and Objectives The first step involves defining the project scope, deliverables, and objectives in collaboration with the client. This helps align expectations and establish key milestones. Team Allocation and Management A dedicated team - including project managers, developers, testers, and quality assurance specialists - oversees day-to-day operations to ensure smooth progress. Often, the team may also include external consultants or experts, depending on the project’s complexity or industry-specific requirements. Risk Management Managed Delivery identifies and mitigates risks early in the development. Regular assessments and contingency planning prevent issues from escalating, safeguarding quality and timeline. This includes both technical risks and business risks that may impact project outcomes. Continuous Monitoring and Reporting The Managed Delivery team updates the client on the project’s progress. This ensures transparency and allows for timely adjustments to stay on track. Tools like project management software and dashboards offer real-time updates on key performance indicators (KPIs). Quality Assurance Built-in quality control processes ensure thorough testing at every phase, reducing defects and improving overall product quality. Automated testing tools and continuous integration practices enhance efficiency and accuracy in testing. Benefits of Managed Delivery Risk Reduction By proactively managing potential risks, Managed Delivery helps avoid delays, budget overruns, and quality issues. The model also ensures compliance with industry standards and regulations, reducing legal and operational risks. Improved Quality Dedicated teams and continuous testing guarantee that the software meets high standards and functions as intended. Adherence to Deadlines and Finances The structured approach, along with careful monitoring, keeps projects on schedule and within budget, minimizing unexpected costs or delays. This also enables clients to optimize resource allocation and maintain operational efficiency during project execution. The Role of the Service Delivery Manager In the Managed Delivery model, the Service Delivery Manager’s (SDM) primary role is overseeing the entire delivery process. Key responsibilities include: Client Communication Maintaining transparent communication between the client and team, ensuring feedback is integrated into the development process. Project Oversight Monitoring progress, addressing issues, and ensuring adherence to scope, timelines, and budget. This includes reviewing tickets, coordinating changes, and informing stakeholders through status updates. Risk Management Identifying and mitigating risks, managing incidents, and leading root cause analysis to prevent recurrences. Quality Assurance Ensuring deliverables meet quality standards by working with testing teams and reviewing communications for consistency. Resource Management Managing time, staff, and tools efficiently, including administrative tasks like timecards, PTO, and onboarding new clients. They also coordinate cross-functional resources when needed. SLA Adherence Ensuring service delivery meets SLAs and developing KPIs to improve performance and client retention. Team Leadership Recruiting, developing staff, and fostering a collaborative environment aligned with company goals. In larger teams, the SDM may engage in higher-level responsibilities like model design, labor analysis, and strategic planning to optimize operations and drive growth. Team Augmentation as an alternative In addition to the Managed Delivery model, businesses may opt for Team Augmentation as a flexible staffing solution. Team Augmentation enables companies to scale their development capacity by integrating external experts into their existing teams. This model offers several key advantages: Scalability Quickly adjust the number of team members based on project requirements. Cost Efficiency Access specialized talent without incurring the overhead costs of full-time employees. Skill Gap Bridging Obtain niche skills that may not be available in-house. Although Team Augmentation provides valuable flexibility, it requires close collaboration between in-house teams and external resources to ensure project objectives and workflows align. Team Augmentation vs. Managed Delivery Team Augmentation differs from Managed Delivery in that the client retains control over project management and strategy, while external experts fill specific skill gaps. In contrast, Managed Delivery transfers full responsibility for project execution and outcomes to the vendor. This distinction makes Managed Delivery ideal for companies seeking a more hands-off approach, whereas Team Augmentation is suited for those needing to strengthen internal teams with external expertise. The JetRuby Approach to Managed Delivery At JetRuby, we prioritize the Managed Delivery model, offering a comprehensive solution for clients who need professional management for their software development projects. This approach enables us to provide a high-caliber team of specialists and the management expertise required to oversee and guide the project. The Managed Delivery model is our preferred method of collaboration, and we consistently recommend it to clients seeking efficient and reliable project outcomes. What is Managed Delivery at JetRuby? The Managed Delivery model provides the client with a development team and project management, expertly handled by JetRuby. Unlike traditional outsourcing or staff augmentation models, we take full responsibility for the team’s performance and the project’s success. This includes setting strategy, managing the team, and ensuring the project is completed on time, within budget, and to the highest quality standards. One of the core benefits of this model is that we adapt the team structure based on the client’s budget and business goals. While we develop software for the client, our management team adjusts resources as needed, making the entire process more flexible and cost-effective. There are no separate rate cards for different team member levels; instead, we offer a flat hourly rate, making the cost structure straightforward for clients. Moving Beyond Traditional Outsourcing JetRuby’s Managed Delivery approach transcends traditional outsourcing models by providing a professional service that ensures complete project management and delivery responsibility. Our focus is on delivering results rather than simply offering temporary team extensions. By partnering with us, clients can focus on their core business, while we take care of every aspect of the development process. CTO Co-Pilot and CTO as a Service We offer two key products as part of our managed delivery services: CTO Co-Pilot and CTO as a Service. These solutions are designed for companies that require varying levels of technical leadership and expertise: CTO Co-Pilot is perfect for companies with a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) who require additional support to manage their tech stack more efficiently. The role of the CTO Co-Pilot is typically played by an experienced technology expert or a dedicated team provided by a service provider. This individual or team understands technology management, development processes, and industry best practices. They work alongside the company’s CTO to offer guidance, operational support, and strategic insight, helping manage the tech stack, optimize workflows, and align the technical direction with business objectives. CTO as a Service is tailored for companies without an in-house CTO. This service provides an outsourced CTO who takes on the full responsibilities of a Chief Technology Officer without needing to hire someone permanently. JetRuby provides full IT leadership, offering our expertise in managing development teams, setting technology strategies, and ensuring the project aligns with the company’s broader business objectives. The base cost of these services is 30% of the development team's cost, covering essential roles such as Delivery Manager, Team Lead (serving as CTO), Business Analyst (BA), and UI/UX Designer. As the team expands, the client's cost decreases proportionally, though it will not fall below 20% of the total project cost. Why Choose JetRuby’s Managed Delivery? JetRuby’s Managed Delivery model is designed for clients who value high-quality results and reliable project management. By handling both the development and management of the team, we ensure a seamless and accountable process from start to finish. This model allows us to be fully responsible for achieving project goals while offering the flexibility to adjust the team structure to meet budget and business needs. Whether you seek technical leadership through our CTO solutions or require an expert team, JetRuby’s Managed Delivery approach guarantees that your software development goals are achieved efficiently and effectively. The Value of Managed Delivery in Software Development. At JetRuby, we offer both Team Augmentation and Managed Delivery models, allowing clients to choose the best fit for their goals. The Managed Delivery model provides clear benefits by handling full project management and execution, allowing businesses to focus on core objectives while we ensure timely, high-quality results. This approach offers flexibility and accountability, ensuring projects meet deadlines, budgets, and quality standards. Clients develop the strategy, and our team manages the rest. With services like CTO Co-Pilot and CTO as a Service, Managed Delivery drives efficiency, reduces risk, and supports business growth. ### Shaping Tomorrow: JetRuby’s Talent Management as a Service What is TaaS? Talent Management as a Service (TaaS) is a flexible, on-demand model that enables businesses to access skilled software developers, engineers, and technical experts as needed. Instead of hiring full-time employees, companies leverage TaaS to scale their teams, adapt to evolving project requirements, and achieve their development goals without the long-term commitments and overheads of traditional hiring. JetRuby’s approach At JetRuby Agency, we understand that many companies offer services similar to ours. However, what sets us apart is our unwavering dedication to nurturing talent and delivering excellence. We achieve this through a carefully crafted approach encompassing rigorous training, continuous skill development, and a relentless pursuit of innovation. Our team is committed to staying ahead of industry trends and technologies, ensuring that we always provide cutting-edge solutions to our clients, here's how we do it: Mastering Ruby on Rails We've chosen to specialize in Ruby on Rails, making it our defining characteristic. Unlike agencies that spread their expertise across various technologies, we focus exclusively on this framework. Here’s why that focus matters: Deep Expertise With over 250 projects completed, including collaborations with clients like OSRAM Urban Farming, Financial Times OpenFT, and Glowforge, we’ve acquired unparalleled knowledge. Our developers stay updated with the latest Rails trends through our internal competency center, ensuring we remain at the forefront of the technology. Optimized Solution for Controlled Environment Commercial Crop Production by JetRuby   Open Source Contributions We actively contribute to the open-source community, with our Ruby Gems downloaded over 32 million times. Our notable gem, "apollo_upload_gem" is used by companies like GitHub and Netflix, showcasing our commitment to advancing the Rails ecosystem. Growing Talent Base Our team comprises over 100 Ruby on Rails developers, each with a minimum of two years of commercial experience. Through our Ruby on Rails Academy, we don’t just hire experienced professionals—we cultivate new talent, allowing us to scale client teams within 10 business days. A Technological Culture Built on Four Pillars Our technology culture is anchored in four fundamental elements, ensuring we consistently deliver top-quality solutions. Delivery We emphasize speed, quality, and transparency. Through open reporting with Time Spent Reports, transparent Jira project management, and regular progress syncs, clients stay involved, fostering a collaborative environment. Technical Expertise Our engineers cover a broad range of technology stacks and architectural approaches. We continuously advance our skills by engaging in R&D, internal training, and specialized conferences. This knowledge is digitized into a competency matrix, ensuring every team member’s growth is mapped and measured. Infrastructure We understand that writing code is just one part of the puzzle. Our architects design infrastructures capable of handling growth, hosting failures, and security breaches, ensuring scalable, reliable, and cost-efficient solutions for our clients. Communication Our communication principles are transparency, regularity, openness, and professionalism. Developers proactively address challenges and propose solutions, building trust and fostering collaboration with clients. AI-Supported Software Development JetRuby Agency integrates artificial intelligence into software development emphasizing ethical practices. Our commitment to ethical AI development is embedded in a comprehensive set of guidelines that ensure our AI systems are developed and deployed responsibly, transparently, and with respect for users' rights. We proactively address AI's privacy paradox by prioritizing algorithmic transparency and data ownership. Rather than just complying with existing regulations, we work closely with clients to anticipate the need for more robust data protection and AI governance. Our privacy policy ensures that client data is used in AI applications only with explicit consent, maintaining transparency and security in all AI-driven processes. Collaboration, transparency, and accountability are at the core of our processes. By aligning ethically with stakeholders, we ensure our AI solutions meet business objectives while upholding fundamental human rights. Innovation and privacy can coexist, forming the foundation of responsible AI development. Leveraging AI gives us a significant edge in our workflow. By incorporating AI tools like Copilot and ChatGPT, we accelerate routine tasks, saving up to 30% more time compared to traditional development. Predictive analysis with AI helps identify potential vulnerabilities, maintain code reliability, and prevent technical debt. AI also accelerates documentation and test scenarios, integrating them efficiently into the development cycle, unlike many companies that charge extra for this service. ISO-Driven People Management We are proud to be the first European IT company certified under ISO 30414 and ISO 10018 standards for people management, reflecting our commitment to nurturing talent: ISO 30414 focuses on human capital management, providing guidelines for evaluating performance, retention, and diversity. This allows us to optimize employee productivity, making our team members 35% more effective over six months than similar-grade developers in other companies. ISO 10018 emphasizes employee engagement. We’ve cultivated an environment where engineers feel valued, contributing directly to their motivation and job satisfaction. As a result, our retention rate surpasses the industry average, with most engineers staying with us for over four years. We ensure high-quality services and a team that continually evolves by adhering to these standards, leading to lower costs and greater efficiency for our clients. A prime example of how our ISO-powered HR management system benefits clients is through our "CTO as a Service" model. This service provides high-caliber technical leadership that oversees projects from start to finish, minimizing risks, boosting efficiency, and maximizing return on investment. But that’s not all. Partnering with an ISO-certified software development company brings several key advantages to your business. Meeting Expectations The "International" and "Standardization" in "ISO" signify that ISO-certified vendors adhere to globally recognized grading systems, ensuring compliance with international standards. This eliminates the risk of misclassifying junior developers as mid-level or assigning leadership roles to engineers lacking management skills. Every role and title aligns with industry benchmarks Addressing Turnover Risks High turnover in outsourced development can cause project delays due to lengthy onboarding processes for new staff, typically taking 3 to 6 months. However, we mitigate these risks with the support of ISO 30414 and ISO 10018 standards. Our internal data shows that our engineers are highly satisfied, resulting in an average tenure of over four years. Scalability ISO standards have enabled us to create an efficient HR system, allowing us to hire and onboard dozens of new employees as needed. Thanks to our Ruby Academy and its rigorously screened graduates, we are well-prepared to support rapid team expansion without delays or complications. Value Alignment Successful collaboration relies on shared values and meeting expectations. ISO standards ensure that regardless of location, project type, or cultural background, our engineers integrate seamlessly into your team and align with your business goals. Additionally, the stability and consistency we maintain through adherence to ISO standards result in fewer disruptions and a smoother path to project completion. For businesses, this reliability is crucial in navigating the challenges of digital transformation. Talent Management as a Service Talent management is a service we offer to clients through our proprietary ERP.CORE platform. This platform ensures that clients always have access to the right expertise at the right time. HR Management Platform for Strategic Resource Planning by JetRuby   Resource Planning We balance workloads, prevent burnout and align developers' competencies with project needs. This flexibility allows us to scale teams rapidly without compromising quality. Optimized Team Building With weekly updates on developers’ skills and experience, we match the best talent for each project, reducing risks and enhancing overall performance. Scalability Our HR platform helps us quickly expand teams to meet client demands, especially in fast-paced or dynamic environments. Employee Retention By using intelligent HR systems, we ensure the long-term integration of team members, strategically placing them on projects that match their skills and interests. Building the Future Together TaaS offers companies the flexibility, expertise, and resources needed to remain competitive in today’s market. It’s an ideal solution for startups, mid-sized companies, and enterprises looking to accelerate growth, improve efficiency, and maintain a high standard of software development without the challenges of traditional hiring. By providing Talent Management as a Service, software development companies can become strategic partners, empowering clients to build high-performing teams, execute projects more efficiently, and drive their business forward. At JetRuby, our approach to talent development goes beyond hiring skilled engineers — it’s about nurturing, supporting, and engaging them to ensure they remain motivated and invested in their work. This philosophy allows us to deliver high-quality, efficient, and cost-effective solutions that drive our clients' success. By specializing in Ruby on Rails, leveraging AI, adhering to ISO standards, and offering talent management as a service, we’re not just building software — we’re building the future, one expert at a time. ### Stay Sharp: Tackling Tech Fatigue in Ruby Tech fatigue is a state of mental and emotional exhaustion that arises from the constant need to keep up with rapid technological advancements, and for Ruby developers working within a dynamic ecosystem, this pressure to stay updated often leads to burnout and frustration. This familiar feeling, known as developer fatigue, emerges when you stare at your IDE, fully aware that an external tool could save you time, yet lacking the energy to implement it due to the overwhelming mental load. Recognizing and understanding these sources of fatigue is quite important. The Overwhelming Pace of Technological Change The fast-paced tech landscape is exciting but relentless. New frameworks, libraries, and languages emerge almost weekly. The pressure to stay updated can be draining, leading to decision paralysis and burnout. The more options available, the harder it is to choose and feel confident about your decisions, contributing to fatigue. The Pressure of Constant Connectivity The expectation to always be available and deliver high-quality code blurs the line between work and personal life. This constant connectivity leads to exhaustion, especially in cultures where burnout is stigmatized, and productivity is expected around the clock. The Weight of Total Responsibility Today’s developers are expected to handle every stage of the software lifecycle, from ideation to maintenance. This wide range of responsibilities can dilute specialization and make it hard to keep up with every aspect, resulting in fatigue and overwhelmedness. The Burden of Too Many Tools Modern projects are often loaded with external dependencies — IDEs, cloud services, package managers, and more. Each tool introduces additional complexity, updates, and potential security risks, increasing cognitive load and stress. Strategies to Combat Tech Fatigue Prioritize Learning and Focus on Essentials Selective Learning Instead of attempting to learn every new trend, focus on skills that align with your current projects or long-term goals. For example, if you’re maintaining a monolithic Rails application, prioritize learning about incremental updates to Rails rather than jumping into a microservices architecture unless it's relevant. Create a Learning Roadmap Define what you need to learn and break it into manageable steps. This helps avoid feeling overwhelmed and allows for steady progress. Break Down Learning into Manageable Chunks Micro-Learning Sessions Engage in short, focused learning sessions instead of marathon study periods. Dedicating 30 minutes to a specific topic ensures consistent progress without overloading your mind. Apply What You Learn Implement new knowledge in real projects, even on a small scale. This reinforces learning and provides practical experience, making the knowledge stick. Leverage the Ruby Community for Support and Guidance The Ruby community is an invaluable resource for managing tech fatigue: Ask for Help Participate in forums like Stack Overflow or the Ruby on Rails Discussions group to seek advice or solutions. Attend Meetups and Conferences Engaging with peers can provide insights into how others manage similar challenges. Events like RailsConf or RubyKaigi offer opportunities to learn and share experiences. Example: A developer struggling with Rails upgrades might find comfort in discovering that others face the same challenges. Sharing solutions or learning from others' experiences can significantly reduce feelings of isolation. Refactor Legacy Code Gradually Tackle Small Sections When dealing with legacy code, aim to refactor small parts rather than attempting a complete overhaul. This approach reduces stress and makes the process more manageable. Address Tech Debt Incrementally Prioritize tech debt based on its impact and gradually refactor problematic areas, ensuring you don’t disrupt the workflow or overwhelm yourself. Tip: Use tools like rubocop to identify code issues and improve your application. Integrating Security and Maintenance into Your Workflow Automate Where Possible Use automation tools to handle routine tasks such as dependency updates (dependabot) or vulnerability checks (bundler-audit). This frees up time for more critical tasks and reduces the burden of manual checks. Adopt CI/CD Practices Incorporating continuous integration and deployment practices helps catch issues early and reduces the stress of manual testing or deployment processes. Adopt Mindful Technology Use. Take Breaks Incorporate regular breaks during your workday. Techniques like the Pomodoro Technique (25 minutes of focused work followed by a 5-minute break) can help maintain mental clarity. Avoid Multitasking Focus on one task at a time to reduce cognitive overload. This improves productivity and reduces the feeling of being overwhelmed. How Organizations Can Support Developers Experiencing Tech Fatigue Encourage a Culture of Continuous Learning Provide access to resources like online courses, books, or workshops that allow developers to learn at their own pace. Encourage knowledge-sharing sessions, where team members can present what they've learned, helping everyone stay informed while reducing individual pressure. Promote Work-Life Balance Recognize that downtime is crucial for productivity. Encourage developers to take breaks, use their vacation days, and avoid working outside regular hours. Offer Mentorship Programs Pair junior developers with experienced mentors who can guide them through challenges, reducing the pressure of learning everything independently. Want More Ruby Devs? Train More Ruby Devs One of the most effective solutions to combat tech fatigue is simple - bring in more Ruby developers. However, the question is, how? The answer lies in fostering a pipeline of new talent ready to embrace Ruby and Rails. While the Ruby community is known for its openness and willingness to share knowledge, companies contribute to this growth. This means investing in training programs, mentorship opportunities, and hands-on experience to bridge the gap between beginner and proficient developers. Our Approach: The Ruby Academy We've established the Ruby Academy to address the need for skilled Ruby developers and tackle tech fatigue head-on. It's more than just a training program; it's a comprehensive framework designed to produce seasoned, goal-oriented, highly competent Ruby engineers. Rigorous Selection Process We handpick the best RoR developers on the market and identify rising stars eager to learn and grow. Our Academy maintains a highly competitive 1:200 acceptance rate, ensuring that only the most talented individuals progress. Real-world Experience Beyond theory, we focus on practical training. Candidates in our Academy gain firsthand experience by participating in client projects and working alongside experienced mentors who guide them through the complexities of real-world application development. Mentorship and Growth The mentor-apprentice relationship is at the heart of our program. This personalized guidance provides insights and knowledge beyond tutorials and textbooks, allowing for the transfer of invaluable hands-on experience. Personal Development Plans Each developer's journey is mapped out with a clear plan, ensuring they have a structured path for growth. This plan helps them progress from Academy graduates to full-fledged engineers ready to tackle challenging projects. Turn tech fatigue into an opportunity for growth and innovation Tech fatigue is an inevitable challenge, but it’s not insurmountable. By identifying its causes - like the evolving Ruby ecosystem, dealing with legacy code, or the ongoing pressure to stay updated - you can create strategies to strengthen resilience. Prioritizing learning, leveraging community support, managing tech debt, and integrating smart workflows are all effective ways to stay ahead without burning out. Remember, being a successful Ruby developer isn't about mastering everything at once; it's about steadily evolving with the ecosystem in a sustainable, balanced way. By taking a proactive approach, individual developers and organizations can navigate the complexities of the Ruby landscape with confidence, turning tech fatigue into an opportunity for growth and innovation. ### Tech Stack Made Simple: Choose Right, Build Fast When starting a new project, your choice of tech stack can significantly impact your business's success, scalability, and time to market. With numerous options available, making the right decision can feel overwhelming. Should you choose the latest technologies or rely on a tried-and-true stack like Ruby on Rails? Paths to Success. Different tech giants have followed various approaches when choosing their tech stacks. For example, Twitter was initially built on Ruby on Rails but later transitioned to a different platform; Airbnb stayed with Rails, successfully scaling it into the multi-billion-dollar company it is today. The Lesson? While your tech stack isn't the sole determinant of success, it does affect how efficiently you can build, launch, and iterate on your product. If speed, quality, and a fast route to market are top priorities, Ruby on Rails is a strong contender, enabling you to deliver an MVP faster than most other frameworks. Why Ruby on Rails Is Ideal for Web and Enterprise Apps? Ruby on Rails offers several advantages that make it an ideal choice for web and enterprise applications: Rapid Development Thanks to its "convention-over-configuration" philosophy, Rails minimizes setup time, allowing you to focus on building your product quickly. High Code Quality and Flexibility Сombined with Ruby's flexibility, Rails allows developers to create maintainable solutions or opt for faster, simpler implementations. This adaptability enables quick builds that streamline development without sacrificing functionality. Robust Testing Environment Rails comes with built-in testing tools, ensuring the reliability of your code and allowing you to spend more time adding value. Scalability Despite the myth that Rails doesn’t scale, many companies have proven it’s possible with the right infrastructure and experienced developers. Built-in solutions and pre-configured tools Rails provides built-in solutions and pre-configured tools, helping developers handle common web tasks. Unlike Node.js, which demands more custom configuration, Rails offers conventions and modules for faster development of secure applications. These benefits make Ruby on Rails a strong contender for projects that require speed, flexibility, and high-quality output. Who Chooses a Tech Stack? Choosing the right tech stack isn’t just about the technology itself; it's a collaborative effort involving the solution architect, client, and lead developer to ensure the stack aligns with both technical and business goals. Solution Architect’s Role A solution architect plays a crucial role in evaluating the project’s requirements, constraints, and long-term objectives. Before recommending a tech stack they consider factors such as the need for scalability, desired performance level, required security, possible scope of integrations, and the team’s expertise With their deep understanding of different technologies, they identify which stack offers the best balance of speed, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness. In the case of Ruby on Rails, a solution architect might recommend it for projects that require rapid development, easy maintenance, and scalability while ensuring it aligns with the project’s future growth plans. Client’s Role The client's involvement is equally important. Clients must communicate their business goals, target audience, expected traffic, budget, and long-term vision. Although they may not be familiar with all technical aspects, their insights on the project’s needs are crucial for guiding the decision. Clients should be open to solution architects' recommendations but ask questions about how the chosen tech stack, such as Ruby on Rails, will meet their strategic objectives, support brand growth, and fit within their budget. This collaboration ensures the tech stack aligns with both technical and business requirements. Lead Developer’s Role The lead developer brings hands-on experience and practical insights into the tech stack selection process. They assess the feasibility of implementing the proposed stack, considering the existing team’s expertise, potential learning curves, and the day-to-day challenges of maintaining it. The lead developer bridges the gap between high-level architectural decisions and the realities of coding, ensuring that the chosen tech stack is theoretically sound practical, and efficient in execution. The lead developer’s experience with Ruby on Rails ensures that its conventions and features are used optimally, maximizing productivity and maintaining code quality. The team chooses Ruby on Rails, or any tech stack, by working together to consider all perspectives and tailor it to meet the project’s needs. It's About the Team Even the best tech stack can’t guarantee success without the right team behind it. A skilled developer can make Ruby on Rails shine, while an inexperienced team might struggle, regardless of the tools they use. That's why having a team that understands Rails and how to build scalable, efficient applications is crucial. Our Approach to Selecting a Tech Stack When selecting a tech stack for a project, our approach always begins with the client's preferences, if any exist. However, we ground such a critical decision in tangible criteria. Therefore, the most reliable indicators for choosing a tech stack are the project's functional and non-functional requirements, and the expertise available within our team and the broader company. To ensure that the chosen technology aligns with the project's needs, we typically present two options: Simple, Reliable Solutions These well-established tools have proven themselves - robust, stable, and capable of handling various tasks without unnecessary complexity. They are ideal for projects that prioritize stability and ease of use. Complex, Highly Configurable Solutions For projects requiring fine-tuning and deep customization, we consider more intricate technologies that offer flexibility but may come with a steeper learning curve. These solutions are suitable for projects with unique or highly specialized requirements. Regardless of the type of website envisioned, we often recommend starting with Ruby on Rails due to its simplicity, reliability, and proven versatility across various projects. One of our core principles is to avoid adding complexity to areas of the project that don't require it to solve the customer's problem. This approach keeps the project streamlined and focused, therefore we build a solid foundation without unnecessary overhead. When clients have questions or express doubts about this choice, we provide a well-reasoned explanation. The advantages we present — such as rapid development, flexibility, and proven success — have consistently proven convincing, allowing clients to trust that this choice is right. Prioritizing Non-Functional Requirements While many projects focus on incorporating as many features as possible in the early stages, we prioritize investing in non-functional requirements. This often means dedicating additional effort to the project's infrastructure. We adopt an "Infrastructure as Code" (IaC) approach and ensure deployment and production environments are structured and automated. Although this strategy may require a slightly larger initial budget for deployment preparation, it establishes a stable foundation for the project’s future growth, yielding long-term benefits. JetRuby Academy: Training the Next Generation of Ruby Engineers JetRuby Academy's training foundation is built on a rigorous selection process and a dedication to delivering highly qualified engineers to clients. The Academy was created to train Ruby engineers, starting with entry-level students. It focuses on individuals with foundational technical knowledge eager to gain practical, hands-on experience. Throughout their training, candidates explore the nuances of programming and work on real-world projects, guided by seasoned Ruby practitioners. By the end of the program, students complete and defend their graduation project. This mentor-apprentice model ensures that our engineers gain practical, real-world skills. Proven Technology, Proven Results. The debate over the "best" tech stack will continue, but when it comes to delivering high-quality products quickly and efficiently, Ruby on Rails remains a top contender. A passionate community supports this proven, reliable framework. Whether you're building a web app, enterprise solution, or MVP, Rails offers a blend of speed, scalability, and maintainable code that’s hard to beat. By leveraging the skills of a well-trained team, such as those from the JetRuby Academy, and ensuring a collaborative approach between solution architects, clients, and lead developers, you guarantee a tech stack that’s not just theoretically sound but practical and effective for your project's success. So, while the latest technologies may be tempting, sticking with a tool that has stood the test of time offers real value. Ruby on Rails isn’t just a safe choice - it’s a smart one that could be the foundation for your next successful project. Ready to build something amazing? Let’s get started. ### Fortress Rails: Keeping Your Web Application Secure Ruby on Rails (Rails) is a popular web application framework known for its efficiency and simplicity. However, like any technology that powers web applications, it’s vulnerable to security threats. Protecting your Rails application from these threats is crucial, especially as web applications become frequent targets of cyberattacks. Managing Change, Access, and Compliance When building a Rails application, the level of security you implement often depends on the type of data you manage and any regulatory standards you must comply with, such as handling customer health records (HIPAA compliance) or financial records (PCI DSS compliance). In such cases, strict change management, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), and Separation of Duty (SOD) practices are crucial to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of your data. Key Measures Access Control Rails offers built-in tools for securely storing sensitive data, such as API keys and database credentials, in encrypted formats. This ensures that even if a system administrator or developer gains access to your environment, they cannot view or misuse critical information, such as your database passwords. You can implement strict Access Control Lists (ACLs) by carefully managing access to specific resources. For instance, database administrators (DBAs) should not have access to server SSH keys, while system administrators should be restricted from accessing source control repositories like Git. This segregation of duties minimizes the risk of unauthorized access and significantly reduces the likelihood of accidental or intentional data breaches. Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) To safeguard your systems from unauthorized access, enforcing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is crucial. Fortunately, the Ruby community offers robust libraries like Devise and OmniAuth, enabling developers to integrate advanced authentication methods into their applications easily. These highly customizable tools make it straightforward to implement MFA for sensitive systems. This ensures that even if login credentials are compromised, attackers still cannot gain access without passing additional verification steps. Logging and Monitoring Rails comes equipped with high-quality logging tools designed to meet common security requirements right out of the box. These tools ensure that all access attempts and system changes are thoroughly recorded. Additionally, they can be easily adapted to integrate with major log storage and analysis platforms, providing comprehensive insight into your application's activity. By combining Rails' logging capabilities with real-time monitoring systems like SIEM (Security Information and Event Management), you can swiftly detect and respond to suspicious activities, ensuring your team is always alert and prepared to handle potential security incidents. Secure Development Practices Rails offers a comprehensive set of tools to enhance security throughout the development process. By leveraging static code analysis and dependency vulnerability scanning, you can proactively identify potential security issues in your codebase and external libraries. These tools help ensure that vulnerabilities are detected and resolved before they can be exploited. Additionally, Rails supports secure user interactions through built-in features and libraries that help prevent common security risks, such as input validation, session management, and protection against attacks like XSS and SQL injection. With these mechanisms in place, you can ensure that your application upholds high-security standards in all user interactions, significantly reducing the risk of vulnerabilities. Integrating Compliance and Security Incorporating these practices into your Rails application development improves security and ensures compliance with industry-specific regulations, like GDPR or CCPA. These proactive measures help mitigate insider threats, reduce the risk of data breaches, and maintain regulatory compliance. Why Security Matters in Ruby on Rails Applications As web applications increasingly handle sensitive data, their security becomes paramount. Failure to protect that data can lead to severe consequences, including: Data Theft Compromised user information can result in identity theft, financial fraud, or corporate espionage. Financial Loss Downtime, lost customers, or hefty fines from regulatory bodies can severely impact a business’s bottom line, not to mention the breach mitigation costs. Reputational Damage A single data breach can permanently erode user trust, leading to brand credibility loss and customer loyalty. Legal Implications Non-compliance with data protection regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS can result in massive fines, potentially bankrupting smaller organizations. Key Vulnerabilities and How They Are Prevented Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) XSS attacks occur when attackers inject malicious scripts into your web pages. These scripts can hijack user sessions, steal sensitive data, or manipulate user interactions. [table id=7 /] Rails offers superior default protection against XSS, reducing the risk of vulnerabilities compared to other frameworks where manual interventions are more frequent. SQL Injection SQL injection allows attackers to manipulate input data to execute unauthorized SQL commands, potentially compromising or deleting sensitive data. [table id=8 /] Rails provides one of the most secure and straightforward methods for preventing SQL injection, resulting in fewer vulnerabilities than Spring and Yii. Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) CSRF attacks manipulate users into unintentionally performing actions by exploiting the trust a web application places in the user's browser. [table id=9 /] Rails provides more straightforward and reliable CSRF protection, making it easier to prevent vulnerabilities compared to frameworks like Spring and Yii Mass Assignment Vulnerabilities Mass assignment vulnerabilities occur when attackers can update sensitive attributes by passing unexpected parameters, like changing user roles or permissions. [table id=10 /] Rails provides a more structured and foolproof solution for mass assignment prevention, reducing the risk of accidental exposure compared to other frameworks. Insecure File Uploads Improperly handling file uploads can allow attackers to upload malicious files, which can then be executed on your server or downloaded by unsuspecting users. [table id=11 /] Rails provides a more comprehensive and developer-friendly approach to secure file uploads, reducing vulnerabilities compared to other frameworks. Improper Handling of Cookies, Sessions, and JWTs Improper management of cookies, sessions, and JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) can lead to data leakage or unauthorized access. [table id=12 /] Insecure Dependencies Using third-party libraries (gems) can introduce vulnerabilities if they contain flaws or are not regularly updated. [table id=13 /] Misconfigurations Misconfigured settings, especially in production environments, can expose sensitive information or make your application vulnerable to attacks. [table id=14 /] Database Backups and Encryption Databases are prime attack targets, particularly when backups are not encrypted or securely stored. [table id=15 /] Session Management [table id=16 /] Handling Redirects and File Uploads [table id=17 /] Brute Force Protection [table id=18 /] Unique Vulnerabilities and Overall Prevention Ruby on Rails Rails handles many security concerns automatically, from escaping HTML to managing SQL injection and CSRF, which reduces the potential for vulnerabilities. Even issues like YAML deserialization are rare and easily preventable with safe practices. Java (Spring) The flexibility of Spring can be a double-edged sword, leading to more frequent vulnerabilities like XXE injections if not configured securely. Developers need to be more vigilant to prevent such issues. PHP (Yii) Yii's security depends heavily on the developer’s discipline. Common vulnerabilities like Remote File Inclusion (RFI) can emerge if input validation is neglected. Python (Django) While Django is secure by design, Rails offers a more comprehensive and less error-prone approach to handling vulnerabilities, making it easier for developers to prevent issues without deep security expertise. Additional Best Practices for Securing Ruby on Rails Applications Use HTTPS Everywhere Always enforce HTTPS in your application to ensure data is encrypted in transit, preventing attackers from intercepting sensitive information. Regularly Conduct Security Audits Perform periodic security audits and penetration testing to identify and address vulnerabilities before attackers exploit them. Implement Logging and Monitoring Set up comprehensive logging and monitoring to detect unusual activity or potential attacks. Use tools like ELK Stack, Papertrail, or Datadog to monitor logs and receive alerts for suspicious activities. Limit the Use of Third-Party Gems Only include gems essential for your application and have a good reputation for security. The more dependencies you have, the greater your potential exposure to vulnerabilities. Minimize Data Exposure Avoid storing sensitive data unless necessary, and ensure that sensitive information is encrypted in transit and at rest. Leveraging Ruby on Rails Security Tools and Gems Rails provides tools and gems to strengthen your security posture, such as Brakeman, Bundler Audit, Devise, and SecureHeaders Building a Security-First Mindset in Your Development Team Building secure applications requires fostering a security-first culture through regular training, integrating security into CI/CD pipelines, and conducting regular security audits and penetration testing. Why Ruby on Rails Leads in Secure Web Development? Ruby on Rails has fewer inherent vulnerabilities than many other languages and frameworks, due to its built-in security features and developer-friendly approach to mitigating common risks. It offers more automatic protections and guides developers to follow best practices, significantly reducing the risk of introducing vulnerabilities. This makes Rails safer and more efficient for building secure web applications, especially compared to the manual effort required in Spring, Yii, and Django. Securing your Ruby on Rails application requires a proactive and comprehensive approach. Implementing best practices such as escaping user input, validating user data, and employing secure authentication methods significantly reduces the risk of breaches. Security is not a one-time task but an ongoing process that requires continuous vigilance, regular audits, dependency checks, and a security-first mindset to protect your application effectively. You can build a robust, resilient Ruby on Rails application that safeguards user data, maintains trust, and withstands evolving cyber threats by integrating security into every development phase. ### Elevate Your E-commerce: Secure Data Integrity During Migration. 4 Critical Steps Make sure to read our other Data Integrity related posts: Data Integrity - Foundation of Trust Ensure Data Integrity in your Rails Application Transform Background Processing with Sidekiq for Seamless Efficiency! Battle data corruption with Database constraints – the hidden safeguards! Elevate Your E-commerce: Secure Data Integrity During Migration ✱✱✱ Accurate, consistent, and reliable data is essential for smooth operations and customer satisfaction in e-commerce. The industry is increasingly focused on maintaining data integrity to prevent disruptions and protect consumer trust. However, for e-commerce businesses, maintaining data integrity presents significant challenges due to the high volume, velocity, and variety of data. Moreover, adhering to privacy regulations isn't merely a matter of compliance but a fundamental element of consumer protection and the safeguarding of personal rights. Challenges in Data Management for E-commerce Multiple Data Sources E-commerce involves data flowing from multiple sources such as payment processors, warehousing apps, different analytics and advertising platforms. This data often exists in isolated silos, making consistent collection, storage, and processing difficult and leading to inconsistencies. Manual Data Pulls Retrieving data manually from various platforms can be time-consuming and error-prone. This process often involves checking multiple platforms, downloading data, analyzing it in spreadsheets, and manually creating reports, increasing the risk of human error. Uneven Reports Data in eCommerce comes in various formats, complicating integration and analysis. Converting heterogeneous data to homogeneous formats can result in errors and delays, leading to outdated insights and potentially catastrophic business decisions. Poor Procedures Inadequate data collection and preparation processes can compromise data quality. Business owners must correctly identify data sources and account for dynamic factors like varying attribution windows in ad platforms to avoid inaccurate insights. Deriving Actionable Insights Extracting actionable insights requires more than just data; it involves avoiding subjective interpretations that can introduce bias. A lack of comparison with industry benchmarks can result in skewed conclusions and hinder data-driven decision-making. Initial Challenge and Solution This case study tells the story of an e-commerce company operating in 35 countries across multiple product categories, which faced the challenge of reducing high operational costs on Shopify. To overcome this, the company decided to migrate to a custom retail platform while minimizing risks to service quality. This story highlights the importance of data integrity in e-commerce and how our team successfully migrated the client’s stores from Shopify to a custom-built platform using Spree, ensuring seamless operations and customer satisfaction throughout the process. As previously mentioned, the client company was dealing with high operational costs on Shopify and wanted to find a more affordable solution. Our team suggested creating a custom e-commerce platform using Spree, integrated with Next.js, to offer a scalable and efficient alternative. This approach was optimal to significantly reduce operational costs while maintaining or even improving service quality. We initiated a small Proof of Concept (POC) project to test this idea. Our team focused on developing a custom platform and carrying out the POC to validate the feasibility and functionality of the proposed Spree and Next.js solution. The primary objective was to ensure data integrity throughout the migration process. Proof of Concept: Ensuring Data Integrity During the POC phase, our team undertook rigorous testing of data transfer processes and data validation mechanisms. This included: Data Transfer Processes We meticulously tested the mechanisms for transferring data from Shopify to the new Spree platform, ensuring that all data was accurately and completely migrated. Data Validation Mechanisms Ensuring that the data remained consistent and accurate post-migration was paramount. We implemented strict validation protocols to check data integrity at every stage. Platform Integration Seamless integration between Spree and Next.js was essential for maintaining the platform's performance and reliability. The POC, completed in early April, demonstrated that the proposed solution could handle the migration efficiently while maintaining data integrity. This success instilled confidence in the client, who agreed to a Time and Materials (T&M) contract for full-scale migration and platform development. Full-Scale Migration: Emphasizing Data Integrity We embarked on the full-scale migration and development project with a team of approximately seven members. Our primary focus remained on maintaining data integrity throughout the process. This involved several critical steps: Accurate Data Mapping Ensuring that data from Shopify was correctly mapped to the new Spree platform was crucial. This step involved detailed planning and execution to prevent data loss or corruption. Automated Scripts and Tools We developed automated scripts and tools to facilitate smooth data transfer and minimize manual intervention. These tools were designed to handle large volumes of data efficiently, reducing the risk of errors. Continuous Monitoring We implemented continuous monitoring mechanisms to detect and address any data inconsistencies in real-time. This proactive approach ensured that any issues were promptly resolved, maintaining the integrity of the data. User Acceptance Testing (UAT) A thorough UAT was conducted to ensure all migrated data was accurate, complete, and accessible. This step was essential for validating the success of the migration and ensuring customer satisfaction. Leveraging Sidekiq and Idempotency Keys One critical component of our strategy to ensure data integrity during the migration was the implementation of Sidekiq and idempotency keys. These technologies were pivotal in managing the data transfer process, ensuring accuracy, and preventing duplication or data loss. Sidekiq for Efficient Background Processing Sidekiq, a background processing tool for Ruby, was integrated into our custom Spree platform to handle the asynchronous tasks required during the migration. Transferring vast amounts of data—including product listings, customer information, order histories, and inventory levels—from over 100 online stores synchronously would have been inefficient and error-prone due to the data volume and potential network issues or server downtime. By leveraging Sidekiq, we were able to: Parallelize Data Transfers Sidekiq allowed us to process multiple data transfer tasks simultaneously, significantly speeding up the migration process. This parallelization ensured that the data transfer was faster and more reliable, it reduced the load on any single server. Retry Mechanism Sidekiq's built-in retry mechanism ensured that any failed tasks due to transient errors (such as network glitches or temporary database unavailability) were automatically retried. This feature was crucial in maintaining data integrity, it minimized the risk of incomplete or failed data transfers. Monitoring and Logging Sidekiq provided extensive logging and monitoring capabilities, allowing our team to track the progress of data migration tasks and quickly identify and address any issues that arose. This real-time monitoring was essential for ensuring a smooth and error-free migration process. Idempotency Keys for Preventing Data Duplication We implemented idempotency keys, unique identifiers attached to each data transfer request, to further enhance data integrity. This ensured that even if a request was accidentally repeated, it would not result in duplicate data entries. Idempotency keys ensured that: No Duplicate Records Each data transfer request was processed exactly once, regardless of how many times it was received. This was particularly important for operations like creating customer records or order entries, where duplication could lead to significant data inconsistencies. Consistency in Data States By guaranteeing that repeated requests did not alter the final state of the data, idempotency keys helped maintain consistency across the new Spree platform. This consistency was crucial for accurate data mapping and seamless integration with existing systems. Error Handling In cases where data transfer processes encountered errors, idempotency keys allowed us to safely retry the operations without risking data corruption or duplication. This robust error-handling mechanism contributed to the overall reliability of the migration process. Successful Migration and Its Implications The successful migration of over 100 online stores from Shopify to a custom Spree platform underscored the importance of data integrity in large-scale e-commerce projects. By prioritizing data integrity, the client company transitioned smoothly to a more cost-effective platform without compromising service quality. This case study highlights the critical role of data integrity in ensuring seamless operations and maintaining customer trust in e-commerce transformations. Key Outcomes and Benefits Sidekiq and idempotency keys implementation was instrumental in ensuring the success of the client's migration. These technologies provided efficient background processing capabilities and safeguarded against data duplication, respectively, ensuring the accuracy, consistency, and completeness of the migrated data. The successful implementation of these tools facilitated a smooth and efficient migration, laying a strong foundation for the client company's continued growth and success on the new platform. The key outcomes of the migration included: Reduced Operational Costs By transitioning to a custom-built Spree platform, the client company significantly reduced its operational costs, improving its overall profitability. Enhanced Performance and Scalability The new platform, integrated with Next.js, provided enhanced performance and scalability, supporting the company's growth ambitions. Improved Data Management The rigorous focus on data integrity ensured that the company's data management practices were robust, reliable, and capable of supporting its complex e-commerce operations. Increased Customer Satisfaction By maintaining seamless operations and ensuring data accuracy, the client company was able to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction, which is critical in the competitive e-commerce landscape. Make sure to read our article on 6 Potential Financial Gains of a Custom E-Commerce Platform!  Data integrity is a strategic must as well as a technological requirement This case study demonstrates the vital role of data integrity in e-commerce, particularly during large-scale migrations. The successful migration of over 100 online stores from Shopify to a custom Spree platform was achieved by prioritizing data integrity at every step. The use of Sidekiq and idempotency keys ensured efficient and accurate data transfer, reinforcing the importance of reliable data management in e-commerce transformations. Data integrity is not just a technical requirement but a strategic imperative that underpins customer trust, operational efficiency, and business success. As e-commerce evolves, maintaining data integrity will remain a critical factor in achieving seamless operations and delivering exceptional customer experiences. Our client’s story serves as a testament to the importance of robust data management practices in driving successful e-commerce transformations. ### AI Development: Master Innovation and Responsibility Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a transformative force in the world of technology and development, revolutionizing how software is developed, deployed, and interacted with. At its core, AI involves creating systems that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as learning from data, making decisions, and recognizing patterns. The ability of AI to analyze vast amounts of data, automate complex tasks, and deliver insights has made it an invaluable tool for businesses. According to the Zscaler ThreatLabz 2024 AI Security Report, a nearly 600% rise in AI/ML transactions was reported from April 2023 within the Zero Trust Exchange reaching 3.1 billion transactions by January 2024. Notably, ChatGPT accounted for more than half of these transactions. While the adoption of AI/ML technologies continues to grow, organizations are blocking AI/ML-driven transactions. ThreatLabz observed a 577% increase in blocked transactions over the nine months, which highlights the growing concerns about data security and the need for stricter controls on AI/ML-driven processes. AI plays a crucial role in software development, from automating routine tasks to enhancing user experiences and driving innovation. Key applications include: Automated Coding and Testing AI tools assist developers by automating repetitive coding tasks, identifying bugs, and optimizing code. This accelerates the development process and enhances software quality. Natural Language Processing (NLP) AI-powered NLP enables systems to understand and generate human language, which is pivotal for applications like chatbots, virtual assistants, and sentiment analysis. Predictive Analytics AI algorithms analyze historical data to predict future trends, helping businesses make informed decisions and tailor their strategies. Personalization AI enables personalized experiences by analyzing user behavior and preferences, widely used in recommendation systems for e-commerce, content platforms, and advertising. Computer Vision AI's ability to interpret and analyze visual data has applications in facial recognition, autonomous vehicles, and medical imaging. Ethics in AI-Powered Development While the advancements mentioned above offer numerous benefits, they also introduce complex ethical considerations. The 2024 Developer Survey highlights some of these concerns, revealing the pressing issues developers face as AI evolves. Circulating Misinformation or Disinformation. The survey reveals that 79.4% of developers are concerned about AI's role in circulating misinformation or disinformation. AI systems, particularly those used in social media and content generation, can rapidly spread false information due to their ability to generate and amplify content on a massive scale. Why It Matters: Misinformation can undermine public trust, skew public opinion, and even affect democratic processes. Disinformation, with its intent to deceive, poses a more insidious threat, potentially leading to harmful societal impacts. Ethical Considerations: Developers must implement safeguards to prevent AI systems from generating or propagating false information. This involves creating algorithms that can distinguish between credible and non-credible sources and incorporating transparency measures to ensure the content's authenticity. Missing or Incorrect Attribution for Sources of Data. 64.7% of developers express concerns about missing or incorrect attribution for data sources. In AI development, data is the backbone of training models. Proper attribution ensures that the origin of data is acknowledged and its usage is compliant with legal and ethical standards. Why It Matters: Failure to correct data attribution can lead to intellectual property issues and ethical dilemmas regarding the use of others' work without permission. Moreover, incorrect attribution can skew research results and diminish the credibility of AI systems. Ethical Considerations: Developers should establish robust systems for tracking and documenting data sources. This includes implementing automated tools that ensure accurate attribution and compliance with licensing agreements. Transparency in data provenance is crucial for maintaining trust and accountability. Biased Results That Do Not Represent Diverse Viewpoints According to the survey, 49.6% of developers are worried about AI systems producing biased results that do not reflect diverse viewpoints. AI models trained on biased datasets can perpetuate and exacerbate existing inequalities and discrimination. Why It Matters: AI systems have the potential to impact various domains, including hiring, law enforcement, and healthcare. Bias in these systems can lead to unfair treatment and reinforce systemic inequalities. Ethical Considerations: Addressing bias requires a multi-faceted approach. Developers should use diverse and representative datasets, implement fairness audits, and continuously monitor AI systems for biased outputs. Moreover, involving a diverse team in the development process can help identify and mitigate potential biases. Imitating a Person's Likeness The concern about imitating a person’s likeness, cited by 37.2% of developers, raises significant ethical issues. AI technologies can now replicate individuals' voices, faces, and even mannerisms with high fidelity, leading to potential misuse. Why It Matters: Imitating a person’s likeness without consent can infringe on privacy rights and lead to identity theft or fraudulent activities. The misuse of such technologies can also harm individuals' reputations and personal security. Ethical Considerations: Developers should enforce strict guidelines around the use of personal likenesses in AI applications. This includes obtaining explicit consent from individuals before using their likeness and ensuring that AI systems have mechanisms to prevent unauthorized or malicious use. Energy Demand With 36.3% of developers concerned about the energy demands of AI, this issue highlights the environmental impact of developing and deploying AI technologies. Training complex AI models requires substantial computational resources, leading to significant energy consumption. Why It Matters: The environmental impact of AI is growing as the demand for more powerful models increases. This contributes to higher carbon footprints and exacerbates climate change. Ethical Considerations: To address this, developers should prioritize energy-efficient algorithms and hardware. Investing in research for more sustainable AI technologies and adopting practices like optimizing model architectures and using renewable energy sources can help mitigate environmental impacts. Replacing Jobs Without Options for New Employment Opportunities Finally, 34.1% of developers are concerned about the displacement of jobs due to AI, especially when there are no adequate employment opportunities for those affected. AI's ability to automate tasks can lead to job losses in various sectors. Why It Matters: Job displacement can result in economic instability and social unrest if not managed properly. The transition for affected workers needs to be handled with care to ensure they are not left behind. Ethical Considerations: Developers and policymakers should work together to create strategies for workforce transition. This includes offering retraining programs, developing new job opportunities, and ensuring that the benefits of AI advancements are distributed equitably across society. JetRuby Agency's Ethical Approach At JetRuby Agency, we recognize that artificial intelligence integration into modern technology comes with profound ethical responsibilities. Our commitment to ethical AI development is embedded in a comprehensive set of guidelines designed to ensure that our AI systems are developed and deployed in a manner that is responsible, transparent, and respectful of users' rights. Our approach is proactive and comprehensive. We address the privacy paradox posed by AI by prioritizing algorithmic transparency and data ownership from the outset. Rather than just complying with existing regulations, we collaborate with clients and stakeholders to anticipate the need for more robust data protection and AI governance. Our stringent privacy policy outlines our commitment to using client data in AI applications only with explicit consent. We ensure that all AI-driven processes involving client data are conducted transparently and securely, in full compliance with agreed terms. Collaboration, transparency, and accountability are at the core of our processes. Through open communication and ethical alignment with stakeholders, we ensure our AI solutions meet business objectives and protect fundamental human rights. At JetRuby, we believe that innovation and privacy can coexist, being essential to responsible AI development. As AI becomes increasingly integrated into daily life, ensuring its development is fair, transparent, and respectful of individual rights is critical. Lawmakers and policymakers must update data protection and AI regulations to address new challenges such as algorithmic transparency and data ownership. By fostering collaboration, transparency, and accountability, we can responsibly harness AI's potential while maintaining a commitment to protecting individuals' rights. The importance of ethics in AI-powered development cannot be overstated As AI technologies advance and become increasingly integrated into our daily lives, it is crucial to develop and use these technologies in a manner that is fair, transparent, and respectful of individual rights. Navigating the privacy paradox presented by AI requires a sophisticated and multifaceted approach. Lawmakers and policymakers must revisit and update existing data protection and AI regulations to address unique challenges such as algorithmic transparency and data ownership. By fostering collaboration, transparency, and accountability, we can responsibly harness the potential benefits of AI while maintaining a steadfast commitment to protecting individuals' fundamental rights. Ensuring a balanced approach that respects innovation and privacy is essential for the responsible development and deployment of AI technologies. As we move forward, our dedication to ethical practices and continuous dialogue will be key in shaping an AI landscape that serves the greater good while respecting the core values of fairness, transparency, and privacy. ### Outsourcing Solutions: Supercharge Development Team Efficiency! What is essential to building a successful product? Having the right team in place. However, assembling such a team is often easier said than done, especially in a global market where the demand for skilled developers frequently exceeds supply. Giants like Google, Apple, and IBM compete for top talent, leaving smaller companies and startups to vie for what remains. The challenges don’t end with recruitment. Once a team is in place, managing processes, scaling effectively, and ensuring that the product is delivered on time and within budget can be daunting. This is particularly true in an environment where technology evolves rapidly, and businesses must remain agile and competitive. Many companies face a critical question: how do you build a high-performing development team without being slowed down by time-consuming hiring processes or skyrocketing costs? The answer lies in outsourcing. By outsourcing development needs, companies can access a global pool of experienced professionals, avoiding lengthy recruitment cycles, overhead costs, and administrative headaches. With the right outsourcing partner, you can quickly scale your development team, reduce costs, and focus on the big picture — building and launching your product. The secret to a successful outsourcing partnership lies in identifying which aspects of your business can benefit most from outsourcing and selecting a partner who offers the ideal balance of capabilities and cultural alignment for your organization. Reasons why companies choose outsourcing Companies often turn to outsourcing for several strategic reasons that allow them to remain competitive, efficient, and focused on their core operations. Here are some key reasons: Meeting Project Deadlines Outsourcing provides companies access to external teams who can help meet tight project deadlines. By leveraging experienced professionals and specialists from outsourcing firms, businesses can accelerate project timelines, ensuring timely delivery without overstretching their in-house team. This is particularly crucial for companies with fluctuating workloads or short-term projects. Filling Gaps in In-House Expertise Many companies may need more expertise for certain projects but have no intention of hiring full-time specialists for temporary needs. Outsourcing offers a flexible way to bring in expert knowledge and skill sets that are unavailable in-house. This approach allows companies to engage with professionals who specialize in the required fields, such as software development, data analysis, or digital marketing, without the long-term commitment of hiring new employees. Cost Reduction Outsourcing offers significant cost savings by reducing expenses for salaries, infrastructure, and equipment. It allows businesses to convert fixed costs into variable ones, scaling operations as needed. A key factor in these savings is economies of scale. For example, managing a large company’s IT infrastructure requires diverse, specialized skills that are costly to hire and maintain. An outsourcing provider can supply these skills at a fixed cost, scaling staff as needed, and leveraging bulk purchasing to secure better deals on equipment. Additionally, their staff often work on multiple accounts, reducing overall costs for the company. This makes outsourcing cost-effective while maintaining access to a broader skill set. Common challenges and risks Cultural vectors According to a study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, “cultural differences” and “intercultural communication” are some of the most frequent answers that multinational companies give when asked about the difficulties they face in cross-border collaborations. Management theorists over the years have broadly divided organizational culture into categories. One such theory is the Competing Values Framework, developed by Cameron and Quinn, which defines organizational culture into four categories: Hierarchy, Clan, Adhocracy, and Market-driven. Hierarchies are old, large, and regulated organizations that provide a relatively stable working environment. Adhocracy is the term coined to describe highly organic unordered organisations – the opposite of a hierarchy. Clan culture values cohesiveness, participation, and teamwork. A market-driven culture tends to emphasize competitiveness and the value of high achievers or notable achievements. Successful outsourcing cooperation is most effective when there is a cultural fit and shared values. Since culture is a dynamic process influenced by numerous factors - such as changes in management, new strategies, and the business climate - it is also a moving target. Cultural affinity is achieved when both parties align on the same cultural trajectory - starting from a similar cultural base and moving toward the same new cultural goal. For example, they may transition towards an adhocracy or market-oriented approach. Ideally, the outsourcing partner should be ahead of the client on this cultural vector, allowing the client to be pulled towards their cultural goal rather than regressing to their starting point. The specific starting and target cultures of the participants are less important; what truly matters is that both parties share the same cultural direction. Cultural Barriers Cultural barriers arise from deep-seated differences in how individuals from various backgrounds perceive and interact with the world. These barriers go beyond workplace culture, touching on broader societal norms such as power dynamics, individualism versus collectivism, attitudes toward uncertainty, and communication styles. When not managed effectively, these differences can lead to misunderstandings, mistrust, and conflict. Key areas include: Communication Styles High-context cultures (e.g., Asia, Middle East) use implicit communication, while low-context cultures (e.g., U.S., Germany) prefer direct, explicit language. This can lead to misinterpretation. Power Dynamics High power distance cultures (e.g., Japan, Mexico) respect hierarchy and authority, whereas low power distance cultures (e.g., Scandinavia) value equality and open dialogue. This divergence affects leadership and decision-making. Individualism vs. Collectivism Individualistic cultures (e.g., the U.S.) prioritize personal achievement, while collectivist cultures (e.g., China) emphasize group harmony. This affects teamwork and conflict resolution approaches. To overcome cultural barriers, organizations must provide comprehensive training that addresses intercultural communication, power dynamics, and societal norms. This includes learning to recognize nonverbal cues, understanding diverse conflict resolution styles, and fostering cultural empathy. Encouraging open dialogue about cultural differences and promoting cultural sensitivity is crucial for building trust and mutual respect within diverse teams. Offshoring In software outsourcing, two main models exist: nearshore and offshore. The choice between near- and offshore outsourcing depends on your project’s specific needs and priorities. Nearshoring offers advantages such as easier communication and cultural similarities, though it may come with higher costs and a more limited talent pool. Offshoring provides significant cost savings and access to a larger talent pool but may pose challenges such as communication barriers, increased project management demands, and potential quality control concerns. Nearshore and offshore outsourcing offer distinct advantages and disadvantages. The key to success lies in choosing the model that best complements your project needs and company culture. Quality Any company's primary objective is to acquire functional, high-quality software products backed by exceptional service. However, a common challenge is the uncertainty of outcomes when partnering with a new vendor. Importantly, cost-cutting techniques such as employing a cheap development team with little to no expertise and attempts to save on development time might backfire if the result is unacceptable, potentially necessitating starting anew with another vendor. To mitigate these risks, adopt the following approaches: Thorough Vetting Process Implement a comprehensive vetting process to select the right software development team. This should focus on cost and on the overall value they bring, including their skills, experience, and alignment with your project goals. Behind the Price Tag While budget concerns are important, choosing the lowest offer is likely to result in higher expenses and issues later. Analyze Previous Work Ask the external team for case studies or samples of their earlier work.  Additionally, assess their track record with similar tasks and scrutinize the quality of their past deliveries. Outsourcing with JetRuby Agency JetRuby Agency provides outsourcing solutions that help businesses build efficient and effective development teams. By addressing the common reasons companies choose outsourcing JetRuby offers tailored solutions that enable companies to overcome these challenges. Whether you’re a startup looking to bring an idea to life or an established company aiming to scale operations, JetRuby offers the expertise and flexibility needed to succeed in today’s competitive landscape. At JetRuby, we understand that every business has unique needs. That’s why we offer two proven outsourcing models, designed to meet your specific requirements: Dedicated Teams and Staff Augmentation. JetRuby’s Dedicated Team Model: Your Project, Your Control JetRuby’s Dedicated Team model is ideal for businesses seeking long-term partnerships. Through this model, we provide a team of developers committed to your project. Unlike traditional outsourcing, where control is limited, our Dedicated Team operates as an extension of your company. You have complete control over task prioritization, team composition, and how they integrate into your workflows. This model offers the best of both worlds: access to top-tier development talent without recruitment challenges while maintaining full oversight of your project. Whether you need to scale quickly, shift focus mid-project, or integrate new technologies, the Dedicated Team model provides the flexibility required to adapt. Of course, with flexibility comes responsibility. The client is responsible for managing the team’s workflow and must handle the risk of downtime if priorities shift. However, this model offers unparalleled agility for businesses needing full control over the development process. JetRuby’s Staff Augmentation: Expanding Your Team’s Capabilities This model is ideal for companies facing short-term capacity issues or skill gaps. Whether you need extra hands to meet a project deadline or your in-house team lacks specific expertise, Staff Augmentation allows you to bring in the right talent, without the hassle of recruiting, onboarding, or long-term commitments. Additionally, this model scales your team up or down as needed, typically with just a month’s notice. How JetRuby Navigates Common Challenges By addressing the common challenges associated with outsourcing JetRuby ensures that our clients' outsourcing experiences are seamless and successful. Cultural Alignment and Communication We understand the importance of cultural affinity and transparent communication. JetRuby ensures that our teams align with your company's culture and communication style, whether you're adopting a hierarchy, market-driven, or adhocracy approach. We go the extra mile to train our team members in effective intercultural communication, minimizing the risk of misunderstandings. Quality and Reliability Our vetting process ensures that we provide only top-tier talent for your project. We deliver functional, high-quality software products backed by exceptional service by reviewing case studies, conducting thorough evaluations, and maintaining high standards We prioritize value over low costs, ensuring that you receive the best return on your investment. Flexibility and Control JetRuby’s two outsourcing models — Dedicated Teams and Staff Augmentation — offer businesses the flexibility to adapt quickly and maintain full control over their projects. Whether you need to scale your team or access specialized skills to meet tight deadlines, our models are designed to offer the right balance of control and cost-efficiency. By choosing JetRuby Agency, you're not just outsourcing a service; you're partnering with a team that understands your challenges and works hand-in-hand to ensure your success. Outsourcing software development is a key trend Outsourcing software development has become a key trend among medium and large enterprises, especially those whose core operations are not tied to the software’s performance. However, alternatives like direct hiring, Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT), and staff augmentation often provide more commitment and control, leading to higher quality results. While outsourcing is a cost-saving measure, many startups and major companies have used it to address local talent shortages. In contrast, tech giants prefer keeping development in-house but outsource when project demands exceed internal capacity, often hiring remote developers from countries like Mexico, Ukraine, and India. Companies like Slack, GitHub, and Google illustrate the success of outsourcing. Slack outsourced parts of its UX/UI design and app development. GitHub’s backend was built by an outsourced engineer who became CIO, and Google used outsourcing to expand its AdWords support. These examples show that outsourcing can go beyond cost savings, offering fresh perspectives and enabling in-house teams to focus on core business functions. By choosing the right partner, like JetRuby Agency, businesses can overcome development challenges and maintain a competitive edge in a fast-paced market. ### Life After MVP: Scaling Your Vision with Expert Guidance According to McKinsey, 17% of IT projects fail the business trying to execute them. Poor market, product, development, and consumer research lead to a product’s failure cases. As you already know from our previous article, the Minimum Viable Product is the initial project phase for user release, serving as the foundation for launching the final project. So, imagine, your MVP development is complete, and the company is ready to take the first step into the market. This stage is a critical moment for any business, as it allows you to introduce the core version of your product, gather invaluable feedback from customers, and test your initial assumptions. But once your MVP is live, what comes next? Many companies believe the hard part is over after the MVP is launched, but in reality, life after MVP is where the real transformation happens. The next phase is taking everything you’ve learned from users and refining, improving, and scaling your product. Let’s explore the path companies often take after launching an MVP and what steps lie ahead in the journey of continued development. Testing the Waters: The MVP in the Market After the MVP is released, the first step for any business is to test the product in the market. The goal is to gather as much feedback as possible from early adopters. By observing how customers interact with your MVP, you can learn a lot about how well it solves their problems, what features are most important to them, and where there might be gaps in the user experience. This feedback helps answer key questions: Are the initial core features of the product, conceived before or during the MVP stage, genuinely necessary for customers? In other words, does the outcome align with the original plan? Are there additional features users are requesting? What parts of the product are causing friction or dissatisfaction? While the initial version of the MVP contains only the most essential features, this testing phase reveals what needs to be improved or added to make the product more valuable and competitive in the market. Returning for Further Development: Building Beyond the MVP Once feedback is gathered, many companies realize that additional development is required. In an ideal scenario, businesses return to us for the next stage of development, starting a new chapter of collaboration. This is the beginning of what we call the post-MVP development phase. During this phase, the development team focuses on adding more features, initially deprioritized and left out of the MVP and new ones based on user feedback. This is a critical stage because it allows companies to refine their product, enhance its value proposition, and address the pain points identified by early users. Features from the original backlog that didn’t make it into the MVP due to lower priority can now be revisited. At the same time, user feedback might uncover new opportunities and reveal necessary improvements that were previously unforeseen. The Role of the Business Analyst: Rediscovering Requirements During the initial Discovery Phase, our team collaborates closely with the client to gather requirements for the MVP. However, after the MVP is launched and tested in the market, the process begins again, with even more precision. At this stage, the business analyst steps back in to reassess and refine the product requirements based on the new data and feedback. The requirements gathering process continues with a fresh perspective, now focused on what will move the product from a minimum viable product to a core product. The business analyst’s role becomes even more crucial in the post-MVP phase. Their job is: Reviewing original requirements Assess the initial requirements to ensure they remain relevant. Updating and refining Collaborate with the client to remove outdated elements and refine existing requirements. Detailing Provide further details and clarity on the requirements based on current project needs. Implementing changes Adjust the original specifications to align with the project's evolving goals. As noted by **Fortunly, 18% of businesses fail due to cost overruns, and a thorough product discovery process can help avoid this. By accurately estimating the project scope, businesses can prevent unexpected cost increases caused by scope changes or unforeseen complexities. This process helps to avoid additional work, ultimately reducing project delivery time and costs. Balancing Priorities: Old Backlog vs. New User Feedback During the post-MVP development phase, there is a need to find a balance between addressing the old backlog items and dealing with new user feedback. Features not included in the minimum viable product (MVP) may still be valuable, but must now compete for attention with the requests arising from actual product usage. It's essential to approach this point with a clear strategy. Some features from the original backlog may no longer be as relevant or valuable as initially thought. At the same time, new user-driven requests could have a higher impact on overall customer satisfaction and product adoption. This is where a collaborative approach between the development team and the business comes into play. By carefully selecting features that align with the product vision and support its growth, companies can build a cohesive and scalable product that truly serves their audience rather than reacting to every user request. Not all feedback is valuable, so it's essential to prioritize features that contribute to the product's long-term success. Continuous Development: The Never-Ending Cycle of Improvement The post-MVP phase is not a one-off development sprint. It marks the beginning of an ongoing process of continuous improvement. As the product matures, new insights will continue to emerge, and the development cycle will keep iterating. This cycle includes: Regular updates based on new market demands. Enhancements to improve the product’s scalability and performance. Adjustments to the user experience to ensure customer satisfaction. Our team remains a partner in the company’s journey. We’re committed to long-term collaboration, offering ongoing support, development, and strategic insights to help the business grow. If our team developed your MVP, we possess the expertise to build the core product faster and more efficiently. However, if you've engaged with us after the MVP stage, rest assured—we will comprehensively analyze your requirements, meticulously define the necessary elements, and execute a successful product launch. Partnering with our team from the MVP phase guarantees a seamless, high-quality progression as your product matures and reaches its full potential. MVP Is Just the Beginning An MVP launch is an exciting and important milestone for any company, but it’s just the beginning. Life after MVP is where the real work begins—testing, gathering feedback, and iterating on the product to meet market demands and user needs. At this stage, the company refines its product, considers adding some new features, and improves its overall value proposition. By collaborating with a trusted development partner, businesses can ensure they’re responding to customer feedback and proactively shaping their product future. JetRuby Agency has particular expertise in developing software from the ground. We help customers with software projects in various sectors during the discovery phase and thoroughly examine your product concept and context while offering efficient discovery advice. We believe the product's success is determined by both its original concept and how well it is implemented. Whether you need to enhance your MVP or start a new development phase, we’re here to guide you through the post-MVP process, offering the expertise and support to take your product to the next level. ### The Ultimate Blueprint for a Winning Minimum Viable Product: 5 core features! The MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is the optimal size product for the initial phase and user release, serving as the foundation for launching the project. It should be robust enough to encourage adoption, satisfaction, and sales, yet not so extensive that it becomes overly complex or risky. From a technical standpoint, it's a product that offers the highest return on investment (ROI) compared to the level of risk involved. Determining the MVP means giving more importance to the key features that matter most to your target customers, not just including all requested features from all customers. The concept of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) The concept of a Minimum Viable Product is best explained through the analogy of building a series of transportation methods. Instead of designing a car, you begin with a simple, functional form like a skateboard. It may not be as fast or comfortable as a car, but it gets the user from point A to point B, providing value immediately. You then progress to a scooter, a bicycle, a motorcycle, and finally, a car — each step adding more value and functionality. This approach illustrates that an MVP is not just a part of the final product but a fully functional version that delivers core value from the start. It allows testing, feedback, and iterative improvement, ensuring each development stage delivers a complete, high-quality product. A successful Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is created based on four essential characteristics: Addresses a genuine problem by identifying a real customer need and offering a unique solution. Provides value by focusing on core features that meet this need while standing out with a strong value proposition. Effectively draws in early adopters, capturing the attention of an initial user base and promoting active participation. Serves as a crucial learning tool, enabling the gathering of user feedback and providing valuable insights that drive continuous product development and improvement. These four elements combine to form the basis of a successful MVP, leading to a product ready for the market. Why create an MVP? There are several benefits to your product development process: Proving the Concept with Low Risk Every product begins with the assumption that it can solve a customer’s problem. An MVP confirms that this problem is real and that customers are willing to pay for the solution — all with minimal investment. Optimizing Development Costs By spreading costs over time and iterating based on user data, an MVP ensures only essential features are developed, bringing the product closer to the ideal solution. Boosting Stakeholder Buy-In By confirming product-market fit and identifying an initial customer base, an MVP increases the likelihood of securing early support from investors. Shaping Marketing Strategy MVP development reveals what matters most to customers, guiding marketing efforts that resonate with the target audience. Are you Thinking of diving right into MVP development? Just a moment! Let's delve into MVP discovery — a vital step, a compass for your MVP. Discovering the potential of your MVP is a successful development journey where you delve into the fundamental elements that shape your MVP. Why is the «Discovery phase» essential? The discovery phase focuses on: Validating Market Needs Ensuring a genuine demand for the product and avoiding the development of features that don’t solve real user problems. Clarifying Product Vision Refining the MVP's objectives to align with the target audience's needs. Setting Achievable Goals Understand the market and user requirements, and set realistic and measurable goals for MVP development. During this phase, the JetRuby Agency team guides, advises, and collaborates closely with the client to ensure that every element of the MVP — from the initial concept to the technical infrastructure — is meticulously planned and aligned with the project’s objectives. We focus on UI/UX design, a well-defined MVP scope, and technical feasibility. By the end of the discovery phase with the JetRuby team, clients gain a solid foundation for their MVP. Both the client and the development team share a clear understanding of the project’s direction, potential challenges, and a detailed roadmap to guide the development process. This phase is important in MVP development, ensuring that every aspect of the project, from design to execution, is perfectly aligned with the client’s vision and market needs. Real-Life Examples of Successful MVPs MVPs have helped in validating ideas and driving growth across industries. For example: Uber started with a simple app connecting riders and drivers in San Francisco, quickly validating the concept and scaling the business. Airbnb launched by renting out the founders' space through a basic website, testing market interest. Amazon began as an online bookstore, using a focused MVP that paved the way for its eventual expansion into a global marketplace. These examples demonstrate how MVPs can validate ideas, gather feedback, and guide the development of successful products. How to Determine the Core Features in a Minimum Viable Product? Determining the core features of an MVP is a critical step that requires a deep understanding of the problem you're solving and the needs of your target audience. Here are some steps to help identify the core features: Define the Problem Identify the problem your product solves to focus on features that directly address it. Identify Your Target Audience Conduct user research to understand their pain points. Prioritize Features Use the MoSCoW prioritization technique (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won’t have) to determine essential features. Focus on Value Ensure the core features provide immediate value to users. Consider Technical Feasibility Select features that can be quickly and efficiently developed to bring the MVP to market faster. MVPs for Established Businesses Established businesses can benefit from MVP development no less than startups, particularly when they aim to enhance or expand their current operations. MVPs aren’t just for testing market fit in new ventures — they also serve as crucial tools for optimizing processes, launching new services, or transitioning to more advanced platforms. A strong MVP helps streamline operations, adapt to changing market conditions, and deliver essential value to customers without the delays or risks of full-scale product development. One example is a company that operates 16 storage facilities across the U.S. Initially, the business rented its units through third-party online platforms. While these platforms handled the customer interface and logistics, they also took a significant share of the revenue and limited client’s control over customer interactions and data. When the company decided to end these partnerships and manage rentals directly, they required a custom-built website to handle all aspects of rental management. The fact that the client set strict deadlines due to the expiration of their contracts with external platforms, was a bit of a challenge. This was a case where speed and precision were the top priority. The company couldn’t afford a prolonged development process, as it risked losing customers and revenue during the platform migration process. At JetRuby Agency, we understood the urgency and helped design an MVP that focused on delivering the core functionality necessary to handle rentals through a new, in-house system. The key features of this MVP included: User-friendly rental management A streamlined user interface allowed customers to easily browse available units, check pricing, and make reservations online. Customer account management Tools for customers to log in, view their rental history, make payments, and update personal information. Given the tight deadline, our team adopted an agile development process, breaking the project into manageable phases we quickly launched the most critical features. This approach enabled our client to transition away from third-party platforms, minimizing downtime and ensuring uninterrupted customer service. In this instance, the MVP wasn’t about testing a market hypothesis - but delivering essential, business-critical functionality. The goal was not to validate the concept of storage rentals but to empower the company with the tools it needed to operate independently and control its customer relationships. The MVP we delivered was designed to meet immediate needs while laying the foundation for future expansion. JetRuby’s Approach Often, we collaborate with businesses that already possess a deep understanding of their operational needs and markets. In such cases, the MVP is not about discovery or proof of concept; it’s about delivering a practical, working solution that supports key business objectives like sales, customer management, or operational efficiency. Our approach typically involves: Quick Turnaround for Immediate Results Established businesses often face strict timelines and need immediate solutions. In most cases, we work within a 3-4 month development window to ensure clients receive tangible, functional results quickly. Rather than embarking on a multi-year development project, we prioritize speed and agility and focus on delivering quality. Focused on Core Business Needs For established companies, the MVP focuses on delivering the features that directly support critical business functions. Whether streamlining a sales process, integrating new payment systems, or enabling better customer interactions, the MVP must solve pressing business problems and offer clear, immediate value. Iterative Development for Future Expansion Although the MVP delivers essential functionality, it’s always designed with scalability in mind. For our client, the MVP was the starting point for a more comprehensive platform that would eventually include advanced features like data analytics, automated billing reminders, and marketing tools for customer retention. This iterative approach ensures that the MVP can evolve alongside the business, incorporating user feedback and responding to new demands. Collaboration with Internal Teams We work closely with our client’s internal teams to ensure the MVP aligns with their broader business goals and technical infrastructure. This collaboration allows us to integrate existing systems, optimize workflows, and support the client’s long-term vision. At JetRuby Agency we specialize in helping established businesses leverage MVP development to achieve their operational goals quickly and effectively. Our expertise in working under tight deadlines and delivering practical, business-oriented solutions ensures that our clients know their MVP meets immediate needs and is a solid foundation for future growth. Conclusion Starting with a simple, functional MVP allows you to validate ideas quickly, gather feedback, and iteratively refine your product for success. Whether in tech, e-commerce, healthcare, or other industries, the principles of creating an MVP are consistent: deliver value from the start, listen to users, and be ready to adapt. At JetRuby Agency, we bring extensive experience in MVP development, always prioritizing the essential discovery phase. This phase is crucial in aligning your product with market needs, setting realistic goals, and ensuring a solid foundation for your project. Our team is dedicated to guiding you through each step, from concept to execution, ensuring your MVP is not viable and primed for success. If you’re ready to take the next step in your product development journey, address JetRuby Agency for expert support and partnership. ### The Power of Product Development Strategy Session: 6 primary objectives! In today’s fast-paced business environment, delivering innovative software solutions is no longer just about development; it’s about building a partnership that evolves with the client’s needs. At JetRuby Agency, our Product Development Strategy (PDS) sessions are the cornerstone of this approach. These sessions help to validate clients’ product ideas through in-depth business analysis, focusing on technology and features. By starting with low-commitment, high-value services such as code audits, prototypes, or consultations, we establish trust, showcase our expertise, and lay the foundation for long-term collaboration and successful project outcomes. Product Development Strategy (PDS) session The Product Development Services (PDS) session is a structured framework designed to ensure project objectives are fully met. Whether working with global enterprises like the Financial Times, GoPro, Osram, and NY University, or mid-sized businesses, which make up 70% of our client base, we position ourselves as strategic partners, not just service providers. Our goal is to create a seamless client journey, fostering ongoing engagement and driving successful outcomes. The PDS session helps refine the project scope, turning simple ideas into actionable, well-defined products through discussion and exploration of various implementation options. This process is especially valuable when clients lack a tangible product or clear specifications. The PDS process begins with a qualification call. If the client is ready for Design and Development (DnD) or a Work Order (WO), a PDS session may not be necessary. However, when required, its mission is clear: educate the client, showcase our expertise, outline the product, and potentially define a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), filling any knowledge gaps. Key principles of PDS include: Simplicity and Accessibility: Clear communication is vital for building trust. We prioritize using straightforward language to ensure the client fully understands the process. Engagement Over Knowledge: While a business analyst may not need to be an expert in every domain, active engagement with a client to elicit their knowledge and insights is crucial. The primary objectives of a Product Development Strategy Session are: Identifying and assessing any legal constraints that could affect the client's objectives. Understanding the client's preferences for integrating with external services. Gathering detailed information about the client’s existing systems and evaluating the need for integration. Clarifying any questions or uncertainties regarding the client’s requirements. Brainstorming innovative ideas for product design. When specific requirements are undefined, analyze the competitive landscape to determine an ideal scope relative to competitors. Roles and Responsibilities in Product Development Strategy Sessions During a Product Development Strategy (PDS) session, every team member has a vital role to play in ensuring a successful outcome. Clear roles and effective collaboration ensure the product meets client expectations and achieves business objectives. Business Analyst The Business Analyst bridges the gap between client needs and technical implementation. They gather and document requirements, translate business objectives into technical specifications, and help define a realistic project scope. He embodies the client's vision, establishes product goals, prioritizes features, and ensures alignment with business objectives. They shape the product's direction and make key decisions during the session.  Technical Lead The Technical Lead ensures the proposed solutions are technically feasible. They assess requirements, guide system architecture design, identify potential challenges, and ensure the product is scalable and maintainable.  Delivery Manager The Delivery Manager oversees project timelines, milestones, and resource allocation. They ensure the project stays on track, meets quality standards, and is delivered on time and within budget.  UI/UX Designer The UI/UX Designer focuses on user experience and visual design, translating the client's vision into user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing interfaces. They ensure the product meets user needs and expectations.  Stakeholders Stakeholders provide insights into business context and market dynamics. Their feedback ensures the product aligns with broader business goals and delivers value to end-users.  Structured approach During a PDS session with a new client who lacks detailed project documentation or software development experience, we follow a structured approach: Discuss high-level product information and address any concerns using tools like Miro. Outline a rough MVP scope. Review the proposed approach based on the client’s input and budget, then plan the Design and Discovery phase’s duration. If project requirements are clear, we can start the development process.  Incorporate any additional client-provided information into the project estimation. If necessary, initiate the Design & Discovery phase to develop detailed mockups and a Proof of Concept (PoC) for any uncertain functionalities. When engaging with potential clients about product documentation, a prototype, or an existing application, the PDS meeting focuses on understanding their product and vision. We ask detailed questions, plan based on the workload, and consider the client’s input and budget. We initiate the Design phase to ensure a comprehensive understanding and provide an estimated development cost before moving forward if required. In mastering product development, the power of a well-executed strategy session is evident. It sets the stage for successful collaborations, ensuring that both the client’s needs and the company’s expertise are fully aligned from the outset. A Successful Strategy Session The client, a fence manufacturing company, approached JetRuby Agency with a request to develop an application that could estimate the cost of a fence and necessary components without a site visit. While the concept was promising, the product development strategy session revealed two key challenges: not all smartphones could support augmented reality features, and it would be impractical for clients to spend hours walking around fields to capture the necessary images. To address these challenges, we proposed a more practical alternative - instead of augmented reality, we suggested a Google Maps-based app where users could mark their property on a satellite view, specify the fence's size and location, and add features like gates. Users could also provide additional details such as the fence’s purpose, the presence of animals, and proximity to water sources. The sales team, which had relied on Excel for cost calculations, could use the submitted maps to perform quicker, more accurate estimates and create enhanced versions based on their business expertise. This approach simplified the original concept and improved the sales process. As a result, we reduced the cost of implementing the client's vision by using the same module for both the client interface and the sales department. This transformed a complex concept into a proposal that aligned with the actual needs and scope of the project, rather than being based on the client's budget or guesswork. Product Development Strategy sessions - component of a robust planning Consumers today have unprecedented access to information, allowing them to compare products and brands. As new technologies emerge, even the most innovative solutions risk becoming outdated. For established companies, relying solely on existing products is not enough to maintain long-term competitiveness. Product Development Strategy Sessions align the development process with broader business goals. These sessions enable clients to assess the development team's expertise while providing insights into project execution through detailed discussions with business analysts. This collaboration transforms ideas into structured, actionable plans with clearly defined project boundaries. For development companies, these sessions are essential for outlining a clear and actionable plan, whether advancing to the design and discovery phase, creating a proof of concept, or commencing full-scale development. They also enable more precise estimates of project costs and timelines. Projects risk lacking structure and may proceed solely based on client directives, often operating under an hourly work model, if these sessions are omitted.  Product Development Strategy Sessions are essential for clients requiring a precise cost estimate. Rather than relying on rough guesses, these sessions provide a more accurate estimation within the context of the project’s scope. By integrating these sessions into the overall business strategy, companies can ensure that each product is designed to meet both current and future market demands, fostering sustainable innovation and long-term competitiveness. These sessions are essential for providing precise cost estimates, and ensuring accuracy based on the project’s scope rather than relying on rough guesses. By integrating them into overall business strategy, companies can design products that meet current and future market demands, fostering sustainable innovation and long-term competitiveness. ### Popular Strategies to Deploy and Scale Your Rails App in 2024 We decided to take a look at the current best practices and tools for deploying a Rails app in 2024. The developer mentioned using Dokku on a Digital Ocean Droplet for a small Rails API mode application. He successfully managed the deployment and domain configuration, which worked well for his project. However, he raised concerns about scaling this setup for a full-fledged Rails application, especially considering the potential growth to over 10,000 active users. His stack includes Rails API and React, adding another layer of complexity to the deployment strategy. Inspired by this discussion, we decided to research the topic further - delve into various deployment strategies, compare tools like Dokku, and evaluate their scalability, ease of use, and performance. We'll also address the question of whether Dokku can handle significant growth or if other alternatives would be more suitable for larger applications. Join us as we uncover the best practices and tools for deploying a Rails app in 2024, ensuring your application can scale effectively and provide a robust user experience. Now that your product development is completed, the next step is to deploy your product and ensure it works on all targeted devices. This process, known as software deployment, is crucial for both initial releases and subsequent updates. Deploying a Ruby on Rails application can be challenging due to the various tools and methods available. In this guide, we will help you understand these options better, including their features, benefits, drawbacks, and potential concerns. The Importance of Choosing the Right Deployment Strategy A good strategy ensures smooth, efficient, and error-free software delivery, while a poor one can cause downtime, performance issues, and a bad user experience.  Minimizing Downtime An effective deployment strategy aims to minimize or eliminate downtime. Downtime can lead to significant business losses, especially for global or critical applications. Strategies like Blue-Green Deployment (a release model where user traffic is gradually shifted from an existing version of an app or microservice to a nearly identical new version, with both versions running in production simultaneously) or Rolling Deployment (that gradually replaces instances of the old version of an application with instances of the new version) ensure updates are available without interrupting users. Ensuring Stability and Reliability A reliable deployment strategy ensures the new software version is stable and performs well. Canary Deployment, for example, releases the update to a small group of users first. This allows developers to monitor for issues before a full-scale release, ensuring stability and reliability. Facilitating Quick Rollbacks Even with thorough testing, issues can arise post-deployment. A strategy that allows quick rollbacks, like Blue-Green Deployment, can be a lifesaver. This approach keeps two identical production environments, enabling a quick switch back to the stable version if problems occur. Enhancing User Experience User experience is crucial for any successful application. A seamless deployment strategy ensures users aren't affected by background changes. Feature Toggle, for instance, lets new features be tested in production without exposing them to all users until they are ready. Supporting Continuous Delivery and Integration Modern development emphasizes continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD). Deployment strategies should support frequent and reliable releases. Techniques like Blue-Green Deployment and Canary Releases fit well with CI/CD, allowing regular updates without service disruption. Risk Mitigation Deploying a new application version comes with risks. The right strategy helps identify and mitigate these risks early. Canary Releases, for example, detect issues on a small scale, allowing fixes before wider rollout. Cost Efficiency A well-chosen deployment strategy can also save costs. Rolling Deployments, for example, make updates gradually, reducing the need for extensive infrastructure changes and saving costs associated with large-scale rollouts. Deployment Tools and Methods A good strategy requires both a well-designed plan and powerful tools to ensure successful deployment. What’s more powerful is the ability to create a development pipeline that works for your product. Native vs Containerized Deployments First, let's define what encompasses native vs containerized deployments, what sets them apart, and what platforms and solutions are generally available. Native Deployment Native deployment involves shipping your Rails app directly to the server (which might be a VPS or even bare metal). This typically includes: Setting Up the Ruby Runtime Environment This can be simplified by using a version manager such as Rbenv or ASDF. Node or Bun Runtime For modern Rails apps that are not using the importmap approach, you will also need a Node or Bun runtime. Operational Dependencies Optionally, when running on the same machine, you will also have to set up your database server, Redis server, and other operational dependencies. You can use "Infrastructure as Code" tooling such as Ansible or Puppet to streamline this. Deployment Process Actual deployment will take place by copying your Rails app code to the server via a secure connection and starting it. Historically, Capistrano was the go-to solution for this, although nowadays this can also be managed in your CI/CD pipeline. Cloud 66 has a comprehensive native deployment offering to facilitate each of the steps above. Containerized Deployment Nowadays, a lot of application deployment happens in Docker containers. Let's go through a few options, in increasing complexity: Kamal Kamal is a recently developed tool by 37signals that helps you manage your containerized deployment on your own private servers. It is especially interesting for smaller-scale apps, both in terms of application code and operational requirements. However, it requires setting up your own container registry. Platform as a Service (PaaS) PaaS solutions like Fly.io and Render.com encapsulate some of the complexity behind deploying containers. They commonly expose an interface for your convenience, often in the form of a command line interface (CLI). This includes setting up the appropriate runtimes and supplying DevOps resources such as container registries. Kubernetes Full-fledged container cluster management solutions like Kubernetes allow you to control each aspect of a containerized deployment but entail significant DevOps complexity. You will need a dedicated Kubernetes cluster setup, which can either be provided by a cloud provider such as AWS or Azure or managed by your own ops team.  Bare Metal and Virtual Private Server (VPS) Deployment Bare Metal and VPS deployments both provide flexible infrastructure solutions for hosting applications, using tools like iLO, DRAC, PXE Boot, and configuration management platforms such as Ansible, Chef, Puppet, and Terraform to streamline server management. Both methods allow for automation and customization, with custom scripts often employed to meet specific needs. Performance optimization, scalability, and varying degrees of customization are achievable in both environments, making them suitable for different use cases based on application requirements, available resources, and growth potential. Cloud Providers Cloud providers offer a streamlined approach to deploying Rails applications, leveraging pre-configured environments and managed services to simplify the deployment process. This section will cover several popular cloud deployment options. [table id=5 /] Deployment Tools and Services [table id=6 /] Your team can use a single deployment strategy or combine elements from several to best meet your goals. This flexibility allows for innovative solutions that minimize downtime and meet user needs. Deployment approaches vary depending on the application or company, with no one-size-fits-all solution. Ruby on Rails offers a wide range of deployment options, thanks to its robust language and numerous tools. The deployment landscape is constantly evolving with new tools and approaches. At JetRuby Agency, we help clients choose the most suitable deployment strategy. Our team stays updated on the latest developments and best practices to offer informed guidance. If you're unsure about your options, feel free to contact us. We're here to help you find and implement the best solution for your project. ### Remote Team Proven Tips for Seamless Collaboration + 5 main principles! “The future of work is remote. The future of leadership is empowerment.” – Bill Gates As the world of work evolves, the traditional model where team members are all present in the same office is no longer the only option. Bill Gates’ statement highlights remote work as the future of employment, with leadership focusing on empowerment rather than control. According to Upwork's third annual Future Workforce Report, which surveyed the hiring behaviors of over 1,000 U.S. hiring managers, by 2028, 73% of all departments will have remote workers. This report underscores the increasing willingness of companies and managers to hire and build teams without requiring them to be physically present in the office. As businesses continue to embrace remote work, remote software development teams are emerging as a powerful solution to meet evolving industry demands. These teams consist of developers and other professionals collaborating on projects from various locations. But can fully remote teams be just as effective as in-person ones? Remote Teams in Web Development Remote software development teams have emerged as a powerful solution to the industry's evolving needs. These teams consist of developers and professionals collaborating from various locations, leveraging diverse skills and perspectives to deliver exceptional results. The benefits are clear: access to a global talent pool, cost savings, and increased flexibility. But can remote teams be just as effective as their in-person counterparts? The answer lies in how well these teams are managed, especially in communication, collaboration, and employee satisfaction. Building a Top-Notch Remote Software Development Team At JetRuby Agency, we have developed a reliable approach to building high-performing remote teams that consistently deliver quality products to our clients. Our strategy is about prioritizing employee loyalty and satisfaction, which we achieve through a proprietary HR management platform designed to create an exceptional employee experience. As an ISO-certified agency, we understand that the key to success is having happy, motivated employees who feel supported. Our team management philosophy focuses on enhancing IT retention, streamlining development and delivery processes, and providing clients with top-notch services at reasonable costs. The Unique Dynamics of Remote Web Development Teams Remote work has become a staple in the tech industry, particularly in web development, driven by technological advancements, global talent access, and events like COVID-19. Remote teams provide benefits such as access to a broader talent pool, lower overhead costs, and flexible working conditions. However, they also face unique challenges, especially in communication. Without physical proximity, remote teams depend on digital tools to stay connected. Unlike office settings, where spontaneous interactions and immediate feedback are common, remote teams must manage time zone differences, cultural variations, and potential miscommunication. Effective communication is crucial for building trust, fostering collaboration, and delivering successful projects. To ensure effective communication in remote web development teams, consider these principles: Clarity and Precision Remote teams require clear and precise communication. Be specific about project requirements, deadlines, and expectations. Document discussions and decisions to prevent confusion and provide a reference point. Consistency in Communication Channels Agree on primary communication channels— email, instant messaging, video calls, or project management tools. Establish guidelines for each channel so everyone knows where to find information and how to communicate. Regular Updates and Feedback Keep the team aligned with regular check-ins and feedback. Daily stand-ups or weekly meetings can track progress, while timely, actionable feedback maintains quality and fosters a positive work environment. Cultural Sensitivity and Inclusivity Remote teams often include members from diverse backgrounds. Being sensitive to different communication styles and cultural norms enhances collaboration and prevents misunderstandings. Encourage sharing cultural experiences to promote inclusivity. Transparency and Openness Build trust through transparent decision-making and clear communication about project status, challenges, and changes. Leaders should be approachable, creating an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and concerns. To implement these communication principles effectively, remote teams must rely on the right set of tools that facilitate seamless collaboration and information sharing. Tools for Effective Communication in Remote Web Development Teams Effective communication and collaboration in remote web development teams can be significantly enhanced with tools tailored to the team's specific needs and workflows. Instant Messaging and Chat Platforms Tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Discord support channels, direct messaging, and software integrations, keeping conversations organized and relevant. Video Conferencing Tools Platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams are essential for holding meetings, conducting presentations, facilitating real-time collaboration, and helping to bridge the physical distance in remote settings. Project Management Software Jira, Trello, and Asana are vital for task tracking, deadline management, and monitoring project milestones. Features like Kanban boards and Gantt charts help keep the team organized and on track. Documentation and Collaboration Platforms Confluence, Notion, and Google Workspace are excellent for creating and sharing documentation. These platforms provide centralized repositories for technical specifications, meeting notes, and project guidelines, with real-time editing and commenting features for collaborative work. Version Control Systems Tools like Git, GitHub, and GitLab are indispensable for managing code changes, facilitating code reviews, and maintaining project version history. Features like branching, merging, and pull requests support collaborative coding, while integrated issue tracking manages bugs and feature requests. However, having the right tools is only part of the equation; implementing effective communication strategies is equally important to ensure tools are used to their fullest potential. Strategies for Enhancing Communication in Remote Web Development Teams Successful remote web development teams require more than just communication and project management tools—they also need a robust system for documenting processes and expectations. Clear protocols help reduce confusion and ensure alignment. Establish clear communication protocols, including meeting frequency and response time expectations.  Set clear expectations for roles, responsibilities, deadlines, and performance indicators.  Promote continuous learning through workshops and knowledge-sharing sessions.  Encourage social interaction through virtual coffee breaks and team-building activities.  Adapt to team members' needs and work style preferences to enhance productivity.  Allow flexible work hours within set core hours to accommodate peak productivity times and personal commitments.  Promote work-life balance by encouraging regular breaks and supporting vacation time.  Create a virtual handbook with guidelines, policies, and best practices.  Implement regular retrospectives to reflect on communication and collaboration practices. Retaining Team Members Retaining top talent is critical to the long-term success of any remote team. At JetRuby, our intelligent HR system tailors a team for each client request, drawing from new hires and existing developers. This ensures that the right people are working on the right projects, which increases employee satisfaction and retention. We also prioritize opportunities for learning and growth, which are crucial for keeping our team members engaged and motivated. Our HR system tracks individual work goals and sentiments, allowing us to proactively foster loyalty and address potential issues before they become significant problems. Introducing our innovative HR management platform! JetRuby has been a software development agency for over a decade, and our HR management platform has played a key role in our success. We've developed a system that sustains our high retention rate, with the average engineer staying with us for over four years — far above the industry standard. Our proprietary software, HR HUB, is designed to support and enhance our talent management philosophy. It provides an ongoing, consistent feedback mechanism, enabling transparent communication between managers and their teams. Executives can track and address negative trends, helping to reduce attrition and boost IT retention. HR HUB consists of two main components: a modern workplace for employees and a core system for people management. The workplace module works similarly to social media, allowing employees to create profiles, track tasks, and access educational materials 24/7. This platform fosters engagement and supports continuous learning, which enhances job satisfaction and retention. JetRuby: Excellence Beyond Boundaries As remote work continues to shape the future of software development, mastering remote team management is essential for success. JetRuby Agency has embraced this evolution, combining effective communication strategies, centralized tools, and a commitment to quality to excel in managing remote and hybrid teams. Our approach enhances team cohesion and project efficiency and ensures we deliver top-tier results, regardless of geographical boundaries. By staying adaptable and continuously refining our practices, we remain at the forefront of the industry, ready to meet the challenges of an increasingly connected and remote workforce. ### Battle data corruption with Database constraints - the hidden safeguards! Make sure to read our other Data Integrity related posts: Data Integrity - Foundation of Trust Ensure Data Integrity in your Rails Application Transform Background Processing with Sidekiq for Seamless Efficiency! Battle data corruption with Database constraints – the hidden safeguards! Elevate Your E-commerce: Secure Data Integrity During Migration ✱✱✱ While model validations in Rails help catch errors at the application level, true protection against data corruption and inconsistencies happens at the database level through powerful mechanisms like database constraints. These hidden safeguards—ranging from unique indexes to foreign key constraints—play a crucial role in maintaining the backbone of your data. Get ready to take your understanding of database constraints to the next level! Database Constraints Database constraints protect data, even when a team modifies parts of the stack, such as the backend application that interacts with the database. Like model validations, database constraints define what the data in a column should look like: does it follow a specific pattern? Should it have a certain length? Can it be empty? Is there a valid range of values? What about uniqueness? If someone bypasses model validations to add or modify data, the data will not be inserted unless it conforms to the database constraints, thus safeguarding data integrity. As a general rule, database constraints should mirror model validations, or vice versa. This sometimes involves writing SQL manually when creating migrations, as the built-in Rails helpers have limitations regardless of the backend used. While application-level validations are essential, they alone do not guarantee data integrity. Database-level constraints provide an extra layer of security, ensuring that rules are enforced even if the application fails to do so. Unique Indexes A unique index ensures that the values in one or more columns are unique across the table, which is vital for attributes like email addresses or transaction IDs. Implementing unique indexes in a Rails migration is straightforward. The database enforces the uniqueness constraint, preventing duplicate values from being inserted, regardless of how the data is added (through the application, directly into the database, etc.). Foreign Key Constraints Foreign key constraints ensure referential integrity by validating that a column’s values correspond to primary key values in another table. For example, ensuring that a user_id in the orders table corresponds to a valid id in the users table maintains referential integrity between these two tables. Implementing Unique Indexes in Rails with PostgreSQL and MySQL Unique indexes ensure that the values in the indexed columns are distinct across rows, preventing duplicate data entries. This is crucial for maintaining data integrity, particularly for attributes that must be unique, such as email addresses or usernames. PostgreSQL Use the CREATE UNIQUE INDEX SQL statement to create a unique index in PostgreSQL. This statement specifies the index name, table name, and column(s) to be indexed uniquely. MySQL Similarly, in MySQL, the CREATE UNIQUE INDEX statement is used. The syntax is consistent with PostgreSQL, emphasizing the ease of defining unique constraints on one or more columns. Handling Concurrency and Race Conditions Concurrency issues occur when multiple processes access and modify the same data simultaneously, potentially compromising data integrity. Rails offers mechanisms like optimistic and pessimistic locking to address these issues. Optimistic Locking Optimistic locking assumes that multiple transactions can be completed without impacting each other. It uses a lock_version column to detect conflicts. When a record is updated, Rails increments the lock_version value. If another process tries to update the same record but finds that the lock_version has changed, it raises a StaleObjectError, indicating a conflict. This helps maintain data integrity by ensuring concurrent updates do not overwrite each other. Pessimistic Locking Pessimistic locking locks the record for the duration of the transaction, preventing other transactions from modifying it. This approach prevents race conditions until the current transaction is complete. Unique Constraints and Validations in Rails Rails provides extensive validation capabilities, such as presence, uniqueness, format, and numericality validations. These validations ensure data conforms to expected formats and values before being saved. However, application-layer validations alone may not fully guarantee data integrity. Complementing them with database constraints, like unique indexes, prevents race conditions and ensures robust data protection. To determine which approach is suitable for your use case, consider the following questions: Are you aiming to prevent incorrect data from being inserted into the database? If so, a schema constraint is necessary. However, Rails does not inherently support creating and schema dumping all common constraints supported by PostgreSQL, which should be considered when making decisions. Are you trying to prevent errors that the application user can rectify themselves? In that case, model validations are more appropriate. Moving data integrity constraints to the database reduces the workload on your ActiveRecord models by utilizing specialized form objects. With database constraints, form objects serve as the user interface for creating one or more models. Viewing validations as a user interface for form errors makes it sensible to include the necessary validations in the form objects, even if this results in some duplication. Form objects operate within a specific context and can incorporate validations and messaging tailored to that context, eliminating the need for conditional validations often found in ActiveRecord models. For example, as your application grows, you might have a RegistrationForm, ProfileForm, and PasswordResetForm, each with its own contextual validations, while the User class remains free of validations. Advanced Database Features and Their Implementation in Rails Modern applications often require advanced database features like partial and composite unique indexes for efficiently managing data. These features offer nuanced control over data integrity and performance optimization. Their implementation in Rails provides a robust and scalable solution for handling complex datasets. Additionally, background jobs and asynchronous operations are vital in maintaining data integrity, particularly in high-transaction or data-intensive environments. Partial Indexes Partial indexes allow the creation of indexes on a subset of a table's rows, defined by a conditional expression. This reduces the size of the index and improves query performance. For instance, a partial index can include only active records in a table containing both active and inactive records, thereby speeding up queries for active records. In Rails, partial indexes can be implemented using migrations by leveraging ActiveRecord’s add_index method with a where clause. This allows Rails applications to benefit from improved query performance without altering the underlying database schema. Composite Unique Indexes Composite unique indexes, also known as multi-column unique indexes, ensure the uniqueness of a combination of columns within a table. For example, in a multi-tenant application, a composite unique index on user_id and tenant_id ensures that each user has unique permissions within each tenant but can have different permissions across different tenants. In Rails, composite unique indexes can be created through migrations using the add_index method with the unique: true option, specifying multiple columns. This feature ensures the application maintains data integrity by preventing duplicate entries that could lead to inconsistent states. Background Jobs and Asynchronous Operations Maintaining data integrity in a high-volume transactional environment often requires performing operations asynchronously. Background jobs allow resource-intensive tasks to be processed outside the main request-response cycle, enhancing application performance and responsiveness. Role of Background Jobs in Data Integrity Background jobs contribute to data integrity by: Deferred Processing: Deferring non-critical tasks prevents long-running operations from blocking the main thread. For example, updating denormalized data or recalculating aggregates can be handled asynchronously, ensuring efficient primary database operations. Retry Mechanisms: Background job systems typically include robust retry mechanisms for handling transient failures, ensuring tasks are re-attempted when temporary issues occur, thereby maintaining data consistency and reliability. Concurrency Control: Features like limiting the number of workers or enforcing job priorities manage the load on the database, reducing the risk of contention and ensuring smooth operation even under heavy load. Transactional Integrity: Coupling background jobs with database transactions ensures that certain operations are only performed once a transaction is successfully committed. For instance, sending confirmation emails or updating related records can be queued as background jobs, contingent on the primary transaction's successful completion. Asynchronous Operations and Data Integrity Asynchronous operations are critical for managing complex workflows and maintaining data integrity across distributed systems. They enable applications to handle tasks requiring interaction with external services, batch processing, or complex computations without disrupting the primary workflow. Event-driven architectures leverage asynchronous operations to react to events and trigger corresponding actions. This model enhances data integrity by ensuring that changes in one part of the system are propagated and handled consistently across the entire application. Additionally, asynchronous operations decouple systems, improving scalability and resilience by allowing each component to operate independently. Implementation in Rails Implementing background jobs and asynchronous operations in Rails typically involves choosing and configuring a suitable background job processing library, such as Sidekiq. Developers define jobs by creating classes that include the job processing logic, and these classes are enqueued from controllers, models, or other parts of the application as needed. The background job processing library handles the execution of these jobs, ensuring they are processed according to the defined configuration and retry policies. Rails applications can leverage Active Job, which provides a unified interface for various background job processing systems, allowing developers to switch between different libraries without modifying the job definitions. Database constraints are vital for ensuring data integrity, providing strong protection against data corruption that complements application-level validations. Tools like unique indexes, foreign key constraints, and advanced features such as partial and composite indexes help maintain consistent and reliable data, even when application code fails. In high-transaction environments, handling concurrency with locking mechanisms and leveraging background jobs ensures data accuracy under heavy loads. These strategies allow for efficient, scalable applications. By implementing database constraints alongside best practices, Rails developers can create secure, resilient software, ensuring that data remains accurate and reliable as applications grow and evolve. Stay tuned for our upcoming article, where we'll explore how maintaining data accuracy during online transactions builds customer trust, facilitates smooth transactions, and enhances the performance of online businesses, even in highly competitive markets. ### Transform Background Processing with Sidekiq for Seamless Efficiency! Make sure to read our other Data Integrity related posts: Data Integrity - Foundation of Trust Ensure Data Integrity in your Rails Application Transform Background Processing with Sidekiq for Seamless Efficiency! Battle data corruption with Database constraints – the hidden safeguards! Elevate Your E-commerce: Secure Data Integrity During Migration   “I'm in your servers, quickly processing all your background jobs.” @sidekiq In the early 2010s, the Ruby ecosystem saw the rise of various background job processors like BackgroundJob, DelayedJob, and Resque, each offering improvements over its predecessors. DelayedJob could run multiple jobs from a single Ruby instance, and Resque enhanced speed by using Redis for job storage. However, until Sidekiq's emergence in 2012, job processing was limited to a single thread per Ruby process, causing memory constraints before CPU or IO limits were reached. Sidekiq revolutionized background job processing by using multithreading, allowing multiple jobs to run concurrently within the same process. This innovation made Sidekiq essential for Ruby and Rails applications that handle heavy loads or time-consuming tasks, such as sending emails or processing files. By offloading these tasks to the background, Sidekiq ensures fast, responsive web applications without blocking the main thread. How Sidekiq Works Sidekiq's core architecture revolves around the concept of "jobs," which are Ruby classes that define background jobs. Each worker includes a perform method where the job logic is implemented. Jobs are queued with Sidekiq and stored in Redis, an in-memory data structure store that acts as a message broker. When a worker is available, Sidekiq retrieves the job from Redis and processes it in a separate thread. Multithreading and Concurrency Sidekiq's ability to handle multiple jobs concurrently is one of its standout features. Traditional background job processors, like Delayed: Job or Resque, typically rely on forking processes, which can be resource-intensive. Sidekiq, however, uses threads within a single process. This approach significantly reduces memory overhead and increases the throughput of job processing. Benefits of Multithreading: Efficiency: Threads share the same memory space, reducing the overhead compared to processes. Scalability: With proper configuration, Sidekiq can scale to handle thousands of jobs per second. Resource Management: Threads are more lightweight than processes, leading to better resource utilization. How Sidekiq Helps with Data Integrity Atomic Operations: Sidekiq ensures that each background job is processed atomically. This means that jobs are executed as single, indivisible operations, reducing the risk of data inconsistencies. A job can be retried without partial updates corrupting the data if it fails. Concurrency Management: By handling multiple jobs concurrently, Sidekiq minimizes the chances of race conditions, where simultaneous processes might try to modify the same data. Sidekiq’s built-in concurrency controls help maintain data consistency even under heavy load. Job Retries: Sidekiq automatically retries failed jobs, which helps maintain data integrity by ensuring that transient errors do not result in lost data or incomplete operations. The retry mechanism includes exponential backoff, reducing the risk of overwhelming the system. Unique Jobs: Sidekiq offers a way to ensure that jobs are unique. This feature prevents the same job from being enqueued multiple times, which is crucial for maintaining data consistency, particularly in scenarios involving financial transactions or critical updates. However, this unique job feature is built into Sidekiq only in the Enterprise version. For those using the free version, achieving job uniqueness requires third-party libraries. Data Integrity in Background Processing Data integrity refers to the accuracy and consistency of data throughout its lifecycle. In web applications, this means ensuring that data remains uncorrupted and consistent during various operations, such as reading, writing, and updating information. When using Sidekiq, it's essential to design background jobs in a way that preserves data integrity. For example, consider an e-commerce application where customer orders are processed in the background. Each order must be handled reliably to ensure that payment details, shipping information, and order statuses are accurately recorded. Sidekiq's ability to process jobs concurrently must be managed carefully to prevent race conditions, where multiple processes attempt to modify the same data simultaneously, potentially leading to data corruption. Ensuring Unique Data with Idempotency Keys In scenarios where data can be duplicated, such as recurring orders or repeated payment attempts, distinguishing between different instances of similar data is crucial. This is where idempotency keys come into play. Idempotency keys are unique identifiers generated for specific operations to ensure that even if an operation is repeated, it produces the same result without creating duplicate records. For instance, in an e-commerce application, developers use idempotency keys to manage payment transactions. When the system sends a payment request, it generates an idempotency key and includes it in the request. This key ensures that if the system accidentally submits the payment request multiple times, only one transaction is processed, and it ignores subsequent requests with the same idempotency key. Similarly, for recurring orders where two different payments might contain the same data, idempotency keys help distinguish between them. This prevents the system from treating them as duplicate entries and ensures each transaction is processed correctly. Sidekiq Middleware Sidekiq provides a powerful middleware system that allows developers to add custom functionality to the job processing pipeline. Middleware can be used to log job execution, track performance metrics, implement custom retry logic, and more. This flexibility makes Sidekiq highly extensible and adaptable to various use cases. Common Middleware Use Cases: Logging: Capture detailed logs of job execution for auditing and debugging. Metrics: Track job performance metrics to identify bottlenecks and optimize processing. Authorization: Implement security checks to ensure authorized users or systems process jobs. One of many JetRuby projects, an e-commerce platform, with a strong emphasis on payment processing, stands out as a prime example of data integrity's importance for precise financial records and nurturing customer trust. Data integrity played a pivotal role throughout the development process. During the architecture design phase, stringent measures were implemented to ensure that all data, including financial transactions and customer information, remained accurate and consistent. This included establishing secure database schemas and encryption protocols to safeguard sensitive data against unauthorized access or tampering. Throughout the testing phases, rigorous checks were conducted to verify data integrity under various scenarios, including stress testing and simulated user interactions. This approach ensured that the platform maintained high standards of reliability and accuracy, crucial for building and maintaining customer trust in financial transactions. In this case, Sidekiq and idempotency keys helped to ensure data integrity in the following ways: Scenario:  Processing a Payment Submission: When a customer initiates a payment on the e-commerce platform, the platform sends a payment request to the payment service, which includes a unique idempotency key generated for this transaction.  Sidekiq Job Enqueue: The platform utilizes Sidekiq to enqueue a background job to process the payment asynchronously. This job contains the payment details and the idempotency key.  Handling Duplicates: If a customer accidentally submits the payment form twice, the idempotency key ensures that the payment service processes only a single charge. Sidekiq’s unique jobs feature further ensures that only one job per payment ID is enqueued and processed.  Retries on Failure: If the payment processing job fails due to a transient error, Sidekiq automatically retries the job. This ensures that temporary issues do not result in lost transactions, thereby maintaining data integrity.  Consistency and Accuracy: By processing payments in the background, the platform remains responsive to the customer. Sidekiq ensures that the payment processing job is completed accurately, updating the payment status and maintaining consistent financial records. By incorporating Sidekiq into your Rails application, you can improve performance, maintain data integrity, and provide a better user experience through efficient background processing. What Future Holds for Sidekiq? Since its release in 2011, Sidekiq has established itself as the leading library in Ruby for background job processing. With the launch of 0.5 version, Mike Perham introduced Sidekiq Pro, which brought additional features like batches and notifications. The evolution continued with Sidekiq Enterprise, debuting in version 0.7, offering even more advanced features at a higher price point. Thus, Sidekiq adopts an open core model, providing the basic Sidekiq for free while charging for Pro and Enterprise versions.   For an in-depth understanding of how database constraints can further enhance data integrity in your applications, read our upcoming article on Database Constraints. ### 3 Reasons Mid-Size Businesses Dominate with Outsourcing Previously we have discussed Why Should Startups Consider IT Outsourcing in Business. Today, we'll concentrate on the benefits of outsourcing development for mid-sized businesses. Mid-size companies, as they grow, navigate a complex web of operational demands, competitive pressures, and resource constraints. These businesses can leverage external expertise through outsourcing. By embracing a holistic approach to outsourcing, mid-size businesses can unlock significant benefits, including access to advanced technology, freeing up management bandwidth for critical tasks, and addressing talent availability challenges. Leveraging Web Outsourcing to Expand Development Capabilities When a company lacks in-house experts for a new area of development, it often opts to explore web outsourcing as a strategic solution. Instead of investing time and resources in training new specialists from scratch — a process that can be both costly and time-consuming — the company can engage external teams with the required expertise. Web outsourcing involves delegating tasks such as website development, maintenance, or the creation of specialized web applications to external service providers, often located in different regions. This approach is driven by several key factors: cost efficiency, access to specialized skills, and the flexibility to adjust resources according to project needs. By leveraging external expertise, businesses can develop new areas of their technology stack while their core teams remain focused on their primary responsibilities. This strategy enables companies to innovate and expand their development capabilities without diverting internal resources from existing projects. The ultimate goal is to harness the skills of outsourced professionals to achieve business objectives efficiently and effectively. Motivators for outsourcing While cost reduction is often cited as a primary motivator for outsourcing, it is important to understand that the decision should be driven by strategic considerations that go beyond merely saving money: Advanced Technology and Innovation One of the most compelling reasons for mid-size businesses to outsource their F&A functions is the access to advanced technology and innovative solutions that outsourcing partners offer. In-house F&A teams in mid-size companies often operate with limited resources and outdated systems, which hinder efficiency and accuracy. On the other hand, specialized outsourcing firms invest heavily in state-of-the-art technology, including automation tools, artificial intelligence (AI), and analytics platforms. These technologies can streamline routine processes such as payroll, accounts payable, and receivable management, reducing the risk of errors and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. Furthermore, advanced analytics can provide valuable insights into financial performance, enabling better decision-making. By leveraging these technologies, mid-size businesses can enhance their operational efficiency and gain a competitive edge. Freeing Management Bandwidth for Critical Tasks Another significant benefit of outsourcing F&A functions is freeing up management bandwidth. In many mid-size companies, senior executives often find themselves bogged down with administrative and operational tasks, leaving little time for strategic planning and decision-making. Outsourcing allows these executives to delegate routine and time-consuming tasks to external experts, enabling them to focus on core business activities such as product development, market expansion, and customer engagement. This shift in focus can be transformative for mid-size businesses, it allows leaders to concentrate on areas that directly contribute to growth and profitability. Moreover, outsourcing partners often bring a wealth of industry knowledge and best practices, providing valuable insights that can help shape the company's strategic direction. Addressing Talent Availability Challenges The talent landscape in the finance and accounting sector is becoming increasingly competitive. Mid-size businesses often struggle to attract and retain skilled professionals due to budget constraints and limited career advancement opportunities. Outsourcing provides a viable solution to this challenge by granting access to a global talent pool. Outsourcing firms have specialized teams with expertise in F&A, from tax compliance to financial analysis. By partnering with these firms, mid-size businesses can tap into a wealth of knowledge and experience that would otherwise be difficult to acquire. This access to specialized talent ensures high-quality service delivery and provides flexibility to scale operations up or down based on business needs. Choosing the Right Outsourcing Partner: Key Considerations While the benefits of outsourcing are clear, the success of this strategy largely depends on selecting the right outsourcing partner. Here are some key considerations for mid-size businesses when choosing an outsourcing firm: Alignment with Business Goals and Values The outsourcing partner should share the same vision and values with the mid-size business. This alignment ensures that both parties work towards common objectives and maintain a cohesive working relationship. Evaluate the potential partner's culture, work ethics, and commitment to quality. Experience and Expertise Experience and expertise are critical factors in selecting an outsourcing partner. The firm should have a proven track record of serving mid-size businesses in the same industry. This industry-specific experience ensures that the partner understands the unique challenges and opportunities that the business faces. The outsourcing firm should have expertise in the specific F&A functions the company intends to outsource. Technological Capabilities Access to advanced technology is a significant advantage of outsourcing. Therefore, it is crucial to assess the outsourcing partner's technological capabilities. The firm should have access to the latest tools and platforms and demonstrate a commitment to continuous innovation. This capability ensures that the mid-size business can benefit from cutting-edge solutions and stay ahead of the competition. Data Security and Compliance Data security and compliance are paramount when outsourcing F&A functions, as these processes involve handling sensitive financial information. The outsourcing partner must adhere to strict security protocols and comply with relevant regulatory requirements. It is essential to evaluate the firm's data security measures, including encryption, access controls, and disaster recovery plans. Additionally, the partner should be well-versed in local and international regulations to ensure compliance. Scalability and Flexibility Mid-size businesses often experience fluctuations in demand, and their outsourcing needs may change over time. Therefore, choose a partner that offers scalability and flexibility. The outsourcing firm should be able to adjust its services and resources based on the business's evolving requirements. This flexibility ensures that the company can scale its operations seamlessly without disruptions. Ensuring Process Transparency and Fair Pricing When selecting an outsourcing partner, it is crucial to prioritize process transparency. The partner should provide a clear outline of their development workflows, project management strategies, communication practices, and quality assurance measures. Such transparency ensures that you understand how your project will be managed, what milestones to anticipate, and how potential challenges will be addressed. In addition to process clarity, fair and transparent pricing is essential. While cost should not be the sole factor in your decision, a detailed breakdown of pricing structures is necessary to avoid unexpected expenses. A well-defined cost structure enables effective budgeting and financial management throughout the project. Why Mid-Size Companies Choose JetRuby Agency for Outsource Development At JetRuby Agency, we take immense pride in our extensive experience working with established global enterprises such as the Financial Times, GoPro, Osram, and NY University. Our portfolio showcases a history of successful collaborations that have helped these companies leverage cutting-edge technology to meet their business goals. While we have partnered with large enterprises, our expertise also shines in our work with mid-sized businesses, which are the core of our client base, representing 70% of our partnerships. Our focus on mid-size companies is driven by understanding the challenges they face as they scale. We don't just act as a service provider; we position ourselves as strategic partners, committed to growing with our clients. By delivering tailored software development solutions, we help mid-size companies overcome resource constraints, access specialized skills, and integrate advanced technologies that drive innovation. Whether it’s enabling tech startups to become global brands or helping established businesses stay ahead in a competitive market, our approach centers on creating tangible business value. This commitment to partnership and mutual growth is what sets us apart. Outsourcing is poised for further transformation Software development outsourcing has evolved far beyond its initial focus on cost savings. Today, it's about tapping into top-tier talent, keeping pace with the latest technological advancements, and ensuring the highest quality and security standards for your projects. Considering the current trends, it's clear that the outsourcing market is on a strong upward trajectory and will continue to grow as businesses worldwide increasingly rely on Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies to handle more complex tasks. This reliance on outsourcing expertise gives companies a significant edge over their competitors. This dynamic could quickly become self-sustaining. As BPO companies are entrusted with more complex tasks, they continue enhancing their skills in IT outsourcing so that their growing expertise allows them to take on even more challenging projects. As we progress through 2024, the outsourcing landscape is poised for further transformation, bringing new trends and challenges to the forefront. By staying informed and carefully selecting the right partners, businesses can fully leverage the power of software development outsourcing, driving innovation, efficiency, and competitive advantage in an increasingly dynamic market. ### Conquer Technical Debt: 3 Strategies for a Clean Codebase Chasing a "clean code" unicorn Technical debt, a term coined by Ward Cunningham, describes the gap between a programmer's evolving understanding of a system and the existing codebase shaped by earlier, less informed decisions. As development progresses, it's rare to achieve a perfect implementation from the start. Technical debt accumulates as the code reflects outdated solutions and assumptions, rather than the current problem and solution space. Since concepts of "clean code" evolve with new frameworks and languages, what is considered optimal today might become obsolete soon. To manage technical debt, developers should focus on minimalism — reducing unnecessary complexity and embracing simplicity. This approach helps maintain code quality, adaptability, and relevance, minimizing technical debt and making the codebase more resilient to future changes. The Value of Code as an Asset The only guaranteed way to avoid technical debt is to avoid writing code altogether. This notion, while true, is akin to saying “To avoid missing in basketball, don’t shoot.” Shooting is essential in basketball, so writing code is in software development. Code is an asset, and technology-driven organizations cannot function or innovate without it. However, it is crucial to understand that assets require maintenance to remain valuable. Writing code to solve problems is just the beginning; ensuring that the code remains aligned with the problem and maintaining it effectively are essential to keeping technical debt at bay. Code as a Fundamental Asset Code is the backbone of software applications, enabling functionalities, driving business processes, and delivering value. For any technology-driven organization, code is a fundamental asset. Well-written, efficient, and maintainable code can enhance productivity, provide competitive advantages, and support the scalability of business operations. Therefore, recognizing the intrinsic value of code is crucial. Understanding Code Liability Despite its value, code can accumulate liabilities. These liabilities often arise when there is a misalignment between the code and various aspects of the problem it is intended to solve. Here are some common scenarios where code can become a liability: When the Code Does Not Match the Problem. Code becomes a liability when it fails to address the core problem it was designed to solve. This misalignment can occur due to changes in business requirements, incorrect initial specifications, or evolving user needs. When the code does not effectively solve the problem, it becomes a burden rather than an asset. When the Code’s Internal Model Does Not Match the Problem. The internal model of the code refers to how the code structures and organizes data and processes to solve the problem. The code will struggle to meet the desired outcomes if this internal model is flawed or outdated. For example, an inefficient algorithm or poor data management can lead to performance bottlenecks and functional limitations. When the Code’s Internal Model Does Not Match the Mental Model of Users and Programmers. Effective software design requires the code's internal model to align with the mental models of both users and programmers. Users should find the software intuitive and easy to use, while programmers should find the code logical and maintainable. Discrepancies between these mental models and the code's internal structure can lead to user frustration, increased training costs, and higher maintenance efforts. When the Code’s Internal Model Does Not Match the Code’s Internal Interfaces. Internal interfaces within the code are the touchpoints where different components interact. If these interfaces are inconsistent or poorly designed, they can cause integration issues, make debugging difficult, and hinder future development. Ensuring that internal interfaces are well-defined and cohesive is essential for maintainable code. When There Is More Code Than Necessary to Match the Problem. Over-engineering is a common pitfall in software development. Writing more code than necessary to solve a problem adds complexity and increases the potential for bugs. Excessive code also makes the system harder to understand and maintain. Striving for simplicity and writing only the code needed to address the problem can mitigate this liability. Technical Debt: When Code Becomes Obsolete. A key aspect of technical debt is when code becomes obsolete as a system evolves. Features may change, be replaced, or be abandoned, leaving behind legacy code that’s no longer useful. This redundant code increases complexity, making it harder for developers to maintain and understand the system, and can lead to bugs or security issues. To manage technical debt, regularly audit and refactor the codebase to remove outdated elements, ensuring the system remains lean, maintainable, and secure. While technical debt is often seen as a negative aspect, it can be harnessed to your advantage if managed properly. By understanding its roots and impacts, you can develop strategies to steer development towards a cleaner code base. Steering Development with Iterative Enhancement One effective strategy is to adopt an iterative enhancement approach. Instead of aiming for perfection in the first release, focus on incremental improvements. This allows for continuous refinement and reduces the risk of accumulating technical debt. Regularly revisiting and refactoring the code ensures it remains clean and maintainable. Secure a Competitive Edge Managing technical debt effectively can also provide a competitive edge. A clean code base allows for faster development cycles, easier implementation of new features, and quicker adaptation to market changes. You can respond more rapidly to business requirements, improving your agility and competitiveness by minimizing technical debt.  Planning on Taking a Breather Recognize the importance of pause while addressing technical debt. Allocating dedicated time for refactoring and debt repayment can prevent it from spiraling out of control. Regularly scheduled maintenance sprints or technical debt reduction phases ensure that the code base remains manageable and reduces the long-term costs associated with high debt levels. Strategies for Reducing Technical Debt Effective strategies for reducing technical debt begin with prioritization.  It's crucial to identify and address the most critical areas of debt first, as these often have the greatest impact on the system's performance and maintainability. Prioritizing technical debt involves assessing the potential risks and benefits of addressing different debt items and focusing on those providing the highest return on investment. By tackling the most pressing issues first, teams can mitigate risks and improve the overall health of the codebase more efficiently. Safe refactoring practices are another essential component in managing technical debt.  Effective refactoring is essential for managing and reducing technical debt, and safe refactoring practices are key to ensuring that changes don't introduce new issues into the codebase. One critical aspect of this process is maintaining thorough test coverage with several software test levels. While there is a common belief that unit tests for business logic may not always be necessary, ensuring comprehensive test coverage across the system is vital. This approach allows developers to refactor code, knowing that the system's overall functionality will be preserved, and any issues can be quickly identified and addressed confidently. Beyond test coverage, the importance of deep technical planning and gathering additional client requirements cannot be overstated when addressing technical debt. Refactoring that aims to resolve technical debt benefits greatly from careful planning and design. Developers can create more efficient, maintainable solutions that align with long-term business goals investing time in thorough technical design and understanding the full scope of client needs. This proactive approach reduces the risk of introducing new problems during refactoring and ensures that the development process remains focused on delivering value while effectively managing technical debt. In addition to prioritization and refactoring, incremental improvements are vital for managing technical debt.  Rather than attempting large-scale overhauls, which can be risky and disruptive, teams should focus on making small, continuous enhancements to the codebase. This approach allows for steady progress and reduces the likelihood of introducing significant new issues. Incremental improvements can include regular code cleanups, updating outdated dependencies, and gradually refactoring problematic areas of the code. By embedding these practices into the daily workflow, teams can steadily chip away at technical debt and foster a culture of continuous improvement. JetRuby practices At JetRuby, we integrate these strategies into our development process to manage technical debt effectively. We maintain a clean and robust codebase prioritizing high-impact debt, employing safe refactoring practices with comprehensive test coverage, and making incremental improvements. This proactive approach ensures that our software remains maintainable, scalable, and aligned with the latest industry standards, ultimately delivering high-quality solutions for our clients. We recognize that technical debt is an inevitable part of the development process, but we are committed to managing it effectively to maintain a clean and robust codebase. While understanding the intricacies of managing technical debt, we never lose sight of our clients' business goals. Our approach balances immediate business needs with sustainable development practices, ensuring that technical debt is used as a tool rather than a burden. By integrating these practices, we ensure that our technical debt is manageable and our codebase remains an asset, not a liability.    …we tried to keep it short, but this article grew like technical debt:) ### Our Commitment to Excellence Through ISO-Certified Quality   As businesses navigate the complexities of digital transformation, the role of a strong internal culture and consistent quality management becomes increasingly vital. Research shows that 89% of companies recognize the direct impact of employee engagement on their success. To address these challenges, we at JetRuby have embraced ISO-certified quality standards, which have become a cornerstone of our approach to managing both our workforce and our client relationships. ISO certifications are widely respected as a mark of quality, offering assurance that an organization adheres to rigorous standards for efficiency, accountability, and consistency. For JetRuby, achieving certificates ISO 30414 for Human Capital Management and ISO 10018 for People Engagement has been instrumental in refining how we manage our teams and engage with clients. These certifications reflect our commitment to operating at a high level, ensuring that we meet the specific needs of those we work with while continuously striving for improvement. Understanding ISO Certifications: What They Mean In the context of digital transformation, the importance of human capital management cannot be overstated. As companies push forward with new technologies and processes, having a motivated, engaged, and well-managed team is essential. Without this foundation, even the most promising digital initiatives can falter. ISO 30414 focuses on providing a structured approach to managing human capital, ensuring that organizations attract and retain talent while creating an environment where employees can thrive. For JetRuby, this certification has been a critical tool in developing a strategic approach to workforce management, allowing us to better support our teams and, by extension, deliver superior results to our clients. Similarly, ISO 10018 emphasizes the importance of employee engagement, recognizing that engaged employees are more productive, more innovative, and more committed to the success of their organization. By adopting the principles of this standard, we were able to foster a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement, which has had a direct impact on the quality and consistency of the services we provide. JetRuby's ISO Certification Journey The path to ISO certification at JetRuby was a significant milestone that demanded careful planning, consistent effort, and a strong commitment to quality. This journey began with the critical task of finding the right auditors to evaluate our systems and grant us the certification. After an extensive search, we successfully partnered with a lead auditor from the UK and a mentor from the US. While the auditor prepared us for the official evaluation, the mentor guided us through the entire preparation phase, ensuring we met every standard. Our preparation spanned roughly six months, during which we conducted a thorough review of the ISO requirements. This process involved assessing our existing practices to ensure they aligned with the ISO guidelines. Where we identified gaps, we implemented new, formalized procedures. While the core of these processes was already part of our operations, they required proper documentation and standardization to comply with ISO's rigorous standards. Throughout this period, we worked closely with our auditors, receiving regular feedback and continuously refining our processes. This collaborative approach allowed us to make necessary adjustments and improvements along the way. The final audit was a comprehensive evaluation, covering not only financial data and a wide range of company metrics but also in-depth interviews with our top management. Successfully passing this detailed review earned us the ISO certification, a reflection of our team's hard work and dedication. Achieving ISO certification has had a transformative effect on our operations. By formalizing our internal processes, we’ve enhanced our operational efficiency and strengthened the value we deliver to our clients. This certification embodies our commitment to upholding the highest standards of quality, ensuring consistency, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement across every aspect of JetRuby. How ISO Standards Enhance Our Service Offerings Thanks to ISO 30414, we continuously analyze and optimize our team's performance, implementing cutting-edge techniques that result in a 35% productivity boost compared to industry peers. This means faster, higher-quality outcomes for our clients, ensuring projects are delivered efficiently and with exceptional results. Our talent retention strategies, guided by ISO 30414, keep our engineers motivated and committed long-term, with an average tenure of over four years — double the industry norm. This stability reduces onboarding time, saving clients time and money, while maintaining consistency and expertise throughout projects. We foster continuous learning through internal academies and skills programs aligned with ISO standards. This ensures our engineers are constantly improving and equipped to handle the unique challenges of each project. Clients benefit from a team that’s always growing and innovating, leading to faster problem-solving and better results. By applying ISO 10018, we create an environment where every team member feels valued and engaged. This high level of engagement translates to better performance, lower turnover, and significant cost savings for our clients, all without compromising quality. What These Standards Mean for Your Business A prime example of how our ISO-powered HR management system benefits clients is through our "CTO as a Service" model. This service provides high-caliber technical leadership that oversees projects from start to finish, minimizing risks, boosting efficiency, and maximizing return on investment. But that’s not all. Partnering with an ISO-certified software development company brings several key advantages to your business: Meeting Expectations The "I" and "S" in "ISO" stand for "International" and "Standardization," respectively. This means that the grading system of ISO-certified vendors is globally recognized and compliant with international standards. No more juniors mistakenly labeled as "Middles," and no engineers without management skills called "Leads." All roles and titles are aligned with industry standards. Value Alignment For any collaboration to be successful, it’s crucial to not only meet expectations but also share common values. ISO standards help ensure that, regardless of where your business is located, the type of projects you have, or your cultural background, our engineers will seamlessly integrate with your team and business goals. Overcoming Turnover Challenges One of the biggest concerns when outsourcing digital product development is the risk of high staff turnover. Frequent staff changes can disrupt project timelines, as onboarding new team members can take 3 to 6 months. Fortunately, ISO 30414 and ISO 10018 standards have you covered. According to our internal data, our engineers are highly satisfied with their work, leading to an average tenure of over four years. Scalability Lastly, the ISO standards have enabled us to build an incredibly efficient HR system. This means that contractors can hire and onboard dozens of new employees within days, without hassle or delays. Thanks to our Ruby Academy and its graduates, who have already undergone a rigorous screening process, we are well-equipped to support rapid hiring and team expansion. Additionally, the stability and consistency we maintain through adherence to ISO standards result in fewer disruptions and a smoother path to project completion. For businesses, this reliability is crucial in navigating the challenges of digital transformation. Moving Forward with Confidence At JetRuby, our commitment to ISO-certified quality reflects our ongoing dedication to improvement and excellence. These certifications represent our commitment to creating a work environment supporting our teams and clients. Choosing a partner with ISO-certified processes provides peace of mind, knowing that your projects are being managed with a focus on quality and engagement. As we continue to uphold these standards, we aim to deliver reliable, consistent results that help our clients achieve their goals. In an ever-evolving business landscape, having a partner who prioritizes effective management and engagement practices can make a significant difference. We look forward to supporting your business as you navigate the complexities of digital transformation. ### Custom E-Commerce Platform: Unlock 6 Potential Financial Gains Large online retail businesses often face a decision between using a ready-made solution like Shopify or investing in a custom e-commerce platform. At scale, the financial benefits of a custom platform can be compelling. JetRuby Agency partnered with a client to create a bespoke e-commerce platform tailored for global-scale business needs. Our effort focused on integrating features for multiple regions, languages, and currencies. The platform handles extensive assortments and provides robust logistical support, ensuring personalized shopping experiences. This blog post explores the financial benefits and intangibles of a custom e-commerce platform. Drawing from our project, we'll demonstrate why a custom solution offers substantial returns and a competitive edge. We'll also discuss the client's decision to move away from Shopify, shedding light on the pros and cons of custom-built solutions versus pre-existing platforms. By the end, you'll understand the intricacies and strategic considerations of creating a tailored e-commerce system. Financial Benefits of Custom E-Commerce Platform Development No Recurring Fees: Unlike Shopify's monthly fees, a custom solution requires only an initial investment, avoiding recurring costs and boosting profit margins. Eliminate Third-Party Costs: Custom platforms integrate necessary features from the start, reducing reliance on costly add-ons, saving money, and ensuring efficient operation. Scalability: Custom platforms scale with your business without additional charges, ensuring cost-effective growth. Predictable Maintenance Costs: Choose your developers and negotiate maintenance contracts, leading to lower long-term expenses. Enhanced Security: Tailored security measures reduce financial risks associated with data breaches. Operational Efficiency: Seamless integration with existing systems reduces manual interventions and errors, lowering operational costs. Project Objectives Our client's expansion targeted over 50 countries, adding complexity to the project. The platform needed to support a diverse range of products and services, ensuring reliable performance across regions. This involved extensive coordination and robust infrastructure to handle high transaction volumes. Seamless collaboration and precise execution were crucial, ensuring uninterrupted operations and a smooth transition for users. Achieving UI/UX consistency was essential to provide a familiar interface, minimizing the learning curve. Agreed Custom Product Features User Experience: Responsive Design, Advanced Search and Filtering, Customer Accounts Security: Data Encryption, Fraud Detection, Compliance with GDPR and CCPA Marketing and Sales: SEO Optimization, Promotions and Discounts, Analytics and Reporting Integration Capabilities: Third-Party Integrations, API Access Our Work A microservices architecture provided scalability and performance, with services like AWS ensuring high availability and fault tolerance. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) reduced latency. Geolocation services, localized hosting, a translation management system, and real-time currency conversion APIs supported a multi-regional user base. A centralized Product Information Management (PIM) and Warehouse Management systems (WMS) handled inventory. Load balancing and advanced caching techniques ensured performance. Big data analytics and machine learning offered personalization, while a robust Order Management System (OMS) streamlined logistics and employee management. Technologies used in Custom E-commerce solution Backend: Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, Spree Commerce, AWS, New Relic, Artillery.io Frontend: Spree Next.js Commerce, Redux, Redux-saga, Tailwind CSS Our team chose Ruby on Rails as the server-side web application framework due to its efficiency and strong community support. As for PostgreSQL, team used it for its advanced features and greater flexibility compared to MySQL. Spree Commerce, an open-source headless e-commerce platform, served as the core component, providing a flexible and customizable foundation for e-commerce functionalities. We hosted the server-side code on Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provided scalability, reliability, and a comprehensive range of services to support the platform's infrastructure. We implemented New Relic as a powerful full-stack data analysis platform to monitor and analyze software metrics, events, and logs, ensuring optimal performance and rapid issue resolution. Artillery.io, a load testing tool, was essential for testing the final solution under high load conditions, ensuring the platform could handle large volumes of traffic and transactions smoothly. We utilized Spree Next.js Commerce, an all-in-one React starter kit, to build high-performance e-commerce sites, providing a robust front-end framework that integrates seamlessly with the back end. We employed Redux as a predictable state container for JavaScript applications, efficiently managing the application state and ensuring consistent behavior across the platform.  Redux-saga, a library for handling application side effects such as data fetching and cache management, enhanced efficiency, manageability, and failure handling. For rapidly building custom user interfaces, we used Tailwind CSS, a utility-first CSS framework that allowed for highly customizable and responsive design. Results Our solution offered greater flexibility and customization, targeting specific verticals and consumer groups. This led to increased efficiency, improved user experience, and higher customer satisfaction. While custom solutions require significant upfront investment, they offer long-term profitability and are ideal for businesses with unique requirements. If you're considering a custom solution, reach out to us. We'll help you make an informed decision. Follow our digest for more useful articles! ### Ensure Data Integrity in your Rails Application Make sure to read our other Data Integrity related posts: Data Integrity - Foundation of Trust Ensure Data Integrity in your Rails Application Data integrity is a crucial aspect of any application, ensuring that information remains accurate, consistent, and reliable throughout its lifecycle. Luckily, Ruby on Rails (Rails) provides comprehensive tools and conventions to support data integrity, including migrations, schema management, validations, transactions, and more.  In Rails, there is a built-in ORM called ActiveRecord, which supports transactions and ensures data integrity. ActiveRecord allows developers to work with database records as if they were Ruby objects, abstracting away the complexities of direct SQL queries. It handles CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations and provides a range of methods for querying and manipulating data. Data Integrity in Rails Rails supports data integrity through several conventions, configurations, and built-in tools, ensuring that data remains accurate, consistent, and reliable throughout the lifecycle of an application. Migrations and Schema Management Rails migrations allow developers to evolve the database schema over time in a controlled manner. Migrations provide a way to add, modify, or remove database tables and columns while keeping the schema in sync with the application code.  Schema validations and constraints can be defined within migrations to enforce data integrity at the database level. Schema Versioning Each migration file is assigned a unique timestamp, ensuring that changes are applied in the correct order. Rails maintains a schema version in the schema_migrations table, tracking which migrations have been run. This system of versioning ensures that developers can confidently apply or rollback changes, knowing that the database schema will remain consistent and up-to-date. Schema Dump Rails can generate a schema file (db/schema.rb or db/structure.sql)) that represents the current state of the database schema. This file serves as a snapshot of the schema at a given point in time, allowing developers to recreate the database schema without having to run all the migrations from scratch. This is particularly useful for setting up new development environments or ensuring that the production database matches the expected schema. Validations ActiveRecord provides a range of built-in validation methods to ensure data integrity before records are saved to the database. These validations can check for the presence, format, uniqueness, and length of data attributes. Custom validations can also be defined to enforce more complex business rules. Uniqueness Constraints The validates_uniqueness_of method in ActiveRecord does not guarantee uniqueness on its own. Instead, it checks for uniqueness at the application level, which can lead to race conditions where duplicates might still be inserted into the database. To ensure true data integrity, it's essential to always use a unique index at the database level. The unique index is what ultimately enforces uniqueness and prevents duplicate entries. The validation itself is more of a convenience for capturing errors early in the application, but it should never be relied upon as the sole measure for ensuring data uniqueness. Associations and Foreign Key Constraints ActiveRecord associations (e.g., belongs_to, has_many, has_one)  help define relationships between different models, ensuring referential integrity. Foreign key constraints must be added to migrations because they are essential for ensuring data integrity. These constraints enforce relationships at the database level, preventing orphaned records and maintaining referential consistency. In Rails, migrations for associations automatically generate foreign keys, which plays a crucial role in upholding data integrity by enforcing these relationships directly within the database. Transactions ensure that a series of database operations succeeds or fails, maintaining data integrity in complex operations. By leveraging these conventions, configurations, and built-in tools, Ruby on Rails ensures that applications maintain high data integrity standards, reducing the risk of data anomalies and inconsistencies. Ensuring Uniqueness in ActiveRecord Ensuring data uniqueness in ActiveRecord, the ORM layer for Ruby on Rails is a crucial aspect of maintaining data integrity in your applications. Rails provides several mechanisms to enforce uniqueness, primarily through validations and database-level constraints. Below is a detailed exploration of these methods and the considerations involved.  Using Validations ActiveRecord validations ensure that data conforms to specified rules before it is saved to the database. The validates_uniqueness_of method ensures that the value of an attribute is unique across the system.  This validation checks for the uniqueness of the email attribute before saving the record. However, it is important to note that this validation is performed at the application level and can be bypassed in some race conditions, where multiple processes attempt to create a record with the same attribute simultaneously. Handling Race Conditions Race conditions occur when two or more operations are executed concurrently and result in conflicts, potentially compromising data integrity. For instance, two users attempting to sign up with the same email at the same time might pass the uniqueness validation check if it is not enforced at the database level. Rails addresses race conditions by using database-level constraints and unique indexes. Here's a clearer breakdown: Unique Indexes: At the database level, unique indexes ensure that duplicate records cannot be inserted, even if multiple processes attempt to do so simultaneously. Database-level Constraints: These constraints provide additional protection against race conditions by enforcing data integrity rules.  For example, the following migration creates a unique index on the email column, ensuring uniqueness is enforced at the database level:  add_index :users, :email, unique: true Whether you are just starting with Rails or have been using it for years, understanding and implementing these mechanisms will help you ensure that your application's data remains trustworthy and consistent. Testing for Uniqueness Imagine building a robust Rails application. Your reliable friend in making sure your code works as intended is testing. Which testing framework, though, should you pick? RSpec and MiniTest are both valuable tools for testing Rails applications. MiniTest is lightweight and simple, making it efficient, while RSpec excels in larger projects with its expressive, BDD-focused approach. The choice between them depends on team preferences and project needs. Testing is an ongoing process, so let's explore the advanced features of both frameworks. RSpec emphasizes readable, English-like specifications that describe how the application should work, supporting BDD and providing clear expressions of expected behavior. MiniTest, while simpler, also supports TDD, BDD, and benchmarking, with strong integration into Ruby’s test ecosystem. Both frameworks share similar testing principles, and expertise in one easily transfers to the other. Minitest offers seamless integration with Ruby's test runners, various assertion methods, parallel test execution, and syntax similar to RSpec’s. It’s straightforward and familiar to Ruby developers. RSpec, a BDD tool, encourages collaboration by making tests human-readable, using natural language structures like "describe" and "it." It provides a wide range of matchers, hooks, configuration options, and integrates with tools like FactoryBot and DatabaseCleaner, making it a powerful choice for Ruby testing. Impact of Stringent Data Integrity Checks on Rails Application Performance Maintaining stringent data integrity checks in a Ruby on Rails application significantly impacts performance, leading to increased latency, higher resource consumption, reduced throughput, and potential database locking. By incorporating methods such as refining validation logic, utilizing efficient indexing, making use of caching mechanisms, implementing database replication and sharding, transferring checks to background processing, enhancing transactions, and continuously monitoring and profiling, it becomes feasible to strike a balance between the demand for data integrity and the essential need for high performance.  Data Integrity Checks and Performance Implications Data integrity checks in a Rails application typically involve a series of validations, constraints, and transactions designed to ensure that the data adheres to specific rules and standards. These checks can occur at multiple levels, including the application level, where Rails validations ensure that data conforms to business rules before it is saved to the database, and the database level, where constraints and triggers enforce data integrity rules directly in the database. Performance Implications: Increased Latency: Each data integrity check requires additional processing time. Complex validations and constraints, especially those involving multiple table joins or computationally intensive operations, can introduce significant latency, slowing down the response time of the application. Higher Resource Consumption: Stringent data integrity checks often consume more CPU and memory resources. Each validation rule adds to the computational overhead, which can strain the application server, particularly under high load conditions. Reduced Throughput: With the additional processing required for integrity checks, the throughput of the application may decrease. This means that the application can handle fewer requests per unit of time, potentially leading to bottlenecks and reduced scalability. Database Locking: When data integrity checks involve transactions, there is a potential for increased database locking. Transactions ensure atomicity, but they can also lock rows or tables, leading to contention and reduced database concurrency Strategies to Balance Data Integrity and Application Performance Balancing data integrity and application performance requires a strategic approach that leverages various optimization techniques without compromising the accuracy and reliability of the data. Below are some effective strategies: Efficient Validation Logic Optimizing validation logic is essential to minimize the performance overhead associated with data integrity checks.  Strategies include: Reducing Complexity: Simplify validation logic to ensure it is as efficient as possible. Avoid redundant validations and combine multiple checks into a single, more efficient operation where feasible. Conditional Validations: Use conditional validations to apply checks only when necessary. This can significantly reduce the number of validations performed, particularly in scenarios where certain validations are only relevant under specific conditions. Database Indexing Proper indexing can drastically improve the performance of data integrity checks at the database level: Index Utilization: Ensure that all columns involved in validations and constraints are appropriately indexed. Indexes can accelerate the lookup of records, reducing the time required for integrity checks. Selective Indexing: While indexes can significantly enhance read performance, they may also slow down write operations. To achieve the best balance, it’s essential to index only those columns that are frequently queried or used in filtering. Indexing should focus on the columns most often involved in search conditions, as this will optimize performance without unnecessarily impacting write speeds. Caching Mechanisms Implementing caching strategies can mitigate the performance impact of repetitive integrity checks: In-Memory Caching: If the data validation logic in your application is particularly resource-intensive, it may be worth considering in-memory caching solutions like Redis or Memcached. These tools can store the results of frequently performed validations, significantly reducing the need to repeatedly execute the same costly validation logic and improving overall performance. Database Replication and Sharding Distributing the database load can improve performance while maintaining data integrity: Read Replicas: Implementing read replicas can help offload read operations from the master instance, thereby reducing the load on it. By decreasing the number of read requests hitting the primary database, you can improve its overall performance, allowing it to handle write operations and other critical tasks more efficiently. This can lead to better performance for data integrity checks and other operations that rely on reading from the database. Sharding: Implement database sharding to partition data across multiple databases. Sharding can distribute the load more evenly and improve the performance of data integrity checks by reducing the amount of data each database node needs to handle. Background Processing Offloading certain integrity checks to background jobs can enhance the responsiveness of the application: Asynchronous Validations: Perform non-critical validations asynchronously using background processing frameworks like Sidekiq or Resque. This allows the application to remain responsive while ensuring data integrity is maintained in the background. Deferred Integrity Checks: For certain types of data, consider deferring the actual database write operations to a later stage when the system is under less load. This approach can help balance immediate performance needs with the requirement for maintaining data accuracy and integrity. Optimized Database Transactions Efficient management of database transactions can minimize locking and improve performance: Batch Processing: Group multiple integrity checks and database operations into a single transaction where feasible. This reduces the overhead associated with managing multiple transactions and can improve overall performance. Transaction Isolation Levels: Adjust the isolation levels of transactions to balance data integrity requirements with performance. For instance, using a lower isolation level like Read Committed can reduce locking overhead while still providing adequate data consistency. Monitoring and Profiling Continuous monitoring and profiling are essential to identify and address performance bottlenecks: Performance Monitoring Tools: Utilize performance monitoring tools such as New Relic, Datadog, or Skylight to track the impact of data integrity checks on application performance. These tools can provide insights into where optimizations are needed. Database Profiling: Regularly profile database queries to identify slow queries related to integrity checks. Use the database's built-in profiling tools or third-party solutions to optimize these queries. Adopting these strategies can help in building robust and efficient Rails applications that maintain data accuracy without compromising on speed and responsiveness, thus providing a seamless user experience while ensuring the integrity of the underlying data. Rails' built-in ORM, ActiveRecord, provides comprehensive tools and conventions to support data integrity through migrations, schema management, validations, uniqueness constraints, associations, foreign key constraints and transactions. Stay tuned to learn how to optimize your Rails applications with Sidekiq and ensure they run smoothly even under heavy load. In our upcoming article, "Sidekiq: Efficient Background Processing" we will explore how to leverage Sidekiq to handle background jobs in Rails applications efficiently. We will discuss best practices for using Sidekiq, its integration with ActiveRecord, and how it can further enhance the performance and responsiveness of your application by offloading time-consuming tasks to background processes. ### Hard to choose? ASP.NET vs. Ruby on Rails in Depth. 5 comparison points! The world of web development offers many frameworks promising efficiency, scalability, and confidence. ASP.NET and Ruby on Rails are popular choices, with unique strengths and weaknesses. Choosing the proper framework significantly impacts project success. This analysis compares these frameworks based on important criteria to help you decide which best fits your development requirements. Exploring ASP.NET framework. Features, Benefits, and Use Cases The ASP.NET Framework, developed in response to Java, allows developers to run code in a secure environment and supports various programming languages like Visual Basic and C#. ASP.NET is commonly used for web app development within the Microsoft environment. The platform, Visual Studio, and .NET Core enable cross-platform application development. Entity Framework simplifies data handling, but using ASP.NET may require more system resources, and staying updated with new versions can be challenging. When to Use ASP.NET? ASP.NET. is modular, lightweight, and fast. It makes your solution cloud-ready (meaning not only Azure but AWS, Google Cloud Platform, etc.), cross-platform, and container-friendly. Scalability: ASP.NET allows for the redesign and improvement of applications to meet growing business needs.  Cross-platform capability: It supports multiple platforms, reducing development efforts, and extending applications to other operating systems.  Enterprise-scale infrastructures: Equipped with tools for the development and integration of enterprise-level products, it supports a comprehensive enterprise mobility ecosystem. Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails (RoR) is a powerful framework designed for fast prototyping and developing web applications. It follows a convention over configuration philosophy, reducing the need for extensive configuration files and boilerplate code. Rails' comprehensive set of tools, libraries, and emphasis on best practices allows developers to focus on writing high-quality, functional code rather than repetitive tasks.  Many well-known companies such as GitHub, Airbnb, and Shopify use Ruby on Rails for their apps. It stands out in terms of speed, agility, efficiency and supports the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture, making apps maintainable and scalable. Though Ruby on Rails is not without its flaws, its long-standing usage indicates numerous advantages. Here are some key benefits: Ruby on Rails offers numerous advantages, including:  Efficiency in Development  Organized Architecture using MVC  Simplified Database Interaction with Active Record  Quick Prototyping with scaffolding feature  Convention-Driven Development  Extensive Ecosystem using Gems  Smooth Database Migrations  Clear URL Handling  Optimized Asset Management So, whether you’re starting a new project or scaling an existing one, Rails has the toolkit and the community to support you all the way. When to use Ruby on Rails? Ruby on Rails provides tools for building exceptional web applications, including rendering dynamic HTML, interacting with databases, sending and receiving emails, and supporting WebSockets for real-time updates. Rails also offers job queuing, cloud file storage, and built-in security features, making it a preferred choice for developers aiming to create sophisticated and high-quality web solutions. Development speed and efficiency [table id=1 /] Deciding between ASP.NET and Ruby on Rails for web app development.  Choosing between ASP.NET and Ruby on Rails for web app development requires understanding their distinct strengths and weaknesses. ASP.NET is known for its powerful performance, scalability, and strong integration with Microsoft products, making it ideal for enterprise solutions and secure applications. It supports multiple languages and comprehensive libraries, enabling efficient handling of complex projects. In contrast, Ruby on Rails focuses on convention over configuration, simplifying the development process and enhancing developer productivity. It is well-suited for startups and projects with tight deadlines due to its emphasis on rapid prototyping and clean code practices. When deciding, consider factors like development speed, scalability, performance, security, and community support. ASP.NET is great for high-traffic, security-conscious applications, while Ruby on Rails is perfect for quick iterations and flexibility. By weighing these factors, you can choose the framework that best aligns with your project requirements and future growth plans. ### Unlocking the Full Potential of Ruby on Rails for Enterprise-Grade Applications In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, enterprise-grade applications are crucial for businesses seeking to maintain a competitive edge. According to recent statistics, the market for enterprise software is projected to reach over $519 billion by 2030. This growth underscores the increasing demand for robust, scalable, and efficient applications capable of handling complex business operations. Ruby on Rails (RoR), a popular web application framework, has emerged as a powerful tool for developing such applications, thanks to its flexibility and efficiency. What are RoR's strengths in the enterprise space? How Ruby on Rails could boost innovation for large-scale companies? We are here to answer these and many other questions. The Power of Ruby on Rails in Enterprise Applications Scalability and Performance Capabilities Throughout its existence, Ruby has been fighting the bias of being a "slow" language, incapable of handling large numbers of RPS (Requests per Second). The Ruby 3.0 release aimed to overcome this prejudice, and when combined with Rails 7.0.4, it allowed applications to run smoothly even under heavy usage. While it still lags behind compiled languages like Java and Swift, it remains one of the fastest among interpreted languages. RoR’s architecture supports high scalability, enabling applications to manage increasing loads efficiently through the ability to integrate seamlessly with various databases and its support for caching and background job processing. Rapid Development and Time-to-Market Advantages One of the standout features of Ruby on Rails is its convention-over-configuration philosophy, which streamlines the development process. This approach makes the style of the code more consistent and monotypic, which may be a bit dull, but makes the communication between the architect and the team extremely effective. Combined with the simplification of new developers' onboarding, it’s leading to faster development cycles and quicker time-to-market. Enterprises benefit from this rapid turnaround, allowing them to respond swiftly to market changes and opportunities. Robust Security Features Security is a paramount concern for enterprise applications. Ruby on Rails comes equipped with several built-in security features, such as protection against SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and cross-site request forgery (CSRF). These features help safeguard sensitive data and maintain the integrity of enterprise applications, making RoR a reliable choice for businesses prioritizing security. Extensive Ecosystem and Community Support The Ruby on Rails ecosystem boasts a vast array of libraries and plugins, collectively known as gems, which can be leveraged to add functionality to applications with minimal effort. Additionally, the RoR community is active and supportive, providing a wealth of resources, tutorials, and forums where developers can seek advice and share knowledge. This extensive support network accelerates development and problem-solving processes. Cost-Effectiveness for Large-Scale Projects Developing enterprise applications can be costly, but Ruby on Rails offers a cost-effective solution. Its open-source nature eliminates licensing fees, and its efficiency in development reduces labor costs. Furthermore, the ability to quickly deploy updates and features helps businesses save on long-term maintenance and operational expenses. Bottom Line The Ruby on Rails framework is an excellent solution for rapid prototyping and deployment of applications. Its specifications and features allow developers to create, deploy, test, pivot, release multiple versions, and add new features quickly. In contrast, a team of seasoned Java developers might still be working on their first iteration during this time. JetRuby Success Stories: Ruby on Rails in Action Sortly Warehousing App Today Sortly is a leading warehousing app, but by the time they’ve contacted us, Sortly has many tiny slips, limiting their growth and further development. Sortly was initially represented as a pair of apps, serving different types of customers, which is quite undesirable when you are about to conquer the market. Along with this app-split, there were some challenges with visual and functional representation, as well as the platform’s stability issues. The need for a scalable solution that could handle large volumes of data was paramount. We completely changed the backend structure of the platform and implemented a new data model, which allowed us to seamlessly scale the project. This is where the Ruby on Rails framework came onto the stage with its vast range of database operation tools and variety of diverse libraries for backend development. The solution also included advanced search functionalities, and a responsive design to enhance usability. For more technical details you may refer to our Sortly portfolio page. After the final product was released, Sortly experienced a marked increase in client retention and new user acquisition, leading to a substantial return on investment. Since its initial launch, the app gained more than 5,000 positive reviews on the AppStore, with over 300,000 installations worldwide. According to Forbes, Sortly captured a position in the list of the best home inventory apps.

 Healthcare Practice App A series of private hospitals in the USA sought to automate patient appointment scheduling to streamline operations and reduce the need for manual scheduling. They required a platform that was easy to use, complied with HIPAA regulations, and integrated with Athena EMR for secure handling of sensitive patient information. We developed a Ruby on Rails-based healthcare management platform. Key features included dynamic scheduling, patient data management, secure chat support, HIPAA-compliant document storage, and a comprehensive administrative panel. The platform integrated seamlessly with Athena EMR thanks to a wide range of RoR integration tools, ensuring data security and compliance with industry regulations. The implemented solution resulted in over 200 medical experts using the platform across six clinics in the USA. The hospitals experienced increased efficiency, and enhanced patient satisfaction due to streamlined appointment processes, and compliance with regulatory standards. The application continues to expand, supporting hundreds of medical workstations and introducing new functionalities such as video meetings and automated reminders. You can also find more on that case in our portfolio. To sum up both these success stories - the versatility and power of Ruby on Rails in addressing diverse enterprise challenges is undeniable. By leveraging RoR, companies of any size can consistently deliver scalable, secure, and efficient solutions that drive significant business outcomes. Best Practices for Implementing Ruby on Rails in Enterprise Environments Architectural Considerations for Scalability To ensure scalability, it's essential to design a robust architecture from the outset. This includes using microservices to break down the application into manageable components, employing database sharding to distribute data, and leveraging cloud services for flexible resource allocation. Performance Optimization Techniques Optimizing performance involves several strategies, such as implementing caching mechanisms, optimizing database queries, and using background processing for time-consuming tasks. Regular performance monitoring and tuning are crucial to maintain optimal application speed and responsiveness. Security Best Practices Implementing security best practices is critical for protecting enterprise applications. This includes using strong authentication and authorization mechanisms, regularly updating dependencies to patch vulnerabilities, and conducting thorough security audits to identify and mitigate risks. Effective Testing and Quality Assurance Strategies Comprehensive testing is vital for ensuring application reliability. This involves automated testing frameworks, such as RSpec and Capybara, for unit, integration, and end-to-end tests. Continuous testing and quality assurance processes help identify and address issues early in the development cycle. Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD) Approaches Adopting CI/CD practices ensures that code changes are automatically tested and deployed, reducing the risk of errors and speeding up the release cycle. Tools like Jenkins and GitLab CI can automate these processes, enabling teams to deliver updates and new features consistently and reliably. Overcoming Common Challenges in Enterprise Ruby on Rails Adoption Legacy System Integration Integrating Ruby on Rails with existing legacy systems can be challenging. This requires a thorough understanding of the legacy architecture and careful planning to ensure smooth data migration and interoperability. Using APIs and middleware can facilitate seamless integration. Team Skill Set and Training Ensuring that the development team possesses the necessary skills to work with Ruby on Rails is crucial. Providing ongoing training and access to resources can help bridge skill gaps and keep the team updated on the latest RoR advancements and best practices. Performance Concerns at Scale Addressing performance concerns involves proactive monitoring and optimization. This includes scaling infrastructure based on demand, using performance profiling tools to identify bottlenecks, and optimizing code and database queries for efficiency. Maintaining Code Quality in Large Projects Maintaining high code quality in large projects requires strict adherence to coding standards, regular code reviews, and the use of static code analysis tools. Implementing a robust version control system and encouraging collaborative development practices also contribute to maintaining code quality. Future-Proofing Enterprise Applications with Ruby on Rails Emerging Trends in Ruby on Rails Development Staying ahead of the curve involves keeping an eye on emerging trends, such as the adoption of serverless architectures, the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning for enhanced functionality, and the integration of progressive web apps (PWAs) for improved user experiences. Adapting to Changing Business Needs Ruby on Rails' flexibility allows businesses to adapt to changing needs quickly. This includes the ability to implement new features, scale operations, and integrate with evolving technologies, ensuring that the application remains relevant and effective over time. Long-Term Maintainability and Support Ensuring long-term maintainability involves writing clean, modular code, documenting thoroughly, and adopting a proactive approach to maintenance and updates. JetRuby's commitment to ongoing support ensures that enterprise applications continue to perform optimally and evolve with the business. Summing up In summary, Ruby on Rails offers a powerful framework for developing enterprise-grade applications. Its scalability, rapid development capabilities, robust security features, and extensive ecosystem make it an ideal choice for businesses looking to innovate and grow. By partnering with JetRuby, enterprises can leverage our expertise to unlock the full potential of Ruby on Rails, ensuring successful implementation and long-term success. Contact us today to explore how we can help transform your business with cutting-edge Ruby on Rails solutions. ### Data Integrity - Foundation of Trust Data integrity is a technical requirement and a foundational element that can make or break a digital platform. Our experience developing a multi-featured tool for online courses, onboarding programs, and social learning underscored the importance of maintaining data integrity. By prioritizing accurate, consistent, and reliable data, we built a platform that users could depend on, leading to its success and widespread adoption. In any digital platform, especially those handling educational content and social interactions, data integrity should be a top priority. Ensuring data integrity from the outset can enhance user trust, efficient operations, and scalable growth, ultimately driving the platform's success.   What we mean when we refer to someone as having integrity is obvious. The person is as good as her word. We know he will do something if he says she will do it. Data integrity is not that different. Data integrity is a fundamental aspect of database management and web development, ensuring that data remains accurate, consistent, and reliable throughout its lifecycle. In the context of web applications, it means that the information stored in the database is correct and has not been altered in an unauthorized manner. This is crucial for maintaining trust in the data and, by extension, the application that uses it. In the context of information security, it refers to the preservation of a data field's original value when stored in a database and accessed in the future. To ensure accountability and transparency, any modifications to the data must be sanctioned by a user and meticulously documented in an audit trail by all parties involved. Simply put, data integrity is the maintenance of structural soundness—that is, accuracy and completeness in terms of both form and value—at all locations where data is stored and transferred. It becomes a liability. That’s where data integrity comes in. Why is Data Integrity Critical? It is especially critical in applications that require unique records, such as user emails or transaction IDs. Here are several reasons why: Preventing Duplicates: Unique records prevent duplication, which can cause significant issues in user management systems. For instance, having multiple accounts with the same email address can lead to confusion, security breaches, and administrative headaches. Maintaining Accurate Transactions: In financial applications, ensuring that transaction IDs are unique and accurate prevents double spending and fraud, thereby maintaining the integrity of financial records. Ensuring Data Consistency: Consistent data across the application ensures that all parts of the system reflect the same information. This is vital for making accurate decisions based on the data. Enhancing Data Quality: High data integrity means high data quality, which improves the overall reliability of the application and enhances user trust. In web development, maintaining data integrity involves implementing strategies and mechanisms both at the application level (e.g., validations) and the database level (e.g., constraints). What it means for your app Data integrity is a crucial component of the complete IT/cloud architecture, including database DevOps, administration, deployment, CI/CD, and so on. Database engineers and business will benefit from improvements in consistency, security, and speed for better, faster, and stronger releases when data integrity is guaranteed. In the grand scheme of things, the business may grow at the rate of rapid application development while still making the best data-driven decisions possible because data integrity is preserved during database modifications. Consider all of the significant financial decisions that your company makes that are based on insights, dashboards, and other types of data analysis. The company's future might be at risk if data was damaged or transformed in any way when the database underwent its updates and changes. Here’s a data integrity definition in different sectors: marketing: E-mails Unauthorized access to company systems is the most serious problem that cyber security specialists and their companies face today. Without sufficient controls in place, the business cannot protect its systems or guarantee data integrity. An unauthorized user can easily extract data from an email that has been intercepted through a network. And it’s surprisingly easy to intercept email traffic. It is still quite difficult to protect a company's email against unwanted access, even with all of the tools at the cybersecurity specialist's disposal.  Furthermore, even if we were able to entirely prevent intrusions into our email systems, users would still send emails to the incorrect address, violating all of the organization's security measures with a simple click of the "send" button. healthcare: Patient records Maintaining data integrity for patient information is essential to the healthcare sector for accurate diagnosis and treatment. To access a patient's medical history or allergies, for instance, medical personnel depend on accurate electronic health records. Errors or discrepancies may result in improper prescriptions or treatments, which may have potentially life-threatening consequences.  finance: Transaction data For decision-making, risk assessment, and fraud detection, financial institutions rely on accurate transaction data. In addition to authentication, transaction security development is crucial. Advanced encryption protocols and multi-factor authentication ensure the integrity and confidentiality of each transaction. Real-time monitoring and anomaly detection help identify and prevent fraudulent activities promptly. By integrating these advanced security measures, the highest level of protection is provided to ensure secure and reliable authentication and transaction processes.  Banks use Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols to verify customer identities and prevent illegal activities such as money laundering. This is a prime example of the significance of data integrity. Financial institutions can maintain regulatory compliance and protect their reputation and operations by ensuring the accuracy of customer information.  education: Student records Educational institutions require accurate student data for several reasons, for example,  grant distribution, academic progress monitoring, and enrollment management.  Universities that use reports from the integrated postsecondary education data system (IPEDS) are an excellent example. IPEDS reports make it possible to analyze institutional performance metrics; however, this assumes the university possesses precise student demographic information. Educational establishments can make well-informed decisions about the allocation of resources and the implementation of policies by maintaining high levels of data integrity.  Data Integrity Risks and Ensuring Data Integrity Data integrity is not just a technical requirement but a foundational element that can make or break a digital platform. Our experience with developing a multi-featured tool for online courses, onboarding programs, and social learning underscored the importance of maintaining data integrity. By prioritizing accurate, consistent, and reliable data, we were able to build a platform that users could depend on, leading to its success and widespread adoption. In any digital platform, especially those handling educational content and social interactions, data integrity should be a top priority. Ensuring data integrity from the outset can lead to enhanced user trust, efficient operations, and scalable growth, ultimately driving the platform's success. Organizations face several critical threats to maintaining data integrity, including human error, bugs and viruses, transfer errors, compromised hardware, and the use of third-party services integrated with the product. Human errors, such as entering duplicate or incorrect data, deleting data, and not adhering to protocols, pose significant risks to data integrity. In addition, cyber threats from hackers who leverage software like malware, spyware, and viruses to compromise data integrity must be mitigated. Transfer errors, evident when data fails to transfer accurately between database locations in a relational database, and compromised hardware leading to system malfunctions and potential data corruption are also key risks to be addressed. Preserving data integrity necessitates the implementation of robust processes. These include: validating input to ensure data accuracy removing duplicate data to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information implementing regular data backups to prevent permanent data loss Furthermore, applying stringent access controls, such as a least-privileged data access approach, can limit unauthorized data access and mitigate the risk of data breaches. Finally, maintaining an audit trail is essential for quickly identifying the source and impact of any data breach, enabling organizations to take prompt remedial action. By acknowledging these data integrity risks and employing these strategies to maintain data integrity, organizations can bolster their overall data security and protect against potential data breaches and losses. Safeguard data assets! Data integrity is crucial for reliable data management across sectors like healthcare, finance, marketing, and education. It ensures that data remains accurate, consistent, and reliable in web development and database management through various strategies like validation mechanisms and encryption. Upholding data integrity is vital for user trust, business decisions, and organizational reputation.  JetRuby Agency is committed to ensuring data integrity, enabling us to build robust systems for our clients. Our focus on data integrity has helped our clients achieve scalable growth, enhanced user trust, and efficient operations. We have extensive experience in developing systems tailored to the specific needs of bank-client integrations. Our authentication system is highly flexible and adaptable, designed to seamlessly integrate with existing banking systems. We prioritize the technical security of our products, ensuring robust data privacy and security. Our solution includes advanced measures to prevent fraud and account takeover, providing the highest level of client data protection. The pace of technology evolution and the evolving needs of businesses require increasingly stringent data integrity measures. Organizations must remain vigilant, continuously updating their strategies to protect against emerging threats and ensure that their data remains a reliable foundation for their operations. By doing so, they can safeguard their data assets, uphold user trust, and drive long-term success in an increasingly digital world. Make sure to read our article on how to Ensure Data Integrity in your Rails application! ### 6 Tips for Navigating Team Management Challenges. Mystery Revealed! Managing a software development team entails adeptly handling various challenging aspects that can disrupt the team's workflow and impede progress. Maintaining peak performance is essential to ensure seamless operations. This post is about strategies and overarching concepts pivotal for achieving tangible outcomes in technology and innovation. To begin with, it is imperative to address the common obstacles software teams face, such as declining performance, interpersonal challenges, burnout, ambitious targets, communication breakdowns, skill deficiencies, and the perennial issue of embracing change. We can't just spot these issues; we need to fix them. We have decided to be more transparent about our approach to team management. So, let’s break down these challenges one by one and check out some smart moves to help your team tackle them and come out on top. We at JetRuby tackle common challenges head-on, making significant strides in maintaining productivity and quality. For instance, when performance issues such as missed deadlines or poor-quality outputs arise, our managers don't just react—they proactively adjust by clarifying goals, enhancing motivation, and ensuring our team's skills are aligned with project demands through targeted training. Communication challenges, especially with problematic employees, are addressed by establishing clear expectations and keeping communication channels open. Regular one-on-one interactions help us preemptively manage potential conflicts, ensuring they don't escalate. Burnout is a critical issue in the high-stakes tech environment. We combat this by promoting a balanced work-life dynamic, recognizing efforts robustly, and managing workloads to prevent overwhelming our team members. When it comes to goal-setting, our managers collaborate with the team to set realistic, clear, and measurable objectives. At JetRuby, we stick to the SMART, PURE, and CLEAR goal-setting frameworks. These keep our project targets grounded in practicality and make sure we're always on the ethical up-and-up.  Here's the scoop on SMART: it stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Each of these aspects makes sure our goals are not only set up right but also reachable. The real deal with the SMART model is its straightforwardness. It's quite helpful whether you're setting personal goals or managing big organizational projects. It lays everything out clearly, which helps to plan and get things done effectively. Plus, it boosts our chances of nailing those outcomes we’re aiming for. The PURE model takes goal-setting to the next level by adding a fresh twist to the usual methods like SMART. It focuses on keeping things positive, easy to understand, relevant, and ethical—pretty much everything you'd want in a solid goal-setting approach. Then there’s the CLEAR model, which is all about keeping up with the fast-moving pace of today's work environments. It's not just about setting firm and measurable goals. CLEAR is designed to be flexible, helping you handle the quick changes and dynamic situations that can appear at work. It's perfect for anyone needing to stay agile and adapt on the fly. You Will Thank Us. Tips to improve team management Effective team management in the software development field demands proactive strategies and a commitment to fostering an inclusive and supportive work environment. Here are some strategies we suggest managers to adopt: Building a Feedback-Rich Culture: Encouraging open feedback can help identify issues before they become significant problems. Managers should foster an environment where feedback is seen as a tool for improvement, not criticism.  We at Jetruby actively cultivate an environment where feedback is continuous and seen as a developmental tool, not criticism, allowing us to promptly and effectively address issues. Encouraging Professional Growth: Providing opportunities for professional development can help maintain high levels of motivation and ensure the team keeps pace with technological advances. This might include sponsoring certifications, and workshops, or providing access to courses related to their field. JetRuby is committed to the professional development of its team members. We offer access to training programs, workshops, and certifications that keep our them competitive and knowledgeable. Promoting Ownership and Accountability: When team members feel accountable for the outcomes of their projects, they are more likely to show initiative and commitment. Managers can encourage this by delegating responsibilities and empowering members to make decisions within their areas of expertise. Empowering our team members by delegating significant responsibilities fosters a deep sense of ownership and drives their commitment to project success. Facilitating Collaborative Problem Solving: Encouraging team members to work together to solve problems fosters a sense of community and collaboration and leads to more innovative solutions. Structured brainstorming sessions or regular collaborative workshops can be beneficial. Enhancing Team Cohesion: Team-building activities and off-site events can strengthen relationships and improve communication among team members. These activities should be engaging and relevant to the people’s interests and jobs. We engage in regular team-building activities that enhance interpersonal relations and streamline communication, crucial for a collaborative software development environment. Implementing Effective Meeting Practices: To make meetings more productive, managers should ensure that each meeting has a clear agenda and that all participants have the opportunity to contribute. Follow-up actions should be clearly defined and assigned. Our meetings are strategically structured with clear agendas and action items, ensuring they are concise and productive. At JetRuby, managing our software development and IT teams effectively involves a dynamic blend of strategic foresight, proactive problem-solving, and state-of-the-art tools. By fostering a supportive, communicative, and efficient workplace, we ensure our teams are productive, motivated, and engaged in their projects. Our approach to team management is not just about maintaining standards; it's about setting new ones in the tech industry. Must-have tools that transform any software development team operations The key to streamlining team management is harnessing technology to enhance communication, organization, and security. Let's explore some must-have tools that transform your team's operations, ensuring every project is delivered on time and within scope. Corporate Communication: Remote work is more than a trend; it’s the future. Tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams are more than just communication platforms; they are the lifelines of corporate interaction. They allow instant messaging, video calls, and file sharing, all integrated into one platform, keeping your team synchronized. Task Management: Imagine having a dashboard that not only tracks every detail of your projects but also displays the real-time progress of your team. Tools such as Jira, Trello, and Asana redefine project management. Whether you prefer Kanban boards, Gantt charts, or simple task lists, these tools ensure you’re always ahead of deadlines, not chasing them. Knowledgebase: With the need for extensive documentation in IT projects, having an organized method to store, search, and collaborate on documents is vital. Confluence and Notion offer integrated knowledge management solutions that store information and make it easily accessible to the entire team. Visualization and Diagramming: For complex projects involving multiple stakeholders, tools like Figma, Miro, and Lucidchart are essential. They enable you to create and share visual representations of workflows, UX designs, and system architectures, ensuring everyone understands the project's bigger picture. Password Storage: Security is important, especially when handling sensitive data and multiple software tools. Password managers like BitWarden and KeyPass ensure that your team maintains strong, unique passwords for every service without the risk of forgetting or losing them. Resource management is all about transparency so you can see, monitor, and attain what is required to deliver projects. A complete understanding of your work and resource availability helps to reduce idle time and overutilization of resources. With a clear view of work and resources, you can plan, schedule, and manage resources more efficiently, ensuring they are aligned with the appropriate projects at the right time. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems: consolidate data from multiple business functions within a centralized system, eliminating confusion and redundancy that can arise from multiple sources of information. This allows disparate departments to operate with identical results. The ERP system's data integration and standardization capabilities facilitate efficient communication between various departments, resulting in streamlined business operations. Fine art of team management. JetRuby At JetRuby, our adept management of software development teams ensures that every partnership is positioned for success. Leading a software development and IT team involves navigating numerous challenges, such as performance fluctuations, complex team dynamics, burnout, and ambitious goal-setting. Our strength lies in our managers' adeptness at establishing unambiguous objectives, fostering alignment, and maintaining a harmonious work-life balance. Encouraging professional development, enhancing accountability, and cultivating collaboration represent just a few facets of our strategic approach. We prioritize leveraging cutting-edge technology to bolster our team's productivity. Our arsenal encompasses tools for seamless communication, efficient task management, and robust knowledge sharing, which collectively underpin our operational efficiency. Furthermore, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems usage elevates our capabilities, streamlining data consolidation and enhancing interdepartmental communication. Working with JetRuby Agency means investing in a team equipped to confront challenges head-on and dedicated to implementing strategic, technology-driven solutions that drive exemplary team performance and propel your business toward success. By nurturing a supportive and efficient workspace, we ensure that collaborating with us is not merely a sound business decision but the optimal one. ### The Human Side of IT : Addressing Top People Management Challenges The IT industry is known for its competitive job market, with a high demand for skilled professionals. Well-implemented people management helps retain top talent by creating a positive work environment, and rewarding performance. This article will cover the following subjects: Essentials of People Management,  Core people management challenges faced by the CTO in a growing enterprise,  The article also considers what happens if the CTO overlooks people management. Why do IT companies need people management at all? There is no short answer to the question posed in the title. Such management is integral to operating well-organized teams with clearly defined responsibilities. However, maintaining clear responsibilities and roles within a team is not enough. Let’s run through other factors calling people management in IT to life: Rapid technological change. The fast pace of technological advancement means that IT professionals continuously learn and adapt. Quality people management provides opportunities for professional development, helping engineers stay updated with the latest technologies Talent retention. With well-thought people management, you retain top talent by creating a positive work environment and offering career growth opportunities. Mitigating high-stress levels. The IT sector is under high pressure due to tight deadlines and the need for permanent availability of services. People management strategies help manage stress, promote work-life balance, and support employees. Change management. IT departments frequently change due to project shifts, technological upgrades, or organizational restructuring. Good people managers ensure that these changes are communicated properly, that employees are supported through transitions, and that the organization remains resilient. Innovation. The IT industry thrives on innovation. People management fosters an environment that encourages creativity and experimentation. Organization of proactive people management in IT Hiring  You start shaping people management politics with a thorough analysis of current and future requirements of projects. This analysis highlights specific skills, experience levels, and the number of engineers needed to make your ideas come to life. Typically, hiring is a multi-step process: defining the role, sourcing candidates, screening, technical interviews, and finally, making an offer. Technical interviews play a determining role here. At this step, you assess candidates’ problem-solving abilities, coding skills, and whether they understand software engineering principles. Hands-on coding tests or take-home assignments provide insights into candidates' coding proficiency and approach to real-world problems.  Following this, you should present a competitive offer that includes salary, benefits, and growth opportunities. Tailor your offer to address the candidate's career aspirations. Be prepared for negotiations. Understand the market rates and be clear about your limits. Consider non-monetary benefits as negotiation points. Remember, the goal is not just to fill a position but to onboard an individual who will contribute to your team’s and company’s success. However, hiring is just an early link in the long chain of people management processes: Individual work with engineers On an individual level, face-to-face (“one-on-ones”) meetings with technical managers and HR cannot be overestimated. These interactions provide personalized feedback and facilitate career discussions. With the help of feedback loops and eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score), you’ll get insights into understanding individual needs and workplace satisfaction. Regular performance reviews are a must. But it’s not a tick-box exercise. Use these as opportunities to provide honest, constructive feedback.  Psychological contracts  A psychological contract is an unwritten set of expectations between employer and employee. We know that misalignment in these expectations leads to dissatisfaction. Therefore, they need to have clear, open conversations about role expectations and career trajectories. That’s how you avoid misunderstandings leading to disappointments or conflicts. Assessments for engineers These are technical evaluations, project reviews, and competency assessments. You should conduct those evaluations to gauge skill levels, identify areas for improvement, and align individual capabilities with team goals.  Individual development and growth opportunities It’s important to outline potential career paths within the organization so that a developer will see growth opportunities. In our experience, a helpful approach is building individual roadmaps highlighting skill development, certifications, and potential leadership opportunities. Growth into executive management within the company is a clear pathway for career advancement. This usually involves leadership training, senior management mentorship programs, and strategic project involvement. Developers should understand the competencies and experiences required for such roles and be provided with opportunities to develop these competencies.  Exposing developers to real-life challenges Hands-on experience is the best teacher. Get your developers involved in those big-picture projects. It’s like jumping into the deep end – they'll learn to swim in strategic decision-making and cross-functional collaboration. Start from little projects and expand to bigger ones. Transparency is the key You want the information to be properly understood by your team. It is often done by repeating important information in different forms. Transparency and empathy are key. It’s usually better to part ways amicably when the employee’s aspirations no longer align with the company's direction. Let’s say you built a developers’ team but encountered roadblocks. Let’s explore why they occur and what helps overcome them. The role of the CTO in addressing HR challenges of a growing IT department  Growing IT teams face a multitude of people management challenges that arise on the way to a successful product release. The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) plays a pivotal role in navigating these challenges, ensuring the team remains productive and aligned with the company's strategic goals. What are the specific HR-related difficulties faced by the team and how does the CTO overcome them? To begin with, the lack of effective people management in an organization is a negative factor, which also implies a leadership gap. It means that teams lack direction and motivation, as well as cultural misalignments affecting productivity, and retention issues with higher turnover rates due to dissatisfaction from poor management. These issues spotlight the dire need for strong leadership and people management practices to ensure organizational success and stability. The CTO solves the above-mentioned challenges by building leadership capabilities within teams, fostering a culture of openness, innovation, and collaboration, and implementing retention strategies focused on career development, recognition, and work-life balance. These efforts inspire and motivate teams, aligning them with organizational goals, and helping to retain top talent. The scarcity of skilled mid-level developers is nearly as significant an issue. It leads to a massive skill gap, characterized by an insufficient number of mid-level professionals capable of assuming leadership roles in technical projects. This challenge is compounded by a mentorship void, where there is a noticeable gap in guidance for less experienced team members. Without mentorship guidance, it’s hard to develop into mid-level or senior positions. The CTO should anticipate this challenge by creating opportunities for professional development, which includes organizing training programs, facilitating certifications, and encouraging attendance at relevant conferences. What happens if you overlook people management?  Imagine we overthought the role of people management in the IT company and let the company slide with what HR resources it has in place. We already invested in hiring, so why wouldn't things just work on their own? In this case, it won’t be a big surprise if the following things start happening:  Low employee engagement: in the absence of effective people management, employees feel undervalued and unsupported, leading to disengagement. This diminishes their motivation and weakens their commitment to the company's objectives, undermining overall productivity. High turnover rates: poor management drives increased employee turnover. In the competitive IT job market, skilled professionals are less likely to endure a suboptimal work environment. Frequent turnover incurs significant costs related to recruitment and training, disrupts ongoing projects, and destabilizes team dynamics. Poor team collaboration: it implies unresolved conflicts, frequent miscommunications, and poorly coordinated efforts, all of which can delay projects and compromise the quality of outputs. Innovation stagnation: IT companies rely heavily on continuous innovation. Without supportive management that encourages creative thinking and problem-solving, employees hesitate to explore innovative ideas or engage in initiatives beyond their defined roles. Damaged reputation: a company known for poor management practices can suffer a damaged reputation, which not only makes it challenging to attract top talent but can also affect relationships with clients, investors, and other stakeholders. Final thoughts  Proactive people management is indispensable in an IT company, and the CTO’s role in its organization is central. This approach not only enriches the skill set of the team but also ensures a culture of continuous learning and adaptability. Furthermore, by fostering people management practices in IT departments, the CTO nurtures talent within the organization. It’s up to the CTO to implement strategic initiatives focused on process optimization, talent development, automation, and cultivating a healthy work culture. These efforts help not only in overcoming immediate challenges but also in setting a foundation for sustainable growth and innovation. ### 4 Risks of skipping the Design and Discovery! Surprising Business Analysts insights Embarking on a new project is akin to laying the foundation for a new building. If done correctly, it paves the way for a successful endeavor. The Discovery and Design phases are particularly critical as they define what will be done, why it will be done, and how it will be executed. For business analysts (BAs), these initial stages are pivotal. During the Design and Discovery phases, Business Analysts serve as navigators, ensuring business needs are perfectly aligned with technical solutions. Their role is crucial in guaranteeing that the project proceeds smoothly and delivers substantial value. This analysis explores the roles and responsibilities of BAs during the Discovery and Design stages, highlighting best practices and key actions necessary to guide projects toward success from the outset. For BAs, these phases are an opportunity to excel, ensuring the project begins robustly and stays on course. Roadmap to Realizing Your Vision Let us outline the approach at Jetruby during the Design and Discovery phase, where the groundwork is laid before actual development begins. This phase is a must for gathering ingredients and meticulously reading a recipe before cooking. Initial Product Development Session (PDS) The process begins with the Initial Product Development Session (PDS), the first meeting between our team and your business needs. During this session, a Business Analyst discusses the intended users of the product, its usage, and the desired outcomes. This session aims to capture the overall vision and set the stage for subsequent phases. Discovery Sessions The Discovery phase is divided into three main stages: Vision Crafting: In this initial stage, we convene with all key stakeholders, including your team members, to collaboratively outline the product's evolution. This involves brainstorming sessions, feature sketching, and defining user scenarios to thoroughly understand the 'what' and 'why' before addressing the 'how'. This stage typically concludes within a week, providing a comprehensive overview of the project’s objectives and ensuring all parties are aligned. Technical Planning: The focus in this stage shifts to rough system designs, screen layouts, and the development of detailed user stories. Critical technical questions are addressed, including necessary integrations, data handling, and security measures. This stage spans one to two weeks and involves the active participation of Business Analysts, Designers, and Solution Architects. They both prioritize features and finalize operational guidelines, ensuring a cohesive and well-planned approach. Final Details: The concluding stage involves gathering feedback and producing detailed blueprints. These blueprints are not merely preliminary documents; they include comprehensive user story maps, flow diagrams, design screens, and precise budget estimates. These documents are thoroughly reviewed and approved by the product owner to ensure alignment and readiness for development, minimizing risks and avoiding surprises. The goal here is to ensure a smooth transition into the development phase by identifying potential risks and addressing them proactively. The Discovery and Design phases emphasize setting the right direction rather than producing tangible outputs. Unlike the Execution and Monitoring phases, which focus on implementation and tracking progress, Discovery and Design are about strategic planning and alignment. Each phase is interdependent yet distinct in its focus and activities, highlighting the importance of a cohesive and thorough approach. Understanding Business Needs and User Expectations In the initial phase of Design and Discovery, the business analyst's key responsibility is to meticulously define and align the project's scope and objectives with the organization's strategic business goals. This involves conducting a comprehensive analysis of the business needs and understanding the requirements, expectations, preferences, and pain points. Furthermore, the business analyst is tasked with identifying and prioritizing essential features and functionalities strategically aligned with the overall objectives. This process demands a deep understanding of the business landscape, market trends, and competitive landscape to ensure that the proposed solutions are effective and differentiate the organization in the market. Project Management Methodologies Business analysts must navigate the chosen project management methodology, whether it be Scrum, Kanban, or another approach: Agile: This flexible methodology is ideal for projects expected to evolve. BAs use Agile to maintain adaptability through iterative design and constant updates, incorporating rapid prototyping and ongoing feedback. This approach ensures the project remains aligned with user needs and system requirements, allowing continuous improvement and flexibility. Waterfall: For projects with fixed requirements, Waterfall provides a structured approach. BAs map out the entire project plan early, reducing risks and unexpected changes during development. This methodology is characterized by a sequential process where each phase must be completed before the next begins, ensuring a clear and predictable development path. Risks of Skipping Discovery and Design Neglecting the Discovery and Design phases can result in several challenges: 1. Misaligned Goals: In the absence of thorough discovery, the project may deviate from business requirements, leading to a product that fails to meet stakeholder expectations and address the intended issues. 2. Budget Overruns and Delays: Inadequate planning can cause scope creep, resulting in budget and schedule challenges. Without a well-defined plan, projects are more susceptible to unforeseen obstacles, potentially derailing the entire schedule and escalating costs. 3. Poor User Experience: Skipping the design phase can yield a product difficult to use, contributing to low adoption rates and user dissatisfaction. Ensuring a favorable user experience is paramount to project success, and effective design is pivotal in achieving this. 4. Unidentified Risks: Overlooking concealed risks during discovery may lead to expensive and time-consuming rectifications in the future. Early identification and mitigation of potential risks can yield substantial time and resource savings in the long term. Are you fully leveraging the 'Design and Discovery' process in your IT projects?  The Design and Discovery phase plays a crucial role in shaping the success of a project. Business analysts are essential during this stage as they ensure that the project is in line with the strategic objectives and user requirements. Through meticulous planning and active involvement of stakeholders, one can develop IT solutions that operate effectively and surpass expectations. Are you prepared to elevate your project's strategy? By embracing comprehensive planning and engaging stakeholders from the outset, you can create IT solutions that outperform others in the market. Visit our JetRuby Blog for more valuable insights and information! ### SCRUM Your Way To Success! 3 Major Benefits of Scrum methodology Is Scrum merely a fleeting fad or a sustainable practice in project management?  The landscape of project management has witnessed numerous trends come and go. Among these, Scrum has gained considerable traction and appears to be enduring. Its relevance is particularly pronounced given the rapid pace of technological advancements. Scrum is a subset of agile project management, emphasizing team collaboration in complex projects. It focuses on making progress through short iterations known as sprints, with continuous refinement to achieve optimal results. Unlike traditional methodologies that require extensive upfront planning, it offers greater flexibility, allowing teams to adapt swiftly to new challenges and ensure deliverables align with current needs. It proves advantageous for organizations that enhance team collaboration, accelerate delivery, and improve customer satisfaction. Its emphasis on quick feedback loops helps teams avoid significant misalignments with business objectives and consistently add value. The benefits of Scrum include: Planning: It breaks down large projects into manageable tasks, enabling teams to set clear, achievable goals and maintain focus. Transparency: Daily stand-up meetings ensure everyone is aware of progress, challenges, and next steps, minimizing surprises and maximizing teamwork. Flexibility: Ideal for the dynamic technology sector, it embraces change, ensuring that evolving requirements are met without disruption. Key roles within Scrum include: Product Owner: Manages the backlog to prioritize critical tasks. Scrum Master: Acts as a facilitator and coach, ensuring the team adheres to the methodology principles. Development Team: Executes tasks and brings plans to fruition. Essential tools are: Product Backlog: A prioritized list of tasks. Sprint Backlog: The specific tasks to be completed in the next sprint. Increment: The cumulative output of the sprint, building on previous work. The Scrum process follows a structured routine: Sprint Planning: Defines the objectives for the next sprint. Daily Scrum: Brief daily meetings to synchronize efforts. Sprint Review: Presentation of progress to stakeholders. Sprint Retrospective: Reflection on the sprint to identify improvements. Sure, Scrum isn’t perfect. Implementing Scrum is not always easy. The team must first get everyone on board with the methodology process. Team members must be willing to take the initiative, maintain focus, and collaborate closely with one another. Things can go south very fast if people aren't dedicated or don't understand their roles. A major cultural shock can also occur when switching from a standard "I tell you what to do" setting to a "we figure this out together" one. Moreover, one must consider the dynamics inside the team. Some people may take offense to Scrum's tendency to flatten the traditional hierarchy, particularly those who are accustomed to making the decisions. As everyone adjusts to the change, there may be some stress. As everyone adjusts to new positions like the Scrum Master or Product Owner, who must guide without taking over, the shift may generate some stress. Communication is essential. Everyone must be quite transparent about their daily activities. This implies that poor communication may result in unclear objectives and postponed projects. Furthermore, because Scrum emphasizes frequent short catch-ups and feedback loops, it may be difficult for those who are shy to speak up. Another thing that can surprise the team is becoming acclimated to receiving work gradually rather than all at once. Sharing work that is still in the process may seem unusual to teams that enjoy polishing things until they shine. In addition, stakeholders and clients may require some explanation as to why they are viewing early versions rather than the final product. Finally, constantly checking in and assessing tasks inside Scrum can seem excessive. It's not everyone's cup of tea to feel like they're under a microscope, and having your work reviewed so frequently might be intimidating. Despite these challenges, mastering Scrum can improve the situation. Through appropriate training and a strong dedication to its agile principles, teams may effectively address these obstacles and optimize this dynamic methodology. The Role of a Certified Scrum Master Now, let’s talk about the role of a certified Scrum Master. Think of this team member as the ultimate cheerleader—except, instead of pom-poms, they obtain a deep understanding of Scrum practices and principles. Their job is to keep everyone focused on the methodology rules, making sure that the process is smooth and everyone sticks to the game plan. A certified Scrum Master is pivotal in maintaining the integrity of the Scrum process. Unlike a traditional manager, the Scrum Master focuses on ensuring adherence to Scrum practices and principles, facilitating smooth operations, and helping the team overcome obstacles. They serve as a bridge between the Scrum team and external stakeholders, protecting the team from distractions and fostering an environment conducive to self-management and efficiency. JetRuby to the rescue! Even if things are going pretty well with your current project management setup, it’s always good to reassess. You know how fast technology and markets are changing; just sticking to the old ways might mean you’re missing out on better. Why not try integrating Scrum into your workflow? It could help streamline things, boost the quality of your products, and make your customers happier. JetRuby came to the rescue for a project that was struggling with direction and efficiency, thanks to their savvy implementation of this methodology. Initially, the project was lacking a clear prioritization system. This caused the team to waste too much time on minor bugs and overlook the bigger picture, leading to a lack of significant updates and a feeling of stagnation. Recognizing these challenges, we introduced Scrum, dramatically transforming the project's trajectory. Starting by gathering extensive feedback and identifying key issues this approach enabled us to craft a detailed roadmap, setting clear and strategic priorities that were previously missing. This roadmap became the blueprint for what needed to happen next, providing a much-needed vision for the project's future. Moreover, with the clarity and predictability that Scrum brought to the table, the project team could now focus on delivering important features on schedule. Features were developed incrementally, starting with a basic viable version and then enhancing it step by step. This method not only reduced the prevalence of bugs but also improved the final product, which often surpassed initial expectations. The project continuously adapted based on real user feedback, ensuring that each iteration was more aligned with user needs and market demands. This strategic pivot reinvigorated the project, turning potential failure into a path paved with continuous improvement and success. Mix a bit of Scrum into your day! While this methodology is not a panacea, its principles can significantly enhance project management practices. Starting with daily stand-ups can help keep teams accountable and address issues promptly. At JetRuby, we prioritize teamwork and maintain transparent communication with our clients through Scrum rituals, allowing for collaborative project management and successful outcomes. If you are interested in learning more about our approach, we would be delighted to share further insights. ### New JetRuby Opensource Gem: Apollo Upload Server. Top 5 Scenarios for Usage! Apollo Server is a highly popular and powerful open-source GraphQL server designed for ease of use, flexibility, and extensibility. It allows developers to build robust and scalable APIs with a minimal amount of boilerplate code, facilitating the efficient management of data fetching and real-time updates. Apollo Server's seamless integration with various data sources and its rich ecosystem of tools for monitoring, debugging, and optimizing GraphQL queries make it an attractive choice for many development teams. Consider Issues Despite these advantages, notable challenges have been associated with using Apollo Server, particularly in file uploads. One of the primary issues encountered with Apollo Server is the complexity involved in setting up and handling file uploads. Unlike traditional REST APIs or some frameworks within the Ruby on Rails ecosystem, which offer straightforward mechanisms for file handling, Apollo Server requires additional middleware and careful configuration to manage file uploads effectively. Developers often face compatibility issues between Apollo Server versions and the graphql-upload middleware, leading to failed uploads and frustrating debugging processes. Additionally, proper schema configuration and server setup are essential but can be intricate, requiring a deep understanding of both GraphQL and the underlying server architecture. Other challenges include performance tuning, especially for large-scale applications with complex query requirements. Efficiently resolving deeply nested queries and managing data fetching can sometimes lead to performance bottlenecks if not handled correctly. Furthermore, caching strategies need to be carefully implemented to avoid redundant data fetching and improve response times. File Upload Issues with Apollo Server While Apollo Server is known for its robust GraphQL implementations and developer-friendly features, it has historically struggled with file upload support. This problem was primarily due to the need for an external library, graphql-upload, to handle multipart requests, which was only sometimes in sync with the latest versions of Apollo Server. These issues resulted in frequent updates and patches to maintain compatibility and stability. For some time, the community grappled with inconsistencies and bugs from these version mismatches, complicating the application development process requiring file uploads. Apollo alternatives: GraphQL and REST When considering alternatives to Apollo Server, it's essential to understand the distinct methodologies of GraphQL and REST, which are fundamental approaches to designing APIs for data exchange over the internet. REST enables client applications to communicate with servers through HTTP verbs, such as GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE, which are standard Internet communication methods. RESTful APIs are characterized by their simplicity and statelessness, making them easy to understand and implement. On the other hand, GraphQL is an API query language that specifies how a client application should request data from a remote server. Unlike REST, where the server defines the structure of responses, GraphQL allows clients to determine exactly what data they need, leading to more efficient data retrieval and reduced over-fetching. This flexibility can be particularly advantageous in dynamic and varied client requirements applications. Both GraphQL and REST are powerful technologies that drive the majority of modern applications today, each offering unique benefits and trade-offs depending on the specific needs and architecture of the application. While Apollo Server leverages GraphQL to provide robust and scalable API solutions, developers might choose pure GraphQL or traditional REST implementations as alternatives based on their familiarity, project requirements, and specific use cases. The Ruby on Rails ecosystem, known for its convention over configuration philosophy, provides more straightforward solutions for file handling through its built-in Active Storage framework. Active Storage integrates seamlessly with the Rails application, allowing developers to manage file uploads with minimal configuration and effort. This contrasts with Apollo Server, where additional middleware and configuration steps are necessary to achieve similar functionality. Ruby on Rails also excels in providing out-of-the-box solutions for common application needs, such as authentication, authorization, and background job processing, through its mature ecosystem of gems. These solutions are well-integrated and designed to work cohesively within the Rails framework, reducing the need for developers to piece together multiple components as often required in a more modular environment like Apollo Server. Introducing the Apollo Upload Server Gem But there's positive news! JetRuby created open-source gems for the Ruby on Rails ecosystem! Do you know anything about the most popular gem Apollo Upload Server? It's a game-changer made especially for Rails fans. We'll review what makes Apollo Upload Server unique, contrast it with a few other options, and show you how to set it up in this post.  This Ruby on Rails gem isn't just any old one—it's a true game-changer, particularly for complex file upload scenarios. Since it's completely open-source, anyone can contribute and help improve it. What distinguishes Apollo Upload Server, then? It's quite simple to integrate into your Rails projects, to start. It all comes down to keeping your server light and efficient, and it can manage large files and plenty of them without causing any problems. Want to get it running in your project? Here’s the scoop: Pop the gem into your Gemfile with gem 'apollo_upload_server'. Run a quick bundle install to get it all set up. Tweak the initializers and server settings to fit what your project needs. This gem's clever method of reducing memory usage and bandwidth can increase upload rates by up to 50%. There’s always competition… Currently, it has competition from programs like CarrierWave, which excels at picture tricks using RMagick or MiniMagick and is quite flexible. However, Apollo is your best option for a seamless integration if you're into GraphQL. In addition, there's Paperclip (albeit a little dated), Active Storage for direct Rails connection, Shrine for its feature-rich functionality, and Dragonfly for intricate media management. However, they need to integrate with GraphQL as well as Apollo. JetRuby approach  Once we at JetRuby were contracted to build a content management system (CMS) for a client. The CMS required a robust solution for handling file uploads, including images, videos, and documents, to facilitate user-generated content and data imports. Our team integrated Apollo Upload Server into their Ruby on Rails application using GraphQL to meet these requirements efficiently. Best Use Cases for Apollo Server Despite existing challenges, Apollo Server remains a strong choice for certain scenarios. It is particularly well-suited for: Modern Web Applications: Apollo Server's ability to efficiently manage data fetching and real-time updates makes it ideal for modern web applications, where responsive and dynamic data interactions are crucial. Microservices Architectures: Apollo Server excels in environments where microservices are employed, thanks to its capability to stitch together schemas from multiple services into a single, cohesive GraphQL schema. This simplifies data management and allows for more modular and scalable application architectures. API Gateway: Serving as an API gateway, Apollo Server can aggregate multiple data sources, providing a unified API endpoint for clients. This reduces the complexity of client-side data fetching logic and enhances performance through optimized data querying. Real-Time Applications: With built-in support for subscriptions, Apollo Server is a natural fit for applications requiring real-time updates, such as chat applications, live dashboards, and collaborative tools. Flexible Development: The flexibility offered by Apollo Server's schema definition and resolver configuration allows for rapid iteration and prototyping. This is especially beneficial in environments where requirements are frequently changing or where quick pivots are necessary. Benefit from Apollo's seamless integration with Rails Apollo simplifies working with Ruby on Rails, particularly for GraphQL enthusiasts: Complete Harmony with GraphQL: Apollo's upload server handles file uploads flawlessly in your GraphQL mutations. This server is like a dream come true if GraphQL is the heartbeat of your application. Organizes Files Expertly: It cleverly handles storage and file parsing, slicing through the mess in the middleware. This implies that you will be able to manage large amounts of data easily. Simple-Peasy Configuration: To use it, simply insert it into your Rails middleware. You've significantly reduced the typical setup time and headache. For the technical specifics, configuring Apollo is simple: Installation and Setup: Just add the apollo_upload_server gem to your Gemfile, run a bundle install, and hook it into your middleware stack, easy right? Configuration: Tweak it to your heart's content right from the Rails settings, like setting a max file size or deciding on storage options. Operations & Integration: Apollo takes over file processing in your GraphQL queries, neatly managing the data flow and hooking files up with your ActiveRecord models. Visit the official RubyGems page to get all the details on how to set it up and utilize it to the fullest. Streamlining the essential function Apollo Upload Server is useful when applications require robust file management capabilities alongside GraphQL operations. Here are a couple of usage examples: Social Media Applications: For a social media app that allows users to upload images or videos with their posts, Apollo Upload Server can handle file attachments directly through GraphQL mutations, simplifying client-side code and server-side handling. Content Management Systems (CMS): In systems where various types of content need to be uploaded and associated with different models (like articles with images or videos), Apollo Upload Server provides a streamlined process for managing these uploads within the GraphQL ecosystem. These examples showcase how Apollo Upload Server can effectively enhance file handling in Ruby on Rails applications, particularly when paired with GraphQL, offering a modern and efficient solution that keeps pace with the demands of today's web development standards. So, why not give Apollo Upload Server a whirl in your next Rails project? It's got solid features, is a breeze to use, and comes with a community that’s all about making it better. Get ready to handle those complex file uploads with ease and see what a difference it makes! Implement the Apollo Upload Server in your project today and join the community contributing to its development! For your next project, you really should check out the Apollo Upload Server! This is a huge game changer for Ruby on Rails file upload handling. It operates in the background like magic; picture it as your tiny assistant who enters the Rails request cycle early. Apollo thereby keeps everything moving quickly and smoothly rather than burdening your controllers or models with all the hard lifting, especially when you're working with a ton of uploads or extremely large files in a GraphQL configuration. Apollo Upload Server is, without a doubt, your new best friend when it comes to handling the common problems that arise during file uploads. It is backed by an amazing community of developers who share your interests and has a ton of amazing features that are simple to use. To understand what I mean, give it a try on your upcoming assignment. It excels at those challenging upload tasks! In addition, our development team is fully committed to creating Ruby gems that relieve the burden of creating excellent apps. They are constantly modifying and upgrading everything to guarantee that you have access to the greatest tools possible. So make use of our state-of-the-art solutions and maximize your Ruby development! ### Find out now how CI/CD Improves Time to Market This article explores the most frequent issues related to Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD). It was written by our developer, Dmitry, and reflects his unique insights inspired by his development experience in JetRuby. We are glad to share our proven best practices applied in the CI/CD process. These methods help to reduce “time to market” and streamline the entire development process.  If you’re looking for ways to build (we know you are) modern, cloud-native software applications, then the 12-Factor Methodology is not unfamiliar to you. These principles were introduced by Heroku co-founder Adam Wiggins in 2011 and have since become widely adopted in the software development industry.  As one may expect, a mere adherence to the 12 rules will be enough for troubleshooting. However, you can’t continuously streamline the app development process per those 12 rules. I aim to examine the CI/CD issues I most frequently encounter.  Many Deployments with One Codebase Tracked in Revision Control For sure, the most frequent issue is precisely the first problem listed in the 12-factor Methodology’s flow. This often manifests in the fact that "dependencies" of the environment are hardcoded, which does not let the app work in the new environments different from the one it was built in. It's pretty simple to stop using configuration files and entirely rely on Environment Variables — they are cool, indeed. By the way, the third rule of the 12-factors methodology describes using configuration files.  Almost every programming language has a library implementation that reads the file variables before launching the application. It prevents issues with the local development of this application. The next problem we’ll discuss relates to another rule of the mentioned methodology.  Build, Release, and Run Sometimes, you’re strained for time to create a Continuous Delivery (CD) process to build artifacts (application image, bundle, etc.) and store them in some place with the thought of further deployment. In this case, you just get to “extract”  the code from the repository, gather all dependencies, and send everything needed to the server in a single action. Some services (hosting platforms) are configured (designed?) for this process by default. For example, the "build" step appears to be skipped in AWS Elastic Beanstalk, although these processes are separated. However, the practice proves that it's essential to keep each step in the build -> release -> run chain atomic (meaning each step is complete, separate, and fulfills its task) and repeatable. After all, the project needs to change the branching model sooner or later, be deployed/not deployed more frequently, and set up development/QA environments from specific branches. We separate these stages as follows: 1) Build: This is when the application is "assembled," pulling all necessary dependencies together. All required commands are executed (compilation, transpilation, dependency configuration, etc.); we pack the application and then send it to a storage location. 2) Release: We configure the application to operate in a specific environment. Often, web applications are configured during runtime. This step somewhat "spans" across the other two. 3) Run: This is the actual deployment of the application into a specific environment. Ideally, you can build this step to launch the application from any branch in any environment (yes, "let's deploy the development build to production and test it" should not be extraordinary for you). In the end, we have three (ok, two and a half) clear-cut steps. Build We can launch the first step on any branch or at any commit, assemble a "build," "image," "bundle," or executable code from any code version for any use case. It works for debugging, hypothesis testing, feature testing, early access for internal testing, vulnerability assessment, etc. There are the following best practices that help to streamline these processes through Continuous Delivery (CD): 1) You receive the same artifact regardless of the code version it was launched with. It means Idempotence in the process of building dependencies (hereafter, dependencies refer to all libraries, repositories, and system utilities needed for proper compilation and execution of the application).  After launching the build step N with the same branch, you obtain the same artifact. For instance, this process may involve installing gems or Node.js packages. 2)  If possible (for example, this is almost unattainable for Single Page Applications (SPAs), but still possible), strive to exclude environment-specific dependencies during the build preparation process (such as backend URLs, database credentials, or launch configurations). 3) Exclude checks and conditions from the build process. You don't need to run code linters or vulnerability checks at this step — shift these tasks to separate stages. 4) Only install/package dependencies are needed to run the app. Avoid including unnecessary things in the final artifact, such as a reverse proxy with configurations, tests, Kubernetes configurations, linters, and testing frameworks. These principles help ensure the build process is consistent, efficient and focused on producing artifacts relevant to the intended use case. Release As pointed out above, the lines between the first and second steps are often blurred. In the case of the mentioned SPA (Single Page Application), we add some configurations during the build process to closely tie the artifact to the deployment environment. The same applies to the app deployment. This process often includes app configuring for the work in a specific environment. Everything depends on the application, the deployment environment, and the approach. Therefore, it’s impossible to shape specific recommendations for every situation. Run (Launch) The final step often determines the further app delivery. What we do here directly impacts how easy the delivery process will be. At this stage, the application code should no longer be a dependency. Ideally, we should deploy the application build from the previous step, with all necessary settings, into a specific environment. The most frequent problem at this step is when deployment scripts are tied to the application code. I once felt tempted to deploy scripts using application libraries working as dependencies. This partially brings us back to the first step, when we must install dependencies to deploy the application. It leads to troubles, not to mention it is not convenient at all.  Deployment should be performed with the most convenient tools, which the application should not dictate. Problems of using cache in CI/CD Another equally common yet unpleasant issue is cache usage in CI/CD processes. This is perhaps one of the first improvements on a project, as a well-configured cache can save a lot of time. However, improperly configured caching sooner or later can consume all the time you save by introducing subtle bugs or even failing work pipelines. This issue often arises because the entire project uses a shared cache repository. For instance, the cache is used between different branches and steps without considering the current language version. Usually, this fails the project pipeline built with an older version when its upgrade to the next version occurs after a cache update.  For example, you built it with Ruby version 2.5 in the CI/CD system. If someone updates dependencies, upgrades the version to 3.1, and updates the cache, it can result in the pipeline’s failure with the old version due to non-obvious reasons. In extreme cases, this cache is used for application builds, and problems emerge in the final environment. What can I do to avoid these problems? To prevent the issues we described above, we suggest the following practices in “building” and writing the dependency cache for CI&CD: 1) Use the version of the main dependencies (language or framework) explicitly specified in the CI & CD and dependency configurations. This approach allows you to painlessly update and experiment without the risk of breaking all things around.  2) Use a lock file (often with a hash function to get a short identifier for the entire file). 3) In extreme cases, use the names of the main Git branches — master/production/qa/dev, etc. Using Docker  Misuse of Docker is closely related to the issues I touched upon above. Suppose the project is deployed in Kubernetes, and we have a docker file that describes the production environment. However, the Docket Image may start receiving files built or prepared outside the docker at the build stage.  As the most common example, this involves throwing the dependencies cached in the CI & CD system into the docker image. Therefore, if the project uses Docker for assembly, you should apply Docker to prepare dependencies. If there is a problem using any system utilities, do not be lazy and make a “base” image, which can later be used to run tests in CI&CD and build the application. Don't forget to version this image. As a bonus, patching system dependencies and fixing vulnerabilities will be much easier. The need for additional services  Some applications cannot be deployed without additional services. Suppose React SPA needs to be delivered to the user. Then, we remember that React does not have tools for processing HTTP requests (if we don’t consider the Next.js framework). Therefore, a web application and some web servers are sometimes packaged in Docker. This is how to create a heavy monster from a simple static site. The final build should contain only the application and the dependencies needed to run it. If the application is launched by the user on the computer, then the build should not contain the means of delivering the application to users. This consideration is a matter of infrastructure configured and deployed separately. If the application runs on a server, the build should not contain configuration files, deployment, configuration scripts, or utilities for managing this server. Following this rule will keep you from problems with changing the hosting or app deployment in the local environment. CI&CD runs only in certain conditions  Finally, the problem was quite nerve-wracking for me personally, as well as for the manager and client. This is CI & CD, which runs only on a specific system and under certain conditions. There are several unrelated reasons for this. They include incorrectly configured conditions and CI&CD closely tied to the system on which it runs. If we discuss the conditions in which we need to take specific steps, the most frequent problem is the failure of deployment due to the failure of tests. It happens even more often than a viral meme “Karen, we dropped the prod”. Theoretically, an adequately configured CI should not even lead to situations where tests fail, or the code linter does not allow changes from the hotfix. Therefore, all the most stringent code review rules should be set up at those stages of development when testers or the client has not yet accepted the code. Set up the automatic launch of tests and linters to open a pull request and run them only on a merge commit. This way, you ensure that people don't forget to fix conflicts and that the checks consider code changes already in the branch where this pull request is open. Always leave the option to run the build -> release -> run part manually, allowing developers to upload their code even if they used tabs instead of spaces. Have you ever faced the situation when you need to deploy a hotfix, and GitLab is down because someone is running ten parallel feature tests? Or has Bitbucket fall off on your project? Or have you encountered multi-day “moves” from one service to another? Often, this occurs because the entire CI&CD process is tied to a specific implementation and does not imply the need to run, for example, local deployment. This is a widespread practice. Nobody wants to spend time writing Makefiles or even Rakefiles, not to mention writing the CLI in JavaScript. I recommend spending some extra time and setting up the project to be able to run all steps from CI&CD locally. Utilize any convenient tools so that any team member with the right keys can build and deploy your application to production faster than Atlassian support fixes BitBucket. Conclusion I hope my article has provided some ideas on running the fast CI/CD process and avoiding a few tricky pitfalls. Subscribe to our blog to keep up with other reviews of our experts and improve your development practice! Other articles that may attract your attention:   6 Sure Benefits of a Robust Continuous Integration with GitLab Build an Effective App Monitoring System ### The Missing Puzzle Piece: Integrating Business Analysts into Your Tech Strategy   Business analysis is the process of analyzing a company's operations in detail to determine what is and is not working and how to improve. It resembles working as a corporate detective in that you identify problems, obtain information (data), and develop solutions that are in line with the organization's overarching objectives. A business analyst can be compared to the office's Sherlock Holmes. They sort through information, create reports and models, and then present everything to all parties. They are the experts to turn to when you want your company to improve its procedures, offerings, and quality of work. To keep the project on schedule and everyone in agreement, they are also very talkative with everyone, from the IT nerds to the executives. Consider a tech team that begins a project somewhat haphazardly. The business analyst steps in to clear things up with precise specifications, ensuring no one is twiddling their thumbs or redoing work. They are all focused on ensuring that clarity from the outset results in time and cost savings. You may be scratching your head right now, wondering how an IT project manager and a business analyst differ. The bottom line is that both are essential to a project's success; however, the project manager is the one who makes sure the team hits the targets on schedule, while the business analyst makes sure the team is aiming at the correct targets. Key reasons Business Analyst is essential for a project: Stopping the Endless Redo Loop To begin with, business analysts are like the protectors against the dreaded second chance. Consider this scenario: a major player in e-commerce became caught up in a never-ending cycle of system redesigns because no one was sure what they wanted. The Business Analyst steps in, equipped with JIRA and Confluence among other tools, and uses crystal-clear use cases and user stories to bring everyone up to speed. This reduces the back-and-forth bug fixing while ensuring that the software performs as intended. Implementing tools and Techniques for Enhanced Effectiveness Business Analysts employ various tools and techniques that enhance their effectiveness in gathering requirements and managing teams. Tools such as Microsoft Visio/Lucidchart/ Draw.io/Gliffy aid in creating precise workflow diagrams and process maps, making it easier to visualize complex systems. Techniques like SWOT analysis and MOST (Mission, Objectives, Strategies, Tactics) effectively align technology solutions with business strategies. Knowing the Team Inside Out A competent business analyst does more than just schedule tasks; they also choose who will do what and how to motivate the team to work efficiently rather than just staying up late. Data Wizards Then there is the labor-intensive data work. When it comes to utilizing tools such as SQL to sift through data and Excel to manipulate it into a form that facilitates intelligent decision-making, business analysts are experts at both of these tasks. These abilities are essential for developing effective strategies and identifying any problems early on. Beyond the Pretty Pictures Projects frequently fail not because they are poorly designed or have bugs but because the main features, process, and logic were never thoroughly worked out. Even the most skilled engineers won't be able to save the ship from sinking without a strong project blueprint. At JetRuby, we strongly believe that a business analyst should be involved from the beginning. Preparing your software development project architecture well from the beginning will save you a great deal of trouble. Additionally, having a Business Analyst informed throughout the project's development facilitates a seamless transition to any new requirements or concepts that arise. A killer skill set and the right tools A Business Analyst shines when they’ve got a killer skill set and the right tools at their disposal: Analytical Thinking: They can simplify difficult issues into manageable chunks, which is very helpful for addressing the core of a problem. Communication Skills: They ensure that everyone in the organization, including the IT wizards, is on the same page by acting as a bridge between them. Project Management: These analysts are resource managers who masterfully handle projects using platforms like Trello, Asana, or JIRA. Consider them to be the conductors of the business orchestra, ensuring that each area plays its part seamlessly and efficiently. Dashboards and Data: Business Analysts are also experts in data. With Tableau, they can create dynamic dashboards that are visually appealing and also facilitate quick comprehension of data. Agile and Scrum Expertise: They live and breathe the Agile Scrum techniques. Through regular scrum meetings, sprint planning, and reviews, they maintain team cohesion and agility. Fundamental Ideas in Business Analysis: They know every tool in the BA toolbox by heart. They are experts at everything from grasping the full project requirements lifecycle to delving deeply into business analysis fundamentals. SQL and Excel: These analysts are extremely proficient in technology; they can easily query SQL databases and convert Excel spreadsheets into effective analytical tools, complete with all the statistical nuances such as regression analysis and ANOVA. Using Methods of Business Analysis: It takes more than just seeing issues to find innovative solutions. A Business analyst uses their toolkit to plan, gather needs, and create strategies that truly work, whether it's through process modeling that goes into great detail, creating accurate use cases, or facilitating agile product delivery. To put it briefly, a business analyst is an invaluable resource for understanding and managing the complex business world. They combine technical expertise with sharp analytical thinking and excellent communication abilities. How Business Analysts Impact Business Business analysts are like the secret ingredient that makes all the difference in how well a firm runs. Your business analyst understands your wild, ambitious goals and works with you to create a realistic plan of action to achieve them. What are these people all about?  To begin with, these people are all about determining what a firm needs and then getting down to the specifics to find answers. Business analysts are the go-to specialists when a firm needs to increase sales or optimize its operations. They sort through data, pose difficult questions, and unearth insights that aren't necessarily clear at first look, much like detectives. Their ability to communicate in both "business" and "tech" jargon is truly what makes them stand out. This implies they can effortlessly convert difficult technical language into a message that the CEO or the sales team can comprehend and support. It's really kind of magical like when you turn tech talk into gold for business. Integrating process Then there's the effect of what they do. They save businesses time, money, and huge headaches by introducing new technologies, smarter ways to work, or just optimizing current procedures. Imagine finding software that can do the hard lifting or condensing a process that took ten steps down to just a few. Suddenly, everyone's work gets a little bit easier. Integrating a Business Analyst into a tech team involves more than adding a new member to the roster. It requires: Clear Role Definition: Ensure everyone understands the scope and impact of the role. Strategic Onboarding: Equip them with the right tools and access to all necessary information. Regular Feedback Loops: Establish channels for ongoing communication and adjustments. Business analysts act as a link between a brilliant idea and a workable plan, ensuring that companies are not simply running but sprinting ahead with all of their might. Making the business faster, smarter, and a more pleasant place to work is the main goal. What about that, isn't it wonderful? Don’t underestimate Business Analysts' work A company, eager to get a head start, addressed our JetRuby Agency team with a bold software project idea and decided to skip the Discovery phase to save time and costs, jumping straight into development with only a high-level idea of the requirements, confident in their understanding of the product's processes and design. The goal was to enhance user experience, integrate with existing inventory systems, and provide robust analytics.  We began programming, and initially, everything seemed to be on track. However, two weeks into the process, the business analysts and the team identified a significant problem. Their keen observation revealed a major gap in the product's logic. Further discussions highlighted legal issues regarding how and when users should sign contracts with the platform and each other. Thanks to the thorough analysis by JetRuby's business analysts, these critical issues were brought to light. They worked closely with the company's lawyer, who presented requirements that initially seemed to render the product nearly useless to users. However, the analysts' expertise helped navigate these challenges. They carefully considered the lawyer's input and devised a plan that balanced legal compliance with user convenience. Our team demonstrated their problem-solving skills and dedication to the client's success. They reworked the product's design, ensuring it was highly convenient for users while adhering to legal requirements. This collaborative effort underscored the importance of involving business analysts from the outset. In hindsight, it was clear that if the client had engaged in the discovery phase with JetRuby's business analysts initially, these nuances could have been identified and addressed before starting costly development. This proactive approach would have saved time, stress, and money. The experience reinforced the value of thorough preparation and detailed project planning, showing that these elements are crucial in determining the fate of a product. Through diligent work, our business analysts helped the client achieve a well-rounded, user-friendly product, demonstrating the importance of their role in the development process. The role of Business Analysts is evolving Business analysts, like technology itself, are constantly in motion. These days, they're strengthening cybersecurity, delving deeper into AI, and predictive analytics. To remain current and take on new problems, business analysts need to stay on top of these trends. At JetRuby, we strongly advocate establishing a close relationship with a Business Analyst before scheduling any time for development. Our business analysts assist in outlining everything upfront and maintaining order as your project develops, modifying requirements to adhere to best practices, and accommodating any modifications that may arise. These activities would still need to be completed in the absence of a BA, but they would probably fall to your engineers or project manager instead, who may lack attention to detail. So, when planning a software development project in the future, make sure a business analyst is included from the beginning. Their recommendations are similar to a cheat sheet for preventing project issues and making sure your technology expenditures yield substantial returns both now and in the future. An experienced business analyst can offer insightful analysis and strategic insights that should not be undervalued. Closing gaps and effectively finishing projects depend on their cooperation with software developers and project managers. It's time to enhance team chemistry and project outcomes; think about how a business analyst could immediately provide value to your team. dynamics; consider how a business analyst could become a valuable member of your team right now. ### Now you Can Integrate Kafka into your Ruby on Rails project like a Pro! Mastering Kafka Initially, one of our projects at JetRuby Agency aimed to improve communication between two critical services. The existing communication setup was designed such that, upon certain events, one application would create tasks in AWS Lambda, which then made requests to the API of the second application. This approach, however, was fraught with several issues: Complex Task Creation Logic: The logic required to create tasks was exceedingly complex, leading to frequent bugs and maintenance challenges. API Load and Delays: The heavy load on the API due to frequent requests caused significant delays in data processing, which impeded the overall performance and responsiveness of the system. An efficient and reliable solution. Apache Kafka Given these challenges, a more efficient and reliable solution was imperative. Apache Kafka, a distributed streaming platform, emerged as a potential solution. It excels in managing real-time data feeds with high throughput and low latency. It allows for the publication, subscription, storage, and processing of data streams in a fault-tolerant manner. It is a powerful tool that enables organizations to modernize their data strategies with event-streaming architecture. It is widely used across numerous industries such as computer software, financial services, healthcare, government, transportation, and more. However, integrating Kafka directly into a Ruby-based application posed its own set of challenges, which needed a more streamlined approach. Karafka While Kafka provides the core infrastructure for managing real-time data streams, Karafka offers a higher-level framework tailored for Ruby applications. Karafka simplifies the integration process with Kafka by providing user-friendly abstractions, structured consumer management, and built-in support for error handling and logging. This makes it easier for Ruby developers to leverage Kafka's capabilities without dealing with its complex configurations and low-level APIs. Finding a Solution In our quest to find an appropriate solution, we evaluated several options. These included: Direct Integration with Kafka: This involved using Kafka clients directly to handle message production and consumption. While feasible, this approach required substantial boilerplate code and intricate handling of Kafka's nuances, which increased development complexity. Ruby-Kafka Gem: This library provides a more Ruby-friendly interface to Kafka. It simplifies some aspects of integration but still demands significant manual setup and lacks the high-level abstractions needed for efficient development. Karafka Framework: This framework is specifically designed to work with Ruby applications and Kafka. It abstracts much of the complexity involved in integrating Kafka, providing an easy-to-use interface for managing Kafka consumers, producers, and routing. Alternative to Kafka message brokers In our quest to find an appropriate solution, we evaluated several options, both Kafka-based and alternative message brokers: RabbitMQ: RabbitMQ is a robust message broker that supports various messaging protocols. It excels in providing reliable message delivery and flexible routing options. However, it may not scale as efficiently as Kafka when dealing with large-scale, real-time data processing. Its traditional message broker architecture, while highly reliable, can introduce bottlenecks under heavy loads. Apache Pulsar: Apache Pulsar is a distributed messaging and streaming platform designed with scalability and low-latency messaging in mind. It offers features comparable to Kafka, such as multi-tenancy and geo-replication. However, its different architecture and operational model require a distinct setup and learning curve, which might be a disadvantage for teams already familiar with Kafka. Amazon Kinesis: Amazon Kinesis is a fully managed service for real-time data streaming on the AWS platform. It simplifies the setup and management of streaming data applications. However, using Kinesis ties the project closely to the AWS ecosystem, which might not be desirable for teams seeking cloud-agnostic solutions or those concerned about vendor lock-in. Google Pub/Sub: Google Pub/Sub is a real-time messaging service provided by Google Cloud. It integrates seamlessly with other Google Cloud services and offers robust scalability and reliability. Similar to Amazon Kinesis, adopting Google Pub/Sub means committing to the Google Cloud ecosystem, which may not align with the strategic goals of all organizations. Implementation and Results After careful consideration, we decided to integrate Karafka into our project for several compelling reasons: Ease of Integration: Karafka offers a seamless setup process, significantly reducing the time and effort required to integrate Kafka into our Ruby-based application. Its installer generates the necessary project structure, simplifying the initial configuration. Configuration Flexibility: Karafka allows for a comprehensive configuration of Kafka brokers, topics, and consumer groups. This flexibility enables us to tailor the system to our specific requirements without delving into the intricacies of Kafka's underlying mechanisms. Robust Consumer Management: Karafka's consumer classes provide a structured way to define and manage message processing logic. This abstraction helps us focus on business logic rather than low-level message handling. Error Handling and Logging: Karafka includes built-in support for error handling and logging, ensuring that our system can gracefully manage failures and maintain reliability. Scalability: Karafka supports horizontal scaling, allowing us to efficiently handle increased loads by adding more consumers or scaling Kafka clusters. To resolve the projects’ communication issues, we customized the interaction between the two applications using Karafka. Instead of creating tasks in AWS Lambda and making API requests, both applications now communicate via Karafka queues. This shift brought about several positive outcomes: Reduced Bugs: The simpler communication logic significantly reduced the number of bugs, improving overall system stability and maintainability. Eliminated Latency: The elimination of direct API requests and the use of Karafka queues removed the delays in data processing, enhancing the system's responsiveness. As a result of these improvements, Karafka is now extensively used throughout the project. This standardization of communication has not only streamlined our processes but also enhanced the system's scalability, making it better equipped to handle future growth and increased demands. Incorporating Karafka was a strategic move The integration of Karafka into our software development project brought numerous benefits, significantly enhancing our e-commerce platform's capability to handle real-time data processing. By leveraging Karafka and Kafka, we achieved a responsive and scalable system that could efficiently manage high volumes of user interactions, transactions, and inventory updates. Karafka's abstraction and configuration capabilities streamlined the integration process, allowing our development team to focus on core business functionalities. The robust error handling and logging mechanisms ensured system reliability, while the scalability features enabled us to meet fluctuating demands seamlessly. The decision to incorporate Karafka into our project proved to be a strategic move, providing us with a powerful toolset to build a high-performance, data-driven application. This integration addressed our immediate challenges and positioned our platform for future growth and innovation. ### Debugging definition in Software Development. Best Practices Today, we’re going to focus on one of the most crucial aspects of software development: debugging. Whether you're just starting or have a bit of experience, understanding the debugging process is essential. Debugging is what transforms a good developer into a great one. So let's get started!   What is Debugging? During the software development process, the applications undergo phases including testing, upgrading, troubleshooting, and maintenance. Generally speaking, the software program or software has faults and errors that are periodically fixed. To produce a finished product devoid of flaws, the software needs to have its bugs removed. The majority of software testers found and fixed errors using the debugging approach. Although debugging may appear straightforward, it is a complex operation, therefore you must address every fault at every level of the process. Why We Need Debugging in Software Development You might wonder, "Why can't we just write perfect code from the start?" Well, in an ideal world, we would! But the reality is that writing flawless code on the first go is nearly impossible.  Here’s why debugging is indispensable: Human Error: Even the most experienced developers make mistakes. Typos, logical errors, and misunderstandings of requirements are all common. Complexity: As projects grow, they become more complex. More lines of code mean more potential for things to go wrong. Changing Requirements: Sometimes, requirements change mid-development. New features, optimizations, or user feedback might necessitate revisiting and adjusting existing code. Interdependencies: Modern software often relies on multiple components working together. A bug in one component can affect the entire system. Debugging ensures that we catch and fix these issues, leading to robust, reliable software. Types of Debugging Errors When your program doesn’t behave as expected or fails to run, it’s usually due to one of several types of errors. Let’s break them down: Syntax Errors Consider syntax to be a programming language's grammatical rules. Syntax errors happen when you break these rules, like typos or missing a semicolon. It’s like writing a sentence with bad grammar. Logical Errors Logical errors occur when your program runs but doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. It’s like giving someone a map with the wrong directions—the instructions are clear, but they lead to the wrong place. Runtime Errors These errors pop up while your program is running, causing it to stop unexpectedly. They can be caused by issues in the environment where your program is running, like a missing file or running out of memory. You’ll encounter many other types of errors as you continue learning to code. The key is to learn how to “catch” these errors using techniques like error and exception handling. Types of Debugging Debugging can be divided into two main types: reactive and proactive. Let’s explore each one. Reactive Debugging This type of debugging happens after you’ve identified a bug. All the errors we talked about earlier are fixed through reactive debugging. It’s like putting out a fire after it starts. Proactive Debugging Proactive debugging involves writing code that’s on the lookout for errors before they cause problems. This extra code doesn’t interfere with your program’s main functionality. It’s also known as preemptive debugging and is a part of defensive and offensive programming strategies. Remote Debugging As you gain experience, you’ll need to learn about remote debugging. Software is increasingly running in the cloud, meaning you can’t always debug it locally on your computer. Remote debugging allows you to find bugs in applications running on different machines or in the cloud. How cool is that? Different Stages of Debugging Debugging isn't just a one-step process; it involves several stages. Let's break them down: Analysis       Deciding that there is a problem is the first step in the debugging process. This could be through automated tests failing, a crash report, or simply noticing that your program isn’t behaving as expected.  Analysis involves:         Reproducing the Issue: Try to make the bug happen consistently. This can help you understand the conditions under which the bug occurs.         Gathering Information: Look at logs, error messages, and any other output that might give you clues about what's going wrong. Processing the Analysis Results  Once you have enough information, the next step is to process it:         Hypothesizing: Based on the evidence, form hypotheses about what might be causing the bug.         Tracing: Follow the flow of your program to see where things might be going wrong. This often involves stepping through your code line by line using a debugger. Key Debugging   This is where you dig deeper and find the root cause:         Isolating the Problem: Narrow down the section of code that is responsible for the bug.         Testing Hypotheses: Modify the code to test your hypotheses. This might involve implementing more logging, commenting out portions of the code, or adjusting variables.  Debugging Tools Having the correct tools makes debugging easy. Here are a few well-known ones that you ought to know about: Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)        Most modern IDEs, like Visual Studio, IntelliJ IDEA, or PyCharm, come with built-in debugging tools. These include breakpoints, watches, and step-through execution, which help you inspect your code at runtime. Debuggers        Standalone debuggers like GDB (GNU Debugger) for C/C++ or LLDB for Swift and Objective-C are powerful tools for debugging applications outside of an IDE. Logging        Sometimes, adding logging statements to your code is the simplest and most effective way to understand what’s happening. Tools like Log4j for Java, Winston for Node.js, or Python's built-in logging module can be invaluable. Static Analysis Tools        Tools like SonarQube, ESLint for JavaScript, or Pylint for Python analyze your code for potential issues without running it. They can catch syntax errors, style violations, and other common pitfalls. Profilers        Profilers like Valgrind for C/C++, YourKit for Java, or cProfile for Python help you understand the performance characteristics of your code, which can be useful for identifying bottlenecks or memory leaks. JetRuby Approach in Debugging Processes Let’s take a look at how we at JetRuby usually handle debugging in our software development process.  Analysis This stage involves identifying and understanding the bug. When a bug is reported, either by users or automated testing systems, the JetRuby team gathers as much information as possible about the issue.  Reproducing the Bug: We ensure that the bug can be consistently reproduced. This might involve different environments or specific user actions. Collecting Data: We gather logs, error messages, and any relevant data that can provide insights into the bug's nature. Understanding Impact: We assess the impact of the bug on the application’s functionality and users. This helps in prioritizing the debugging process. During the analysis stage, collaboration with QA teams, users, and developers is often necessary to gather all pertinent information. Prioritization Once the bug is thoroughly analyzed, the next stage is prioritization. Not all bugs have the same level of urgency or impact, and resources are often limited. Prioritization involves: Severity Assessment: the severity of the bug. Critical bugs that affect business operations or user security are given higher priority. Frequency and Scope: how often the bug occurs and the number of users affected. Resource Allocation: the resources needed to address the bug, including time, personnel, and tools. Prioritization ensures that the most critical issues are addressed promptly, optimizing our team's efforts and maintaining application stability. Resolution Resolution is the stage where the actual fixing of the bug takes place. There are various approaches to resolving bugs, which we use depending on the project: Code Correction: fixing the erroneous code that caused the bug. Patch Implementation: applying a temporary fix to keep the system operational until a more permanent solution is developed. Workarounds: providing alternative methods for users to achieve their goals without encountering the bug. Refactoring: modifying the existing code structure to eliminate the bug and improve future maintainability. During this stage, we ensure that the fix does not introduce new bugs and is well-tested before deployment. Fix After a resolution strategy is selected, we do the actual debugging or fixing of the code. This involves: Writing and Testing Code: fixing and rigorously testing it in a controlled environment. Review and Verification: conducting code reviews to ensure the fix is correct and does not negatively impact other parts of the system. Deployment: we deploy the fix to the production environment, following best practices to minimize disruption. Effective debugging requires a methodical approach and thorough testing to confirm that the issue is resolved without unintended side effects. Continuous Improvement The final stage of the debugging process is continuous improvement. This involves documenting the bug, the resolution process, and the lessons learned.  We record detailed information about the bug and its fix in the project documentation for future reference. Then the team discusses the bug during team retrospectives to understand why it occurred and how to prevent similar issues in the future. Finally, we implement changes in development practices, such as enhanced code reviews or additional testing, to reduce the likelihood of similar bugs. It is especially important for business-critical bugs. We at JetRuby strongly believe that continuous improvement helps to avoid the recurrence of the same issues and contributes to the overall enhancement of the software development process.  Conclusion Debugging is an essential skill for any developer. It’s not just about fixing bugs; it’s about understanding your code better and improving its quality. The debugging process involves analyzing the problem, processing the results, and using various tools to isolate and fix the issue. This structured approach ensures that critical issues are addressed promptly, resources are used efficiently, and the overall quality of the software is continuously enhanced.   ### RoR Philosophy: Ruby on Rails Features to consider Many applications choose Ruby on Rails due to its flexibility and cost-efficiency, some renowned products are not an exception. Currently, it is a choice of more than one million web platforms. This article overviews what inherent features make it so practical and what kind of businesses prefer to build on it. These Principles Underpin RoR Philosophy Ruby is known for its elegant ways of programming optimization. It was created to be read intuitively, hence, its developers utilize a set of universal concepts: 1) Convention Before Configuration This postulate encourages developers to follow conventions adopted by default. They don’t have to manually configure every object but just use the default settings where it can be reasonably done. Therefore, when others view their code, it will be easier to grasp and review if necessary.  2) Don't repeat yourself (DRY) The principle was first introduced by the “Pragmatic programmer”. Don’t Repeat Yourself, or DRY is a smart rule in coding that’s all about cutting down on repeating stuff unnecessarily in a complex system. Every piece of info should tie in neatly with the rest of the system, making everything more efficient. The whole idea is to slash code repetition to make it super easy to tweak things as you go along in development. In Ruby on Rails, helpers and libraries are your DRY assistants, helping you stick to this principle.  3) Versatility Its code perfectly integrates JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, excellently working for complicated web applications. In other words, as a full-stack framework, RoR has it all. It combines a solid base of templates, application logic, and business logic features, offering a level of versatility that’s hard to beat.  Rails is packed with a treasure trove of free gems, easy third-party integrations, and compatibility with other frameworks, whether you’re working on the front end, back end, or anywhere in between. The framework isn’t just about its handy templates, gems, and scaffolding that make building web apps quick and affordable. It's also incredibly versatile, which is a big win for businesses. These Features of Ruby on Rails Help in Achieving Business Goals Above, we looked into major principles of development in Ruby that make it an attractive choice for seasoned engineers.  Now, let’s dive into the framework's features that define its value for businesses. 1) Scalability If an app isn’t properly scaled, it will slow down, become unresponsive, or even crash when under heavy load. This leads to a bad user experience, loss of revenue, and damage to the brand’s reputation. Luckily, these problems can be avoided by choosing RoR as your operating framework. Ruby on Rails is known for its ability to manage more users, bigger workloads, and growing amounts of data without losing performance or functionality. This feature makes RoR valuable for apps or websites that need to handle a lot of web traffic, like social media networks or streaming services.  2) Cost-effectiveness Budget constraints are a serious factor for startups when choosing a technology stack. RoR is an excellent choice for startups because it helps lower development costs. Its straightforward development process, extensive libraries, and a wide array of testing tools ensure development without heavy investment in resources. 3) Controlled development process One of the standout benefits of Ruby on Rails is its ability to streamline web application development, making the process both smooth and efficient. Its extensive built-in libraries and tools let developers concentrate on creating unique features rather than spending time on foundational coding.  Besides, a Rails app implies easy maintenance. Maintaining a web application is often both time-consuming and costly. Ruby on Rails addresses this challenge by streamlining the maintenance process. It includes features specifically designed to reduce the time and expense associated with upkeep. With built-in testing tools and a great set of debugging tools, Rails makes it easier to keep applications up and running. 4) Shorter Time to Market  RoR is engineered for speed, allowing developers to create web applications swiftly. The framework offers numerous built-in features, including database migrations, routing, and templating, which significantly cut down development time. We’ve already mentioned a vast Ruby ecosystem of gems. This extensive library of pre-built components means developers avoid reinventing the wheel and focus on what makes their application unique, further accelerating the development process. 5) Supportive community Ruby on Rails has a vibrant and engaged community of developers, offering ample resources for utilizing the framework. This community-driven support includes elaborate documentation, tutorials, and active forums, making it easier to learn and troubleshoot issues with Ruby on Rails. What Products Can be Created on Ruby and Ruby on Rails? RoR demonstrates its efficiency across a wide range of industries. Non-standard projects. RoR excels in handling unique and unconventional projects, providing the flexibility and customization needed for bespoke applications. Information websites. For websites focused on delivering information, RoR offers robust frameworks and tools to create engaging and interactive user experiences. SaaS solutions. The framework's scalability and ease of use make it an excellent choice for developing Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, supporting rapid development and deployment. E-commerce websites. It is a popular choice for e-commerce platforms, with Shopify being a prime example. In-built gems enable the integration of attributes like help desks, payment gateways, and email campaign platforms without extensive coding, making it perfect for beginners. Social networks. It is ideal for building social networking apps. Its ease of use, combined with a plethora of reliable gems, allows developers to create feature-rich social platforms with minimal coding effort. Content management systems. For those looking to create content-focused websites, Ruby on Rails is an excellent choice. It provides a wealth of information and ready-to-use features, facilitating the creation and distribution of content. Top Ruby on Rails Applications Ruby on Rails powers up to one-third of the software market. Here are the top 10 applications showcasing the strength and versatility of this framework. These major market players began their journey as RoR projects. Over time, they integrated additional technology stacks while continuing to use Ruby as a component. Kickstarter Kickstarter, a highly successful web development project built with Ruby, uses Ruby on Rails extensively, benefiting from the framework’s rich library of gems. Kickstarter is a renowned crowdfunding platform where individuals and businesses can raise funds for creative projects, products, and ventures. It connects project creators with backers, supporting entrepreneurs in pursuing innovative ideas. SoundCloud SoundCloud, the world’s leading audio and music streaming platform, was initially built on a Ruby monolith, with modern upgrades to its Ruby and Rails versions in October 2022. The platform offers free and paid membership plans, a vast collection of songs, and the ability to upload podcasts and music. Features include liked audio collections and blog writing, benefiting niche and non-commercial musicians by enabling self-promotion without major music publisher stipulations. Dribbble Dribbble is a popular online hub for creatives such as designers, illustrators, artists, and other visual content creators. This platform allows professionals and aspiring artists to showcase their work, discover inspiring projects, and connect with like-minded individuals. Initially intended to show progress over time, Dribbble has evolved into one of the most prominent online communities for visual creators. Its technology stack has included Ruby, supporting easy browsing, designer hiring without registration, and user interactions such as liking shots, commenting, and following profiles. Netflix Netflix employs RoR as part of its technological stack, using the framework for microservices and internal security systems. This ensures the sustainable and smooth operation of its services. Airbnb Airbnb relies on RoR for its scalability. Over the years, Airbnb has integrated Ruby into its stack, supporting a vast network of hosts and travelers in more than 200 countries. Shopify Shopify, a massive e-commerce platform, leverages the RoR framework for rapid development and robust backend solutions. Its modular architecture allows for multiple plugins, enhancing the platform’s capacity. Shopify’s admin interface benefits from RoR’s flexibility, enabling merchants to manage their interfaces efficiently. GitHub GitHub, a unique platform for software developers, utilizes RoR for its efficient testing mechanisms and API endpoints. The comprehensive API allows developers to interact programmatically with GitHub features. Zendesk Zendesk, used by companies worldwide, relies on Ruby for the backend of its API services. This enables Zendesk to meet high-profile customer requests and support excellent user acquisition strategies. Couchsurfing Couchsurfing connects hosts with travelers, using Ruby to build its web services and power its online community. This social media platform facilitates member interaction and community building. Fiverr Fiverr, a well-known freelancer platform, was initially designed as an online marketplace using RoR. It brings together freelancers in various fields such as translation, programming, design, and entertainment, providing essential features like user registration, profiles, and messaging. Summary Using RoR, businesses benefit from the framework's extensive collection of third-party plugins and extensions, not to mention the ease of development, fast time to market, and elegant solutions.  It is user-friendly, robust, fast, and scalable, making it ideal for enterprise and consumer applications. However, its advanced capabilities mean that integrating Rails into your technology stack is best managed by experienced professionals and skilled developers. ### How AI Improves Software Development Process: 11 Powerful Insights from JetRuby Agency   As an IT company, we constantly explore ways to make our work productive and free from repetitive tasks. In line with this vision, developers must be liberated from mundane, routine tasks to contribute their best to the code creation process. This approach prevents developer burnout and yields the best results for the development process. It’s natural to think of AI technology as a straightforward way to achieve this goal. After the launch and rapid adoption of ChatGPT, the potential of artificial intelligence to enhance productivity and reduce operational costs became even more apparent. This article discusses the key benefits of incorporating AI technology into the software development life cycle. We examine how our software developers leverage different AI techniques to streamline workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and build high-quality software products more efficiently. What benefits does AI technology bring to software engineering? AI will have a profound impact on the software development industry. Many developers think AI will impact their work or cause them to become irrelevant. By delegating accurately specified, well-defined tasks to artificial intelligence, we free ourselves from routine and dedicate more quality time to architectural planning. To benefit from the vast capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) and to couple them with human creativity and intuition, we must first develop specific prompts detailing our requirements from AI at every stage. Only then can we leverage AI’s problem-solving abilities to help us create optimal code and architecture. Let's begin by reviewing AI's potential in software development tasks, then examine specific AI utilities and use cases. Here is how Artificial intelligence assists development teams nowadays: Automation of repetitive tasks Automating repetitive tasks is the most essential function AI tools can help. For instance, our developers use them to: Generate complete code snippets or programming functions based on users' text prompts. Modify existing code. For example, if a code snippet or programming routine suffers from security vulnerabilities or performance issues. AI-powered tools, such as OpenAI Codex,  scan it automatically and suggest improvements to make it more reliable and error-free. Predictive analysis and improved software reliability  AI tools automatically detect and prioritize software problems based on their impact on business processes and customers. This allows our software developers to: Avoid wasting time checking all security and performance issues alerts. AI tools will investigate these alerts and prioritize the most important ones that require developer attention. Simulate users' actions on the system before launching it. For example, the technology can simulate users' actions while using the system to discover performance and security issues before they get caught by users. Predictive failure. AI tools can analyze large volumes of past log data of system performance and usage and previous incidents to predict when an incident is likely to happen. Examples of predictive analytics software are Amazon QuickSight and SAP Analytics.  Speeding up the development cycle and testing AI tools speed up the software development cycle in JetRuby in different ways: Generate code automatically from developers' written requirements. Accelerate development time by introducing an intelligent code autocomplete function. Enhance project building and compiling compared with manual processes. Review code immediately to discover defects and performance issues early in the development life cycle. Facilitate software deployment by automating the required configurations (e.g., software and infrastructure tuning) in the deployed environment. This dramatically reduces deployment time. In the testing area, AI tools help to: Discover and prioritize software bugs so developers can focus on fixing the most critical ones. AI automates the process of generating test cases covering all aspects of the software solution. This enhances its reliability. Reducing software maintenance costs AI tools significantly reduce our software maintenance costs through: Reducing debugging time by discovering bugs in the early design phases Facilitating predictive maintenance, which analyzes previous software program usage to predict maintenance needs. Automatically recommending code refactoring leads to better code that does not require immediate maintenance after launch and prevents costly outages. Maintaining the human element We believe that AI will not replace human developers; instead, it will aid them in creating better software because AI facilitates the following tasks done by our team: Helping developers write better code by analyzing their work and giving recommendations Explaining recommendations provided by AI tools themselves. This allows our developers to understand why AI suggests a particular action or code and trust to adopt it at work. Performing repetitive tasks and reducing the time needed to execute them. This enables our developers to focus on creative aspects of the work and leave repetitive duties to AI tools. How does JetRuby apply AI in each phase of the software engineering process? AI technology transforms how software projects within JetRuby are built and delivered. It’s no exaggeration to say that it has brought numerous benefits across the different stages of our software development lifecycle: 1. Help in prototyping AI tools analyze users' requirements and suggest recommendations based on the criteria supplied by the user. For instance, AI tools suggest recommendations for layout, color schemes, functionalities, typography, and user interface elements. We employ Uizard and FigJam as AI prototyping tools to quickly create visually appealing designs. Uizard is a user-friendly design program that simplifies transforming ideas into interactive digital prototypes. It's preferred by non-designers and professionals in our team, offering a simple drag-and-drop interface and intelligent features. Uizard is suited for quick brainstorming sessions or detailed project development. 2. Debugging   Let’s look at the examples of AI-backed debugging tools we use.  Code Debugging Pro is an intuitive tool that simplifies finding and correcting code errors. It caters to both novice programmers and seasoned developers. Real-time error analysis and comprehensive debugging capabilities make Code Debugging Pro helpful for both small projects and large-scale applications. Another AI debugging tool we use, Explain An Error, was designed to demystify programming errors for developers of all skill levels. It analyzes error messages and provides clear, concise explanations and suggestions for fixing the issue. It helps us in those moments of confusion when working with code. Explain An Error supports a wide range of programming languages, making it a versatile assistant in the debugging process. Its user-friendly approach ensures that developers can quickly understand the root cause of an error and how to address it, streamlining the development process and enhancing productivity. 3. Code explanation Having the project code documented - Project code management is essential to facilitate maintenance after launch and allow different team members to work on the same code file. AI tools automate the process of generating code explanations or comments. For instance, an AI reads and explains the code to our engineers in a natural language, summarizing its main functions and logic. When considering examples of tools that explain code, Code-GPT is indispensable. It interprets and explains code snippets by translating complex programming concepts into understandable language. It takes a piece of code as the input, provides a detailed explanation of what the code does and how it works, and, in some cases, offers suggestions for optimization or debugging. This tool is handy for our developers seeking to understand unfamiliar codebases, learn new programming languages, or clarify specific functionalities within a code segment. 4. Code refactoring AI-powered code refactoring tools help us automatically detect bugs, performance issues, and abnormal patterns in their code. Its refactoring tools identify potential problems and recommend optimization by analyzing code syntax and structure. This enhances programmer productivity in our teams by reducing the time required for manually reviewing and improving code quality across the different components of a software project. OpenRefactor is an example of a code refactoring program we use. It streamlines refactoring, making it quicker and easier for developers. OpenRefactor automates code reorganization to enhance readability, simplify complexity, and improve maintainability without altering the code's functionality. AI-enabled code refactoring is a reliable, yet often underestimated, method to reduce development costs by approximately 15%. 5. Predictive analysis AI tools help in different software predictive analysis areas, especially defect, failure, and performance analysis. In particular, they streamline the following processes: Analyzing previous defects to identify areas within the software solution that can generate defects in the future. Identifying high-risk software components that are likely to suffer from a defect in the future. Generating test use cases of the software solution before launching it to predict performance issues (e.g., bottlenecks and slowdown) and work to solve them before they cause problems.  6. AI for Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) We use powered DevOps AI tools to automate many tasks through the CI/CD workflows, including: Building code Code integration Continuous testing Deployment to production environments For instance, GitLab CI/CD Guru is often used as a Continuous Integration and Deployment tool.  7. Automated testing Testing is a critical aspect of any software project. A few decades ago, software testing began manually, moved to agile testing, and then continuous testing. After the introduction of AI for software engineering, testing became known as AI autonomous testing. By leveraging AI-powered testing tools, our QA engineers enable faster, more accurate bug detection, significantly saving development time and cost. On the other hand, these testing tools can automatically generate test cases, analyze results, identify potential defects early, and recommend solutions. We employ Pythagora and QA Synthetics as efficient automated testing tools. 8. Autonomous software maintenance Several ways are enabling us to benefit from the AI tool's software maintenance capacity: Automated bug fixing – Identify bugs and suggest recommendations for fixing them. Predictive maintenance – predicts performance issues before they occur and solves them. Automated testing – testing software solutions under different conditions and use cases. Dependency management: Software projects are composed of many third-party components. Artificial intelligence can help discover and update these dependencies automatically to avoid security vulnerabilities and performance issues. Configuration management – AI can automatically configure hardware and software used to run the application, making them more optimized. DocuWriter.ai and DocumentationLab are the autonomous software maintenance tools we use. 9. Documentation AI tools read code files, understand their functions, and generate documentation to help our developers understand them. 10. Enhancing code quality with Copilot, ChatGPT JetRuby actively utilizes Copilot and ChatGPT in its development practices and internal processes. This allows the creation of high-quality software products that do not sacrifice human developers' innovation and imagination. In particular, using Copilot and ChatGPT helps us improve code quality and accelerate development by: Reducing error - by recommending contextually relevant code snippets. Enhancing consistency – recommend consistent code that follows established patterns. Encouraging best practices –Suggest using code snippets that use secure coding and follow proper performance best practices. Save time – Allow our developers to focus on performing complex tasks while leaving the routine activities to AI tools. This amplifies developer productivity and allows us to create high-quality software solutions at competitive prices. 11. Improving the accuracy of estimations Traditional methods for estimating the costs of complex web development projects were time-consuming and inaccurate. This leads to budget overruns. To solve this problem, our development team utilizes ChatGPT and Copilot to streamline the project cost estimation and development process. This allows our company to speed up the time to market by 30% while still maintaining high quality of delivery and achieving profits. AI technology advances dramatically We’ve been keen on tracking development metrics as it's our bread and butter. Our team did its best to shift from traditional methodologies to those enhanced by Artificial Intelligence. We've noticed that the average time to complete tasks has improved by 15%, and this improvement is consistently ongoing. Integrating the right AI tools into our toolchain made our software development team much more efficient! In particular, this integration: reduces the overload of developers and prevents their burnout. As a result, we allocate more time for complex design tasks and innovation. minimizes errors and improves the CI/CD process, generates test use cases, simplifies finding and correcting code errors, enhances code quality, and reduces costs associated with code refactoring.  The list is not exhaustive: as AI technology advances dramatically, we're excited to harness its full potential to develop groundbreaking software solutions. ### Сustomized E-Commerce Solution - Surprising “whys” and “hows”! It seems that ready-made e-commerce platforms can satisfy the most demanding tastes. However, the standard functionality of off-the-shelf platforms like Shopify doesn't always meet the evolving needs of businesses. This article explores the “whys” and “hows” of transitioning to a customized eCommerce solution.  What prompts a business to create its platform? 1) Tailored user experience. You may map out how users interact with your product to craft a personalized user experience that truly resonates. When thoughtfully designed, this customization enhances user engagement. Tailoring the design, layout, and user stories to your preferences not only creates a more engaging experience. 2) Long-term cost efficiency. While in the early stages of development, customizable eCommerce solutions require a higher upfront investment compared to off-the-shelf options, they result in long-term cost efficiency. Custom solutions eliminate the need for ongoing subscription fees or additional expenses associated with plugins or extensions, which may be required with out-of-the-box platforms, such as Shopify. 3) Scalability and flexibility. Believe it or not, this feature can play a central role in the whole scenario. Sometimes, ready-made solutions aren’t equipped to handle a dynamically growing customer base and evolving technical requirements. 4) Integration possibilities. True, you can integrate many functions with ready-made platforms. However, with customizable eCommerce systems, you gain better control over exactly what functionalities you bring on board, whether it's ERPs, inventory management systems, or customer relationship management (CRM) systems.  5) Having one more competitive advantage. Your platform will distinguish itself from competitors with unique features and functionality that no other platform can replicate in the same way. 6) Enhanced security. You can create a more advanced security system to address concerns about data breaches and online fraud. Having control over security protocols on your end changes the game and can serve as another competitive edge. 7) Ownership and control. Customizable eCommerce solutions grant you full ownership and control over your online store. Unlike hosted platforms that impose limitations or restrictions, custom solutions empower you to make changes, updates, and optimizations, without relying on third-party approvals or constraints. Shopify vs Spree Whereas Shopify is an e-commerce solution, Spree is a platform that can be configured or managed in the way you prefer. Spree is favored for its ability to create tailored, unique user experiences. Also, Spree is open-source and free. Unlike Shopify, it is installed and hosted manually so a fair amount of technical skill is required to support and run Spree.  With Shopify, you have a quick start. However, any customization beyond a standard scope of features will be a huge hindrance. For instance, you may need a specific shipping carrier that Shopify doesn’t have and such integration is irksome. We’ve summarized the pros and cons of both platforms in the tables below: If you plan to migrate your e-commerce business from one platform to another, let’s consider the migration from Shopify to Spree.  Things to consider during the migration process Exporting data from Shopify: First things first, you'll want to grab all the important stuff from your Shopify store — like product details, customer info, past orders, and anything else that's key. Shopify lets you export these bits into CSV files, which is super handy when moving things over to a new system. What Data Can Be Migrated from Shopify to Spree? For the Products Category, the data that can be migrated from Shopify to Spree includes product categories such as Manufacturers, Customers, Orders, Coupons, Reviews, and Multistore features; CMS Pages; and product details including Name, SKU, Full Description, Images in Description, Status, Manufacturer, Price, Special Price, URL, Meta Title, Meta Description, Weight, and Variants (SKU, Weight, Quantity, Images, Price, Special Price), Base Image, Additional Images, Quantity, and Manage Stock. Bringing data into Spree: Got all your data ready? Awesome, next up is getting it into Spree. Since Spree runs on Ruby on Rails, you might need to do a bit of tweaking with custom scripts or Spree's tools to make sure everything fits just right. Tweaking Spree to fit your needs: Spree is pretty awesome for customization. You’ll likely spend a good chunk of time getting everything just how you want it — like setting up how taxes work, figuring out shipping, and hooking up your payment options. Setting up your store’s look: Unlike Shopify, Spree isn’t packed with ready-made themes. You might need to roll up your sleeves and create a custom theme or tweak an existing one to reflect your brand’s vibe. This usually means dabbling with some Ruby on Rails and CSS/HTML. Adding extra features with extensions: Spree doesn’t come with as big an app marketplace as Shopify, so you might need to add or build some custom extensions to fill in any gaps, especially for things like SEO, analytics, or marketing tools. Setting up payments: And let's not forget about payments and checkouts. Switching platforms means you can pick any payment provider that fits your budget and needs, possibly saving on fees. It’s all about ensuring the new system integrates smoothly so your customers enjoy a checkout experience. Instead of conclusion If you’re ready to take control and possibly save some cash while providing a tailored shopping experience, it might be time to think beyond Shopify. Each step of the way, from analysis to final touches, is about gearing up to give you and your customers a better platform that truly suits your needs. During the migration process, the focus of your attention should be on the following steps: 1) Export and import of data 2) Setting up the platform’s interface 4) Work on payment methods 5) Setting up integrations and extensions        ### Navigating the Ruby on Rails Landscape: Valuable Insights from JetRuby Agency Significance of RoR Ruby on Rails is a powerful framework designed for fast prototyping and developing web applications, enabling developers to bring their ideas to life quickly and efficiently. This is achieved through its convention over configuration philosophy, which reduces the need for extensive configuration files and boilerplate code. Rails' comprehensive set of built-in tools and libraries, along with its emphasis on best practices, allows developers to focus on writing high-quality, functional code rather than getting bogged down in repetitive tasks. The framework's robust ecosystem further accelerates the development process, including gems (libraries) and its emphasis on the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle.   Big names like GitHub, Airbnb, SlideShare, Shopify, CrunchBase, Dribble, and Bloomberg have all rolled with Ruby on Rails, choosing it to power their applications. This shows it’s knocking it out of the park, doing better than many other programming languages that don’t always get to bask in this kind of limelight. Ruby on Rails, or RoR as it is often called, really shines when looking at speed, efficiency, and agility. It’s the right tech stack if you want a powerhouse framework that balances getting things done and running smoothly. For CEOs and Chief Technical Officers, getting a good grasp of what Ruby on Rails offers is crucial for steering their companies through the waves of digital transformation. Understanding the Ruby on Rails Ecosystem Let’s dive into the Ruby on Rails ecosystem, affectionately just called Rails. It's an open-source champ written in Ruby and is a big fan of the MVC (Model-View-Controller) setup. This means it keeps its structure neat with everything nicely compartmentalized into models, views, and controllers, which is a huge plus for maintaining apps maintainable and scalable. Rails is highly favored by businesses for several reasons: Quick Setup: Rails offers a streamlined setup that allows developers to commence their work promptly, ensuring a swift transition from planning to implementation. Readability and Simplicity: The Ruby language is designed for readability, reducing complexity, and enhancing code comprehension. Additionally, Rails' "convention over configuration" principle minimizes boilerplate code, promoting a clean and consistent codebase. These features facilitate the efficient onboarding of new developers and contribute to sustained productivity and maintainability of codebases. Abundant Functionalities: Rails is equipped with a plethora of pre-built functionalities, referred to as gems, which significantly expedite the development process and allow developers to focus on creating unique components of an application. Engaged Community: The Rails community is highly active and collaborative, constantly generating valuable resources and open-source tools that benefit developers and businesses. Adherence to Coding Standards: Rails strictly adheres to coding standards, ensuring that applications developed using the framework are functional, maintainable and comprehensible. So, whether you’re starting a new project or scaling an existing one, Rails has the toolkit and the community to support you all the way. Key Considerations for Businesses Seeking RoR Software Development Help Software Development Fast Software Development Progress Ruby on Rails (RoR) speeds up the development process with its built-in framework and many ready-to-use solutions. The "Convention over Configuration" approach reduces the need to write boilerplate code, letting developers quickly build and tweak applications. Extensive Toolset RoR comes with a rich toolkit, including libraries and gems that make it easy to implement various features. Testing tools like RSpec and Capybara help maintain high code quality. Easy Integrations with Third-Party Services Integrating third-party services can be tricky, especially if their APIs need to be better documented or stable. However, RoR's large community often provides ready-made solutions or gems that simplify the integration process. Low Software Development TCO (total cost of ownership) Hiring a RoR software development team might be pricier compared to other technologies, but this is balanced out by faster development times and higher product quality. High Client Data Security RoR includes built-in mechanisms for security, like protection against SQL injection, XSS, and CSRF. Nonetheless, ensuring security also requires following best practices and keeping everything updated. Project Growth Scaling Performance Availability As your user base grows, you might need to optimize code and databases and scale your infrastructure. The cost of boosting performance depends on the project's complexity and might involve extra spending on servers and code optimization. Ownership Cost Management Owning a RoR project includes costs for server maintenance, databases, and other infrastructure components. Thanks to RoR's popularity, there are plenty of cloud providers offering optimized solutions for RoR applications. Support Large Coding Community The RoR developer community is quite large, making it easier to find specialists when you need to replace team members. However, the availability of highly skilled professionals can vary by region. Easy Team Scaling New teams can quickly onboard thanks to good documentation and RoR coding standards. Depending on the project's complexity, onboarding time usually ranges from a few weeks to a couple of months. No Vendor Lock Handing over a project to another team can be challenging, especially if it's not well-documented. However, RoR's structure and the presence of automated tests can simplify this process, allowing the new team to get up to speed faster. Common Pitfalls in Outsourcing Ruby on Rails Projects We at JetRuby came across the fact that while outsourcing Ruby on Rails projects, there are a few tricky spots to watch out for, especially if you're picking up where someone else left off. First, you might run into issues with documentation and testing—or the lack thereof. This can throw new developers into a loop as they try to grasp what’s happening inside the app. Developers primarily using other programming languages can unintentionally create slow and unreadable Ruby code. Every language has its idioms and best practices. Ruby is known for its conciseness and expressiveness. Developers from other languages might write lengthy and complex code that could be more elegant and concise in Ruby. This unfamiliar style makes the code harder to understand and maintain, leading to technical debt and making applications work even slower. Poor algorithm choices and suboptimal use of built-in methods can significantly degrade performance, requiring considerable effort to optimize later. The Ruby community values testing and documentation, with tools like RSpec and Minitest simplifying these processes. Developers from other ecosystems might not prioritize this, leading to code that's harder to maintain and evolve. Without proper testing, hidden bugs might be discovered only in production, increasing costs for fixes and refactoring. These issues lead to technical debt—choosing short-term solutions over quality long-term ones. Poor, slow, and convoluted code means future fixes are inevitable. Refactoring requires understanding and rewriting existing code, consuming time and resources, slowing development, and increasing expenses. Early missteps in the project can also come back to haunt you, slowing things down just when you need to speed up. Developers might find themselves stuck doing detective work and heavy-duty refactoring. Dealing with outdated tools or components drags the development speed and affects the application performance, forcing you into time-gulping upgrades. The Expertise Difference: Why Choose Us Join the ranks of leading enterprises, startups, and media firms like the Financial Times who trust our services. Discover our clients' success stories and learn more about the innovative Ruby on Rails solutions we have expertly crafted and delivered, ensuring satisfaction and superior performance. Top-rated Ruby on Rails development company by Clutch The reviews on the platform confirm our expertise. These clients have expressed their satisfaction and gratitude. Feel free to check out those testimonials.  Among fastest growing companies JetRuby Agency has been at the core of many Fastest Growing App Development Companies 2024 in the USA and around the world since 2010. Trusted by leading brands 300+ accomplished projects in Ruby on Rails for startups and enterprises  Active Ruby community contributor With over 30 million downloads of our developed gems and around 100 proprietary gems crafted for specific needs, we empower your projects with proven, reliable tools. Creating a talent pool with an in-house Ruby Academy JetRuby has been actively involved in teaching at universities and conducting internal academies since 2016. Our educational initiatives, including our own Ruby Academy, have equipped over 1,000 graduates with the skills to innovate and excel in the tech industry. Supported by AI/ML Our engineers enhance productivity by integrating cutting-edge AI tools into our development process, which has boosted our developers' efficiency by 30% and reduced code bugs by an impressive 51%. ISO-certified JetRuby is an ISO-certified software development agency, which proves our commitment to the best people management practices, fueling our clients’ projects with dedicated developers. We comply with industry standards: ISO 30414 (Human Capital) and ISO 10018 (People Engagement), SOC2, and HIPAA. We’re excited about our dedication to innovation and excellence, and we're sure it’ll keep us exceeding expectations and setting the pace in the industry. Overview of Our Team's Expertise and Qualifications Our client-centric approach ensures that we work transparently with you, keeping you informed on project statuses and timelines, and taking responsibility for seamless deliveries. We carefully select our team members for their technical skills and the ability to sync with your team, ensuring a harmonious and productive collaboration regardless of the technology stack involved. Our team is the backbone of our success, with a diverse range of expertise across iOS, Android, front and backend development, cross-platform applications, and cloud technologies. This versatility allows us to provide holistic and innovative solutions tailored to meet your unique needs. Choose JetRuby for your Ruby on Rails projects to experience a partnership that values innovation, excellence, and client satisfaction. We thrive on overcoming technical challenges and are committed to advancing your project goals with our comprehensive expertise and proactive approach. Dependable Code Quality You Can Trust When you work with us, you will always receive excellent, dependable software. Our well-established system, which includes automated testing and comprehensive code inspections, guarantees that the product you receive is excellent and flawless, prepared for a smooth launch. It all comes down to ensuring your software meets the highest industry requirements and functions flawlessly. Straight-Up Project Management for On-Time Results We all strive to keep things simple and unambiguous. There are no surprises here—our approach to project management is completely transparent! We provide you with regular updates and explicit timelines to keep you informed. And what do you know? Our techniques are so precise that we receive praise for our excellent coding and project management from independent audits. If you stick with us, your projects will be completed on schedule and according to the plan. Cultivating Long-Term Partnerships Our primary goal in working with any client is to build a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership, which is reflected in the following: Cost-Effective Solutions We focus on solutions that balance cost and quality. Our goal isn't to exhaust the client’s budget but to help them save money by finding the most efficient paths to achieve their business goals. Industry Insights and Innovation We keep a pulse on the latest industry trends and technological innovations, ensuring our clients' products benefit from these advancements. This helps them stay ahead in a rapidly changing digital landscape. Strategic Approach We understand that technology evolves, and businesses need to be ready for the future. Our forward-looking approach ensures that the technologies we recommend will continue to serve our clients effectively, helping them avoid the pitfalls of obsolescence. Client's Team Improvement Training the client's team is important to us, this approach strengthens the client's team both technically and in an organizational sense. Risk Avoidance Culture We highlight the moment if the client's proposed solutions carry risks and we have spotted them. How We Tailor Our Services Making Sure Your Tech is Top-Notch. When it comes to creating your product, we've got you covered from beginning to end. From the very first line of code to the finished result, we ensure that everything we do is of the highest caliber. Thanks to our extensive code checks, rigorous testing, and smooth integration, you can trust that every component of your project will be reliable and ready for the market. Keeping Things Precise and in Order. Our goal is to keep things simple and go without a hitch. We routinely meet our deadlines, supported by independent auditors who have given our work high marks. We provide regular updates and accessible contact to ensure you are constantly aware of the status of your project. Customized Technology Just for You. We understand that each and every client is unique. That's why, before we begin coding, we take the time to fully understand your needs. We adhere to a tried-and-true development method that ensures the finished product fulfills your vision and performs admirably in the market. Using Ruby on Rails to Reduce Costs. We can save costs by up to 35% when we choose Ruby on Rails instead of alternative tech frameworks. Cheaper, however, does not equate to inferior. Our Ruby on Rails experts are always honing their craft to ensure your company stays competitive and stands out from the crowd. Ready to Grow When You Are. Our Ruby on Rails setup is built to grow with you. It handles more traffic smoothly and speeds up how quickly we get things done, from simple websites to complex online stores. It’s reliable and saves you time and money. Elevate your project with JetRuby Want to accelerate your project? Take a look at JetRuby! We are the experts you should turn to for anything Ruby on Rails; we are not just any IT team. Do you need to incorporate a cool third-party library or a new tool? We have everything covered. Our group enjoys taking on and conquering technological obstacles. Our mission at JetRuby is to create excellent solutions for a variety of industries. We're covering everything from real estate to healthcare, e-commerce to food delivery. Our trade secret? Keeping a close eye on trends and stocking our toolkit with the newest programming languages and tech stacks. Strong on Ruby? And we are, too. Since it's our first language, we speak it well! You will only receive top-notch software specifically designed to meet your needs. Are you prepared to begin? Let's talk about how, whether you're building from scratch or updating an existing app, Ruby on Rails can transform your digital game. Our team is ready to assist you at every stage of the process.   ### The Key to a Seamless Delivery Process Smooth delivery isn't solely a result of hiring qualified developers. This article explores each phase of a meticulously structured 6-step Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), from initial planning to the concluding maintenance stage, and highlights the essentials of each step. Simply writing good code isn't enough. Therefore, developers' work must be integrated with the delivery structure through proper process management. The SDLC methodology perfectly frames all delivery steps. The idea of SDLC is to release a high-quality, maintainable software product within a predetermined timeframe. The primary goal of the delivery manager or CTO is to orchestrate the process seamlessly, ensuring the correct deliverables are produced for each phase. The delivery process streamlines every step of the SDLC, ensuring that respectful artifacts are correctly passed from one step to the next throughout the cycle. These artifacts must seamlessly flow between the cycle stages, which we'll cover in detail below. Phases of the Software Development Lifecycle  Phases of Seamless Delivery Process 1. Planning and analysis  The delivery process begins well before development when we clarify requirements and understand the project's scope. At this stage, the essential question is, "Can it be done?" The feasibility analysis addresses this question. The team meets to discuss what will be done and how it will be accomplished. They verify whether the provided requirements align with the available resources and capabilities. Sometimes, the product idea is not feasible. For instance, the work required to achieve the set goals might significantly exceed budget constraints. The delivery manager, or CTO, coordinates the SDLC early phase to tackle rising challenges and leverage a smooth transition to the subsequent phases.   What are the most common challenges of the analysis and planning phase? Unclear requirements. Missing or vague requirements lead to project scope creep, delays, and increased costs. Stakeholder and team alignment. Ensuring all stakeholders and team members understand and agree on project goals. The incorrect approach to feasibility analysis entails accurately assessing the project's feasibility in terms of technical capabilities, budget, and timeline constraints. Overoptimism or underestimation at this stage can lead to unrealistic expectations. Who takes part in the planning and analysis stage: Product Managers and Owners define what needs to be built and why, Business Analysts provide the details of how it should work, and the CTO coordinates the technology strategy so that it covers these objectives. They ensure the project is well-defined, technically feasible, and aligned with business goals before development. Deliverables: clearly defined requirements and specific recommendations for implementation.  2. Design  The product design phase involves planning to implement tasks identified during the analysis phase. For example, our team was set to implement a full-text search. To build such a function, we evaluated the feasibility of leveraging the database and several free engines capable of conducting a full-text search. We decided to use ElasticSearch for the task. This requires structuring the data storage in a specific manner. Properly configured, ElasticSearch will handle the data indexing. The outcome of the design stage provides a clear understanding of how this feature will be implemented. Similar to our approach in the previous stage, we'll identify the significant challenges and the focal points of the design phase: Technical architecture decisions: making the right architectural decisions that will not limit the system in the future plays a defining role. Poor choices lead to performance issues, scalability problems, and technical debt. Create a design that meets the audiences’ needs: a compelling design requires an exceptionally clear understanding of the target audience. This enables the designer to craft solutions that resonate deeply and effectively with them. Wrong approaches or an attempt to build a universal design are set up for failure. Aligning design with architecture is crucial; the CTO is responsible for maintaining this harmony. Designers and architects, often working in isolation, might overlook each other's decisions. Therefore, a design plan that orchestrates their synergy emerges as a thoughtful compromise, embodying the collective vision of both the designer and the architect. Who takes part in the design stage: the System Architect and UI/UX Designers work closely together to ensure that the technical architecture supports the best possible user experience and that the design is feasible within the technical framework of the project.  Deliverables: system architecture and interface snapshots. 3. Development At this stage, the development team is the primary focus. By having team members who understand both front-end and back-end perspectives, the team can more easily identify and resolve issues that span both domains. They work on the front and back, assemble interfaces, set up necessary libraries, and deploy the product in a staging environment. Once assembled, the product proceeds to testing. Let’s list the core challenges of the development stage addressed by the CTO: Making optimal architectural solutions: evaluating the infrastructure's fault tolerance, security, and cost-effectiveness. Maintaining a high-quality codebase: assessing test coverage and identifying any vulnerabilities. Taking responsibility for the development standardization process: the CTO undertakes responsibility for establishing standardization in development practices. Maintaining up-to-date technical documentation: the CTO allocates responsibility for ensuring the completeness and current relevance of the product's technical documentation. Deliverables of the development stage: the set of features, pre-prepared and ready for testing. 4. Testing At this stage, the CTO is solely responsible for the product's quality and is directly accountable to the stakeholders. They also ensure the following: QA strategy and framework development: the CTO defines and implements a comprehensive Quality Assurance (QA) strategy and framework, ensuring thorough testing and quality checks. QA alignment with other functions: the CTO is responsible for aligning and integrating QA processes with other business functions, facilitated by comprehensive product documentation to maintain consistency and quality across all departments. Other roles during the testing stage are the solution architect, who ensures testing strategies align with architectural design; QA engineers, who develop and execute test plans; testers, who provide usability feedback and report defects; and DevOps, who set up and maintain testing environments while automating deployment processes. Collaboration between these roles ensures software meets quality standards and is delivered effectively. Deliverables: user experience free of critical bugs, performance issues, and usability problems 5. Deployment At this stage, the responsibilities of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) include: Developing the DevOps vision and delivery strategies: crafting a clear vision for DevOps within the organization and outlining strategic delivery approaches to achieve this vision. Cultivating the DevOps culture and mindset, as well as maintaining a proper toolkit: initiating and nurturing a DevOps culture throughout the company, promoting a collaborative mindset, and introducing the necessary tools for its implementation. Evaluating and enhancing DevOps Performance: continuously measuring the outcomes and impacts of DevOps practices and seeking ways to optimize and improve these processes for better efficiency and effectiveness. Let’s review the main events of the deployment phase. Once the product receives tester approval, it is launched. If the delivery occurs within the SDLC framework, the cycle begins again with the planning and analysis stage within the next iteration, where requirements for the following features are processed. Roles in the deployment stage: data administrators and DevOps ensure that the software deployment is executed efficiently, with minimal disruption to operations, and that data integrity and system stability are maintained. They also facilitate smooth transitions from development to production environments, contributing to the success of the deployment stage in the SDLC. Deliverables: the product reaches real users  6. Maintenance   Image courtesy of Unsplash, Christopher Gower The maintenance stage is optional. For example, maintenance will be necessary if deployment results from the previous month reveal a bug. In this case, it will involve revisiting the problems from earlier releases during the planning stage and addressing them accordingly. Below, you’ll find the most common challenges of maintenance: Managing technical debt: first, the team must be able to address and manage accumulated technical debt without impacting ongoing operations.  User feedback and bug reporting: efficiently managing user feedback and bug reports to prioritize and implement fixes or enhancements. Upgrades and scalability: ensure the system is easily upgradeable and scalable to meet future demands without significant rework. Addressing these issues requires careful planning, clear communication, and agile response to emerging challenges throughout the SDLC process. Roles in the maintenance stage: users may submit bug reports, feature requests, or other feedback through designated channels provided by the development team. Testers continue to perform regression testing to ensure that previously fixed defects do not reappear and test cases are updated. Support managers communicate with the development team to escalate unresolved issues or prioritize bug fixes based on customer impact. Deliverables: smooth operation of the product. In conclusion, the CTO plays a pivotal role in product delivery, from gathering requirements to receiving customer feedback post-launch. The CTO’s responsibilities span throughout the SDLC process as follows: Coordinating the technology strategy to ensure precise requirements and understanding of the project's scope by teams; Maintaining  harmony between the app’s architecture and its design; Maintaining a high-quality codebase and development practices;  Being directly accountable to the stakeholders for the product’s quality; Ensuring the highest quality environment for DevOps work; Addressing the customers’ feedback post-launch and ensuring continuous improvement of the product.    ### Save your information and nerves. Everything you need to know about the concept of Observability in Ruby. Engineering teams focus on observability. Companies are increasingly adapting to diverse tech stacks, integrating observability in Ruby and other languages to develop software based on cloud, on-premises, hybrid, or distributed systems, tailored to their specific needs. Incorporating observability in Ruby into the development process is pivotal for addressing complex business challenges. However, this approach also introduces new hurdles related to system architecture, performance, scalability, complexity, security, resilience, and usability. Consequently, companies must implement observability in Ruby to meticulously monitor their application, network, storage, and infrastructure layers. Emphasizing the importance of observability in Ruby, it's essential to acknowledge that even brief periods of system downtime—minutes, and more so, hours—can drastically affect business revenue. Such disruptions can lead to significant financial losses, erode user confidence, diminish trust, and accelerate customer attrition. To properly understand the indicators and monitor the health of their systems, engineering teams must focus on monitoring and observability: Monitoring helps determine WHEN a problem occurs. Observability provides an understanding of WHY the problem occurred. Historical Context of observability in Ruby The journey of observability within the Ruby ecosystem mirrors the evolution of software development practices over the years. Initially, Ruby app observability was predominantly logging-focused, with developers relying on logs to understand application behavior. However, as Ruby applications became more complex and the community's understanding of observability deepened, the focus expanded to include comprehensive monitoring and detailed tracing. The shift towards microservices and the increasing complexity of software systems have made observability beneficial and essential. For Ruby developers, this means going beyond traditional logging to embrace a holistic observability strategy that includes monitoring, tracing, and even leveraging artificial intelligence to predict issues before they impact users. Observability Pillars Logging: Logging is the foundation of observability. It has evolved from simple text files to structured logs easily parsed and analyzed by log management systems. Libraries like Logger in the Ruby Standard Library and third-party gems like Lograge for Rails applications enable developers to implement efficient logging practices. Monitoring: Ruby developers have various tools for monitoring applications, including New Relic and Skylight. These tools offer insights into application performance, helping identify bottlenecks and understanding user experiences. Tracing: As Ruby applications grow in scale, distributed tracing has become increasingly crucial. Tools like Zipkin and Jaeger can be integrated to trace requests across microservices, providing a clear picture of interactions and latencies. Observability in Ruby extends beyond the traditional pillars of logs, metrics, and traces. It encompasses advanced aspects such as error tracking, dependency monitoring, event streams, and more, providing a holistic view of your application's health and behavior. This comprehensive approach enables developers and business leaders to make informed decisions, ensuring efficient, reliable, and scalable systems. Error Tracking: is the frontline defense against application failures. By systematically capturing, logging, and analyzing errors, teams can swiftly address issues before they escalate. Error tracking tools designed for Ruby environments can provide real-time alerts and detailed diagnostic information to mitigate downtime and improve user experience. Dependency Monitoring: Applications often rely on many external dependencies. Dependency monitoring ensures these external libraries and services function correctly and do not introduce security vulnerabilities or performance bottlenecks. For business leaders, maintaining a healthy dependency ecosystem is crucial for long-term application stability and security. Event Streams: Event streams offer a window into applications' real-time operations. By logging and analyzing event data, developers can gain insights into application behavior, user interactions, and system performance. For businesses, leveraging event stream data can inform strategic decisions, enhance customer experience, and drive innovation. Ruby on Rails Observability Nuances Diving deeper into the Ruby on Rails ecosystem reveals that its dynamic nature necessitates a tailored approach to observability. Understanding the nuances of ActiveRecord, ActionController, and other Rails components through observability means less debugging and more time delivering value. While ActiveRecord and ActionController are fundamental, Rails' modular nature means observability should extend to other components, such as ActionView for rendering views, ActiveJob for background jobs, and ActionMailer for email services. Each component presents unique observability challenges and opportunities. For instance, observing job queues and execution times in ActiveJob can pinpoint performance issues in background processing, while observability in ActionMailer can ensure email delivery reliability. Various tools and frameworks can be integrated with Rails to enhance observability. Prometheus, New Relic, and Datadog offer extensive monitoring capabilities, from custom metrics to automated alerting, covering the breadth of Rails components. The choice of tool often depends on specific needs, such as real-time monitoring, historical data analysis, or cloud-based versus self-hosted solutions. Adopting observability is a business strategy. For businesses leveraging Ruby on Rails, observability leads to direct benefits such as reduced downtime, faster issue resolution, and an enhanced user experience.  Technical Benefits: At the core of Ruby's observability are meticulously crafted tools and frameworks to illuminate applications' inner workings. This real-time visibility empowers developers to vigilantly monitor application performance, swiftly identifying and resolving issues before they disrupt the user experience. The enhanced debugging capabilities enable precise problem pinpointing, minimizing downtime and ensuring applications operate seamlessly and efficiently. Furthermore, it facilitates scalable monitoring, a critical feature for applications experiencing rapid growth or dealing with variable workloads. Business Benefits: Beyond the technical realm, the observability of Ruby applications presents substantial business benefits. Foremost ensures a smooth, uninterrupted user experience, directly translating into heightened customer satisfaction and loyalty. Observability data can guide strategic decisions, aiding leaders in spotting trends, anticipating market shifts, and allocating resources more efficiently. Regarding cost management, the efficiency gained through proactive issue resolution and performance optimization leads to significant savings, enabling businesses to concentrate on innovation and expansion. Ruby's observability capabilities are invaluable in a landscape where technical and business excellence are paramount. Imagine your business surviving and thriving with applications that adapt and evolve ahead of user demand. Companies implementing advanced observability techniques have reported significant improvements in operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and overall business growth.  Observability tools allow web developers to craft high-quality, reliable applications. For business leaders, they offer insights that drive strategic decisions and competitive advantage. Together, they underscore Ruby's value in building solutions that meet today's technical demands and align with broader business objectives. Integrating these observability pillars allows you to monitor your systems and gain actionable insights to drive your business forward! Check out more information on web & app development in our Blog and don't forget to check out Ruby related posts Wikipedia on Observability Official Ruby page. ### Taking Digital Health to New Heights – Case Study  This article delves into the technological enhancements we implemented for our client, a digital health platform operator. Through our collaboration, the company transformed from a startup into a full-fledged enterprise. As the company's structure evolved, it demanded a more advanced approach, which we successfully executed. Background  Our client offers a comprehensive ecosystem of digital health services with expert guidance and a user-friendly application.  The client sought our assistance following a disappointing experience with an unprofessional development team. The client is certified under HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), which implies the stringent requirements for designing digital health products under data privacy standards. Therefore, as software developers, we prioritized safeguarding patients' personal information.  Throughout our partnership, our team has been with the client every step of the way, supporting their transformation from a small startup that secured an investment round to achieving unicorn status. As the company grew, we proactively identified and resolved structural issues on the client's end. Challenges of the Digital Health Project Creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)  within a short time  At the outset, our goal was to swiftly craft an MVP for the app, with plans for future enhancements. The initial deadline was challenging yet feasible. We successfully found a middle ground between code quality and development speed. Insufficiently detailed technical requirements and documentation  We overcame this hurdle by intensifying our communication with the client and expanding upon the specifications. Minimal time for application architecture and testing  We promptly integrated testing procedures. Our team exerted its utmost effort to implement the app's architectural design within time constraints. Work timeline The entire project lasted four years and is ongoing. In the third month, our team commenced the development of both the mobile and web applications. We completed the MVP version of the mobile app within six months, followed by an additional four months to launch the fully prepared web application.  Development of the digital health project during 2020-2021 Our development efforts were primarily concentrated on three key areas: the mobile user app, a CRM system for employees, and the backend infrastructure. Methodology: Our chosen methodology was Scrum, which proved highly suitable for frequent-release projects. This approach ensured transparency and allowed us to deliver features to production within clearly defined timeframes. Team composition: During this phase, we were responsible for assembling a team of specialists, thus sparing the client from day-to-day involvement in the development process. Although the client had a few actively engaged developers, most of the development process was overseen and managed by our team.  Data privacy regulations: We encountered certain constraints imposed by data privacy standards, particularly in compliance with HIPAA regulations. These regulations stipulated that developers could not conduct testing of their modifications within a production environment. Consequently, whenever an issue arose, we dedicated extra time to indirectly investigate the causes of the incident through the product owner. Development of the digital health project during 2022-2023 Adopting TypeScript: Our methodologies and practices prompted changes and evolution as the client transitioned from a startup to an enterprise. In 2023, we undertook a significant redesign, implementing TypeScript for 50% of the application. This adoption significantly reduced errors during the development phase. Enhancing code quality: Our team implemented architectural enhancements and rewrote sections of legacy code to adhere to contemporary standards. We also rigorously tested every new line of code, emphasizing test coverage. Additionally, we placed greater emphasis on log recording management. User insights: We initiated data collection efforts on our and the client's ends, enabling data-driven solutions to enhance the user experience. Accessibility assurance: We devoted considerable effort to ensuring the application's accessibility for individuals with disabilities. Screen readers were optimized to interpret on-screen information for visually impaired users correctly. Error handling was also improved to enhance the overall user experience. Adaptation and continuous improvement: Our internal processes adapt to our clients' evolving needs and realities. In the current development phase, we focus on maturing and refining the application, its codebase, and our overall approach. Tools Choice of development tools: We leveraged React Native. This framework enables the development of cross-platform applications using a shared codebase and UI components for the mobile app and React.js for the web application. Data exchange enhancement: We encountered the challenge of handling large volumes of data that constantly flowed between the server and users. It became evident that not all of this data was always required. Consequently, we decided to transition to GraphQL, a relatively less popular data query language. This strategic move addressed several technical issues and facilitated smoother collaboration between our front-end and back-end teams. The team Altogether, the project’s team engaged 15 - 50 employees of our agency at different stages throughout the entire timeline.  We concurrently worked on three distinct applications: a desktop application, an Android app, and an iOS app. In the initial development phase, our primary focus was on the mobile app, while we simultaneously began developing the web application. Given the close relationship between User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI), both aspects were handled by the same frontend team. This squad comprised a senior developer who served as the team lead and mid-level and junior developers. Other engineers executed backend development, and testers supported Quality Assurance (QA). Two or three project managers were involved at different stages to ensure its successful execution. Impact The primary outcome of our collaboration with the client has been the successful launch of a high-quality health tech product aligned with the client's specific requirements and strategic objectives. Additionally, our team has gained invaluable experience in developing top-tier healthcare products and in training engineers to adeptly address the intricate challenges and evolving demands of the expanding industrial sector.   ### Overcoming IT product & business management challenges Nowadays, more companies outside the IT sector are considering digital transformation and creating proprietary IT solutions. Yet they run into unexpected challenges, recognizing the necessity for specialized skills, processes, resources, and expertise that they often lack in-house. This hampers the effective development of IT products. Despite success in their core niche, there is a gap in their understanding of how this new IT department operates. When IT product management and delivery issues start snowballing within a business previously not focused on IT, there is always a silver lining moment when they feel it must be rearranged. But where to begin their transformation from? What are the root causes of those IT management and process delivery failures? Throughout our technological collaborations with hundreds of SMBs, we’ve observed the impact of the four major issues on entrepreneurial success in the IT ecosystem. Below, we offer an in-depth examination of these four roadblocks. Sometimes, these issues had a drastic effect. In many cases, however, businesses managed to stay afloat. The encouraging news is that you can reverse these trends through careful attention and consistent action in each area. Let's delve into each category of IT management issues below. These four challenges undermine the software products’ delivery process Every IT management challenge within a company can be linked to one of four critical areas - product, technology, people, and processes: Product management bridges the gap between technical teams and business objectives to create products that meet customer needs and company goals. Technology management implies overseeing the technology strategy, infrastructure & architecture, managing technical budgeting and resource allocation. People management includes building a motivated and productive IT team that contributes positively to the organization's success. Process management standardizes processes for technology projects and software development. So, if the organizational structure isn't set up correctly, it typically causes the following issues in those areas: Weak product management Lack of transparency in the internal management structure leads to inefficiencies and increases development costs. Technological difficulties A lack of consistent technical strategy results in debt, legacy burden, and poor technical decision-making. Exceeding the development budget is one of the common difficulties. Weak people management The poor organizational structure of teams leads to high staff turnover and, therefore, unreasonable interruptions in the workflow. Unpredictable delivery and poor process management You need help to meet your expectations regarding delivery timelines and final quality. To sum up, as a business owner, you realize the entire process of in-house software development veers towards problematic territory. You realize there's an overspending budget, missing deadlines, and developers compromising on quality. These problems stem from the ineffective management of the software development process as the product's importance to the business grows. As an executive, you may start recognizing the need to shift the development strategy to align with methodologies that successful software firms have applied for decades.  The remedy for the IT management challenges mentioned lies in business transformation, where areas of responsibility are delineated It falls upon a technical manager, often the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), to harmonize efforts in these domains with the company's business goals. Ultimately, technical management addresses the problems mentioned earlier and accomplishes the following: Clear goals streamlined business vision feasible roadmap and budgets Predictable delivery efficient control over the development processes and releases open communication transparent tracking of progress Efficient and motivated team: experienced team leads working people management framework regular assessments & feedback system Reliable technology appropriate technical stack adequate architecture legacy tech debt management the efficient technical decision-making process Where should the IT management transformation start? It's safe to say you're initiating the transformation process by mapping out the organizational design and outlining the clear responsibilities within your IT teams: By laying the foundation for the future design of IT organizations now, you will ensure the sustainable operation of IT-related processes in the future. Another direction to focus on is to specify responsibilities among team members. It is a recipe for disaster if responsibilities are vaguely distributed among them, with formal control and oversight. Sticking to well-defined areas of responsibility is one of the primary steps in the right direction.  The following section will discuss methods for developing the organizational structure, which is fundamental to successfully transforming all processes. Core components of the company's organizational design The description below will introduce you to the main components of the organizational structure defined by Henry Mintzberg, whose ideas inspired the internal design of such corporations as General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Apple, IBM, etc.  Business model design: this involves crafting corporate culture, business strategy, leadership methodologies, and talent management strategies. Operational model design: defining roles, establishing metrics, and formulating operational management principles. Work design: developing work technology and motivation systems to enhance efficiency and productivity. Workforce design: workforce planning, constructing work architecture, and designing roles for optimal performance. Organizational structure and design: assessing and optimizing the organizational structure to ensure alignment with the objectives. Meanwhile, you may not be engaged in choosing the future architecture of your organization. However, a few frameworks for expanding companies are worth considering. You won’t find any ubiquitous scheme as a business is a live organism whose circumstances vary. The uniting idea of all these solutions is the concept of client ownership. It means that the process owner approaches tasks with full responsibility. Ownership entails taking responsibility for one's tasks, results, and decisions related to a project. It implies active participation in the planning stages, execution, and final implementation of changes. Further, we’ll describe the most common frameworks that can be considered for future organizational design.  LeSS This is a large-scale Scrum (LeSS). It extends the principles of Scrum to multiple teams collaborating on several interconnected products. Companies are ready to embrace LeSS when their development processes lack flexibility.  Nexus Nexus introduces several enhancements to the Scrum framework, incorporating additional events and artifacts to facilitate data sharing and knowledge. In this approach, the role of the Product Owner is amplified, as they are responsible for maximizing the product's value and coordinating the work of multiple Scrum teams, ranging from 3 to 9 teams in total. All these teams operate with a unified product backlog and are accountable to a single Product Owner. Therefore, Nexus strongly emphasizes achieving a collective product outcome from teams that independently work on different aspects of the product. SAFE SAFe, the Scaled Agile Framework, emphasizes the product's value as the primary goal. It is a structured framework for organizations seeking to extend Agile practices across large teams and complex projects. Moreover, SAFe underscores the importance of alignment, collaboration, and the consistent delivery of value in achieving organizational agility and success. Bottom line In summary, the solution to organizational chaos involves three core ideas: Assigning the central role of technological oversight to the appropriate person in charge. Setting a clear delineation of responsibilities among team members.  The outcomes of the previous two steps will lay the foundation for organizational design. Moreover, it will be done before the company solidifies into a more inflexible structure.  If you overlook this step now, your software development and delivery process can be set on the wrong path, and you'll find yourself constantly dealing with the same issues throughout late delivery, budget planning inconsistencies, and high turnover rates among developers. ### The Secret to Top-Notch Software Development: Our HR Management Platform Software development is knowledge-driven and labor-intensive, meaning our most valuable assets are our employees. We must hire and retain the best teams to deliver high-quality products and services cost-effectively. But that's easier said than done. HR management platform is one of the groundbreaking solutions to these challenges. Running an award-winning software development company with ISO 30414 (human capital management) and ISO 10018 (people engagement) accredited and serving multiple industries, from healthcare and agriculture to education, e-commerce, and more, is hardly a stroll in the park. In addition to adhering to strict standards, we must consistently attract and retain top-notch talents to deliver best-in-class services to our clients. Most software development firms struggle with low employee loyalty — high staff turnover rates often cause inconsistent quality. When engineers depart from their positions, they take institutional knowledge, including insights into specific ideas and solutions. Companies must invest time and money into hiring and onboarding, passing those costs to their clients. Meanwhile, many agencies have limited access to talent skilled in various technologies and methodologies. Everybody loses when they put engineers on projects that don't match their experience and expertise. Employees become frustrated (which increases their turnover risks), the work takes longer, and the product quality is less predictable.  What talent management techniques set Jetruby apart Many engineers joined us as interns and grew into exceptional professionals. 80% of senior developers started from junior positions and advanced their career paths within the company, a rare occurrence in an industry where the average turnover rate is almost 60%. So, what's our secret sauce for building teams that deliver consistent and high-quality products to our clients? We prioritize employee loyalty and satisfaction, using a proprietary HR management platform to create an exceptional employee experience as an ISO-certified agency. Let's explore our team management philosophy and how our proprietary IT talent management platform allows us to boost IT retention, streamline development and delivery, and offer our clients the best services at reasonable costs. Building a top-notch software development team means this: Effective resource planning Effective resource planning is our top priority. Our HR management platform enables us to balance workloads to prevent burnout while satisfying client requirements. It allows us to ensure flexibility by adjusting employee workloads, redistributing tasks, and provisioning appropriate resources at the right time to meet client needs. Optimized team staffing mechanism We help clients achieve the perfect equilibrium among speed, quality, and cost by assembling the ideal team that balances skills and budget. Our approach ensures our clients pay for a meticulously selected mix of specialists based on each engineer's skill level. Here's how we achieve a balanced team composition: We automatically review our developers' list weekly, accounting for their skills and experience. This way, we can determine the right experts ready for upcoming client projects. The ERP system releases a weekly update with information on newly acquired skills, gathering this knowledge within the ERP HUB system. The resource pool in the skills database will also be updated. Our team lead sorts through those skills and assembles a team for a project. We select team members based on the project's needs. For projects with aggressive timelines, we choose a team of experienced seniors. We mix mid-level and senior developers for projects that can benefit from long-term stability. Our experience and churn rate statistics demonstrate that these mixed teams are 34% better at staying together over a year than teams with only senior staff. We aim to staff a team in up to two weeks. Our historical data shows that we fulfill clients' staffing requirements in less than five days in 92% of cases. Besides hard skills, we consider how well team members get along. During team selection, we aim to pair developers whose character traits complement each other; for instance, someone with a short temper is often better paired with a colleague who maintains a calmer demeanor. Since shifting our focus towards a data-driven analysis of soft skills and assembling teams to make them benefit from their combined strengths, we've cut unexpected project dropouts from 15% to 2%.  That’s how the HR management platform allows us to achieve harmony between the skills grades of the involved engineers and clients’s production goals.  Scaling up to meet demand We've been a startup and have worked with over 100 startups — we know the drill. Change is the only constant in our industry, which often means scaling up or pivoting at the drop of a hat. For example, your product wins an investment round and needs a new set of functions pronto. Our HR management approach and technology enable us to scale up product teams quickly with qualified engineers to hit the ground running. Retaining team members Our intelligent HR system tailors a team for each client request, drawing from two pools: newly hired and existing developers. To increase new hire retention, the system sets up profiles for candidates who will most likely integrate seamlessly into our teams and remain committed over time. For our current staff, we strategically select projects to ensure reasonable workload distribution and keep employees engaged with compelling tasks.  We provide our employees with opportunities that promote learning and growth, enhancing their job satisfaction. The system also delineates the qualifications for prospective hires, which directly benefits our clients. This approach ensures employees are both motivated and intrigued by their work. In this setup, employees enjoy substantial growth in their technical skills, which boosts our overall retention rate. How our HR management platform gives us a competitive edge JetRuby has been a software development agency for over a decade. We’ve accumulated people management experience specific to the software industry and have a practical understanding of interactions between management and developers. Our approach works so well that the average engineer stays with our company for over four years, compared with the industry trend of 69% of engineers staying with their companies for less than two years. We developed an HR management platform to help sustain our high retention rate and lower the attrition rate further as our company grows to over 300 programmers (with 29% as senior-level engineers). Our HR tech also tracks every individual's work goals and sentiments, allowing us to proactively foster loyalty and address potential issues. So, how does our proprietary software, HR HUB, support and enhance our talent management philosophy?  Our HR HUB provides an ongoing, consistent feedback mechanism, enabling transparent one-to-one communication between managers and their teams, regardless of team structure or size. Meanwhile, executives can track and address negative trends to reduce attrition. This helps us augment employee experience, boost IT retention, and assign the right people to the right projects to deliver the best products and services. HR HUB consists of two main components: HR HUB as a workplace for employees and HR HUB Core for people management. HR HUB: An employee-first modern workplace The HR HUB workplace module works similarly to social media, where employees can create profiles and post news and articles.  It allows team members to track work tasks and hours while offering 24/7 access to educational and training materials. The library also contains presentations and meeting records for easy reference.  Leadership and management can use HR HUB to communicate with employees and keep them informed to foster engagement. They can also get insights into what's trending in the workforce by reviewing recent posts and mood updates. In particular, the Moodmap helps managers keep a finger on the pulse with frequent check-ins. For example, we can quickly address issues if a developer is experiencing burnout. Team members may also include work skill tags in their profiles. Managers can use the search function to find the right resource with the appropriate experience and skill set to work on a specific tech stack. This capability allows us to quickly assemble or expand a team with the right people to respond to shifting client requirements.   HR HUB Core: People management, simplified The Core module enables supervisors, team leads, technical directors, division chiefs, and managers to track employees' career growth, identify turnover risks, and assess the "bus factor." The Heatmap feature leverages one-on-one meeting statistics to show employee development trends. It uses a traffic light system to indicate the risks of an employee leaving and is integrated with Slack to send channel notifications about trend changes. Supervisors can request feedback from their subordinates at any time. When they set up a one-on-one meeting, the system automatically loads all previously unaddressed input to ensure all concerns are discussed. Additionally, administrators can grant permissions based on the management tree to streamline data access. By utilizing JetRuby's proprietary HR platform, you can save hundreds of hours and over 40% of your HR management budget annually. The Time Tracking table shows managers each employee's time map for an overview of time spent on tasks and a summary of the team's working hours. The insights can help leadership quickly identify inefficiencies or staffing issues to minimize their impact on client projects. Modern HR management platform: a win-win-win scenario for our company, employees, and clients Implementing HR HUB directly improved our retention rates. Our developers stayed in the company for an average of almost four years, a significant increase from two years and one month.  With less turnover, hiring, and onboarding activities, we lower our operating, administrative, and overhead expenses. Teams work more efficiently while increased employee satisfaction boosts morale and productivity, significantly reducing development costs and allowing us to pass the savings on to our clients without compromising product quality. Our systematic approach to talent management and proprietary platform help our clients transform the development process and confidently release high-quality MVPs and full-scale products, shortening the time to market, improving agility, and increasing cost efficiency. ### Jetruby is an ISO-certified software development agency. What does it mean? The scarcity of skilled engineers is a pressing issue for many tech companies, but not for us. Our base is growing at an impressive rate of 100% per year, ensuring the perfect fit for the project and client team. Whenever our clients need help with their digital products, they have access to top engineering teams and an extensive pool of developers. JetRuby is an ISO-certified software development agency, which proves our commitment to the best people management practices, fueling our clients' projects with dedicated developers. ISO certification also means adhering to the most recently globally recognized HR standards (ISO 30414 for Human Capital Management and ISO 10018 for People Engagement). This article will explore the role of these standards in our work as an ISO-certified software development agency and detail our people management practices. Some Words About ISO 30414 and 10018 Standards ISO stands for the International Organization for Standardization, which sets global standards across technical and non-technical areas. Although JetRuby prioritizes technological advancement, our ISO-certified software development agency also regards people management and engagement as crucial ways to create value for our and our clients' businesses. “An organization is only as good as its people – which is why the workforce of a company is often one of its largest costs.” — this quote from the ISO’s official website fully resonates with our approach. That’s why we pay huge attention to this global standard for Human Capital Management. It embraces various metrics, such as: Costs,  Diversity,  Turnover,  Productivity,  Health, Leadership.  The standard establishes guidelines for companies of all sizes to achieve better performance in those metrics. Now, next to the second standard: an ISO 10018 for People Engagement. When people are engaged in the company’s activity, they care about its goals and don’t just work to pay their bills. As an IT company, we have a framework to encourage the engagement of our employees in processes. That said, we worked to align our vision with the global guidelines for engaging people in an organization's quality management system. JetRuby adhered to ISO 10018, as this standard provides even more practical tips in this direction. As a Software development company, we realize that the correct distribution of challenging tasks is one of the most incredible incentives for engagement. People Management Practices of the ISO-certified Software Development Agency Above, we explained that we obtained the ISO certification to prove our commitment to professional people management principles. These principles allow us to find and nurture bright IT talents within our system. We channel our core people management efforts into several vital directions: Fostering future talent. JetRuby has been actively involved in teaching at universities and conducting internal academies since 2016. This approach allows us to nurture future talent consistently.  Continuous internal development. We've implemented a robust system of reinforced training programs with dedicated mentors, resulting in 78% of our developers improving their skills each year. This enables us to offer our clients highly skilled and continuously evolving middle and senior engineers. Focus on individual development. A goal is to create direct, personal communication between each engineer and their direct technical leader. These interactions provide a platform for personalized feedback and career discussions. By implementing feedback loops and collecting eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score), we gather insights into understanding individual needs and workplace satisfaction.  Keeping engineers engaged in exciting projects. Everyone seeks to be part of a meaningful process. Our developers play integral roles in international teams and tackle complex challenges. We ensure a healthy project rotation to provide each engineer with stimulating tasks to solve. Conclusion:  We gauge our success as a software development agency by our achievements and the satisfaction of our clients and their customers. This satisfaction is primarily driven by how we manage the company’s greatest asset — its people. These people create compelling digital products and achieve technological success. You can check some statistics showcasing our commitment to follow ISO 30414 for Human Capital Management and ISO 10018 for People Engagement): A remarkable 34% of our team actively participates in our referral program, enthusiastically recommending acquaintances to join our company. 9.1 out of 10 employees are deeply engaged and resonate with the company's mission and values. Our Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is 36%, indicating exceptional employee satisfaction. Find more information on our ISO certification here. ### The Role of a Software Test Strategy in a Strong Quality Assurance Plan Quality assurance (QA), substantiated by a strong software test strategy, is often underestimated in many IT projects. We consider the QA strategy vital for the healthcare project we worked on. Our team worked to ensure alignment with the requirements of patients, healthcare professionals, and the organization involved. A robust QA strategy aids in early problem detection and prevention, ultimately leading to time and cost savings and potentially saving lives. This article will delve into the core components of an effective QA strategy and share some valuable insights from our extensive experience in a long-running healthcare project. About the project: The project's main objectives were: Assist users in understanding their health insurance coverage. Facilitate the booking of appointments with healthcare providers or clinics for users. Aid users in resolving disputes related to insurance payments. Support our users' employers in reducing insurance expenses. The role of software test strategy in the QA process A software test strategy is an instructive document that outlines the approach for testing a software product during its development process. This document includes various facets of testing, such as methods, procedures, goals, resources, and more. A well-crafted test strategy is a structured blueprint for evaluating the software's functionality, performance, security, and other aspects. The specific details of a software test strategy often hinge on the scale and scope of the project. Based on the project's progress and the attainment or non-attainment of its objectives, it can be adapted or modified over time. Crafting a practical test strategy demands that you, as the author, to: Begin by clearly defining the project's goals, focusing solely on measurable and attainable results that align with your team and the client's expectations. Identify and catalog the resources, including their team, testing environments, time constraints, and other relevant assets. Evaluate the feasibility of achieving each goal by considering the available resources. Based on resource availability, determine the relative importance of each goal. Once you've established what can be accomplished, prioritize the goals accordingly. Some objectives may take precedence over others as you discover their relative importance. Conduct a thorough risk assessment and document potential risks that could directly impact the quality of the project. This step ensures you're prepared to address and mitigate potential issues. Following these steps, you will create a robust test strategy that aligns with your project's objectives, optimizes resource utilization, and minimizes risks. It was our theoretical base for creating a test strategy.  Implementing a QA/AQA strategy pursues several central benefits: Clarity for the QA team: The QA team understands what, how, and why tests will be conducted. This clarity facilitates a streamlined onboarding process and prevents team members from being sidetracked by irrelevant tasks. Engagement of the development team: The development team becomes more actively involved in the quality assurance process, fostering a collaborative environment that emphasizes the importance of quality from the outset. Visibility for project management: The project manager (PM) can see the success criteria established in agreement with the customer, enabling a transparent tracking of progress against these benchmarks. Increased customer satisfaction: The customer gains a deeper insight into the quality and reliability of the product. This builds trust and provides a clear understanding of the development and testing processes, contributing to overall customer satisfaction. The development of the test strategy for this project experienced three consistent iterations: 1) The first strategy was created when only six people were involved in the project. The main objective for QA engineers was just to keep the app stable. The customer never specified their requests; their primary concern was for the app to function correctly.  Therefore, our QA team limited their testing to unit tests, considering other tests unnecessary. The release cycle was also notably brief, lasting just a week. Yet the team had to deal with the following problems: frequent release failures, lack of requirements, tons of hotfixes, and not keeping up with QA documentation.  2) The second step in the strategy development occurred when approximately thirty people were engaged in the project. Despite the increased involvement, the core goals remained consistent with the initial strategy: to enhance the app, eradicate bugs, and maintain stability. Two product owners were added to the team and began documenting requirements. However, the QA team received this documentation only after developers released updates on the staging environment. Meanwhile, the customer started to appreciate the advantages of automated testing more, leading the team to implement these tests. The release cycle was prolonged to two weeks, eliminating the problem of exceeding the implementation deadline. Although things started to look better in general, we faced new problems: Due to security concerns, the team lost production Release delays since the QA team didn't have enough time to test the functionality Lack of communication between the Product Owners had led to inconsistent requirements There are tons of other hotfixes. 3) At this stage, the need for a new strategy became urgent, so we proceeded with its third version. The customer came up with more precise goals, and as the project team grew to fifty people, we finalized the objectives and the results we aimed for, with a new focus on quality assurance. Our goal was to improve the app's quality without raising costs. Four additional Product Owners helped streamline communication, making requirements more transparent. The QA team ramped up automated testing while keeping the release cycle at two weeks, which everyone was comfortable with. With the growing demand for testing, minimizing manual testing became essential to adhere to deadlines. Bug elimination became a key focus, especially with more frequent third-party audits, guiding us to establish specific objectives: Checking if the software standards comply with the stated requirements. Bringing the number of production bugs from high and critical levels to zero. Moving from "technical" sprints with regression testing to sprints with partial regression testing. UAT automation: reducing testing time from two days to one. Setting up regular auto-test runs to monitor the system performance Our QA team analyzed the pros and cons of all types of testing we could use within the project and summarized its view in the following infographics: software test strategy After conducting the analysis, we settled on the following software test strategy: Instead of conclusion: the new strategy provided excellent intermediate results: Comprehensive documentation testing was initiated, utilizing dedicated boards within the organization. We introduced concepts like defect classification to intercept bugs before they reached pre-production. Defects were categorized based on issues with requirements, integration problems with third-party systems, and failures to meet direct requirements. Although we've moved beyond the technical sprint phase, we're still in the process of partial regression. We focus on elevating auto testing, integration, and e2e to meet the necessary standards. Regarding User Acceptance Testing (UAT) automation, we've achieved a day's worth of efficiency gains, continuous updates to test lists, and a significant enhancement in test integration, jumping from 0 to 35%. ### Software Engineering Culture and How we in JetRuby Develop It Have you ever wondered what a software engineering culture is? What if we revealed that it’s one of the primary reasons your clients come back and choose your product over the product of your rivals? Software engineering culture has always been one of JetRuby's strongest sides. So let us introduce you to this phenomenon and explain its importance for your business.  Why software engineering culture Software engineering culture is a set of values and internal rules that guide a person during work. It stimulates them to act a certain way and feel responsible for the result. Now, let’s find out why it matters to any company. We are eager to tell you about the notion that drives many successful businesses forward. This is the notion of core customer values. It’s why a potential customer reaches out to their favorite company. Customer loyalty is paramount; all businesses want to be chosen again and again. So, let’s refer to some real-life examples to better grasp the concept of core customer values. You have all heard about companies like Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi. Maybe you even use their products, too. So, what are their core customer values? For Apple, it’s quality, convenience, and, in some cases, even status. For Xiaomi, it’s affordability. For Samsung, it’s technological efficiency and a large variety of products for any budget.  For JetRuby, our core customer values lie in our expertise and a high level of software engineering culture. Software engineering culture composition Moving forward, we'll delve into each component on the list: delivery, expertise, infrastructure, communication The role of delivery in software engineering culture First, let’s discuss the application of project management methodology in practice. Here are some of the most important frameworks: Scrum Waterfall Kanban Scrumban Prince2 Lean Every single member of the software development team must understand the methodology applied to a particular project. Nobody’s perfect, and there have been instances where some software companies didn’t fully grasp the concept of Standups, resulting in excessively lengthy meetings. Some other companies never figured out the definition of ready and definition of done. The delivery process comprises the following elements: Tools (CI, CD) Metrics (T2S, T2D) Areas of responsibility (development stages, key roles) Risks Unit tests Components of Quality Assurance: Percentage of test coverage  Metrics (number of bugs per User Story, bug rediscoveries, number of bugs per sprint, etc.)  Conditions for build/release (what is being built, what should be implemented, what tests to launch, etc.) Review Style guides Another aspect to address regarding delivery is technical debt. First, it's essential to distinguish between technical and technological debt. Let’s look at the examples to clarify this distinction. On the one hand, technical debt refers to the additional rework costs incurred from shortcuts arising during development. On the other hand, technological debt occurs when an external database or library is upgraded, falling outside our control. For instance, the team lead is expected to assign a task to update the servers' version if a new database version is released. This task involves keeping up with the specific updates and assessing how they will impact the performance and functionality of your product. It's crucial to monitor both types of debt. Some companies use TechRadar. This tool enables monitoring of the languages, databases, and libraries utilized, along with their versions. Most importantly, it showcases the software company's plans to engage with the selected tools and effectively manage their integration and updates.   Let's also touch on the product debt. A simple example of such a debt is a lack of documentation, which can create obstacles in onboarding processes, complicating inspections and ultimately delaying the product's time-to-market. So, how do we in JetRuby tackle technical debts? It may not be obvious, but the key person to reveal such debts is a Business Analyst. Typically, technical debts arise when there are changes in functional (or non-functional) requirements. Prompt action is the best way to follow when a debt is revealed. The role of expertise in software engineering culture Our expertise covers the following stacks:   Beyond stacks, it is advised to focus on these areas of technological expertise: Architectural approaches and patterns Research & Development   The role of infrastructure in software engineering culture The person responsible for IT infrastructure needs to prioritize documenting the following items: Project infrastructure ( e.g., the requirements for acquiring new resources, such as an auto-test server). Internal infrastructure pertains to the company's internal systems and processes. Infosecurity focuses on guidelines for handling files, including saving, sending, or publishing on platforms like Git. Support and maintenance detail the organization's responsibilities and levels of support management. The role of communication in software engineering culture Last but not least, communication! Its role is highlighted in the above chart. Communication embraces the following: Rules of communication with the client Respect Feedback Feedback is indispensable if you want to incorporate growth and learning from mistakes. Prompt problem identification benefits a software development company; hence, the feedback loops should be there. A reminder: feedback loop is a method for receiving feedback, which takes place in various channels such as standups, retrospectives, one-on-one meetings, assessments, and exit interviews What steps do we take to enhance our engineering culture at JetRuby? Unit management and mentoring: Our experienced engineers curate newer team members. It’s a fantastic opportunity for our employees to learn, grow, and share expertise. Competency matrix: This HR tool, also known as a skills matrix, maps out the employee's skills we assess. It is a helpful tool for HR professionals, while the unique grid makes it easier to visualize the required and available skills in a team. Feedback collection: Thanks to effective one-on-one meetings and the People Management System (our corporate ERP system), we've blasted in this area over the last year. Conferences, sharing expert content, and organizing training: We regularly hold meetings where our employees can share their knowledge on various topics. We also conduct specialized Ruby development courses. Our JetRuby Academy is open to any engineer eager to learn Ruby and translate this knowledge into action in future projects. Final thoughts In summary, software companies cultivate software engineer culture not because it's just a nice line on their profile. A well-developed engineering culture propels positive environment for the core activities of a software company: Ensuring high-quality delivery as per expectations, Perpetuating superior expertise, Maintaining modern infrastructure capacities; Holding up for efficient standards of communication   ### Best DevOps Practices: How We Improved Monitoring for the Client Project A practical case of using cloud monitoring in DevOps as a service. In this blog post, we will explore how we applied the best DevOps practices, improved the monitoring system for the healthcare project, and increased the user count from ~5 to ~50. The monitoring tool we used aggregates metrics across the stack and offers more data access transparency.  Some of our previous posts provided insights into how the properly arranged monitoring system benefits the development process. This time, we’ll focus on a specific example as a practical use case for an infrastructure monitoring platform on the project with ambitious goals.  Background Our client is a technology company that aims to disrupt the digital healthcare experience. Our team accompanies the client throughout its evolution from a startup to a unicorn. Since we offer HIPAA-certified development services, we meet the high requirements of our clients in part of enhanced security and protection of patients’ data.  The healthcare project handles extensive infrastructure with multiple substances subject to permanent monitoring.  The monitoring system employed for the project could not satisfy its technological and financial needs. Setting up a proper monitoring system is part of the best DevOps practices. We describe changes our DevOps team undertook to address the project's infrastructure issues.    Problem that prevented following the best DevOps practices The project used New Relic to monitor both backend and client applications. However, New Relic's billing system was very far from being cost-effective. In other words, its ROI was not high. Every new developer subscribed to the system would add to the price. Those expenses totaled significantly, and no considerations could justify paying this hefty bill. As a result, only five team members could use the New Relic system on a full basis, and, sadly, this circle never included a single developer. It meant that a limited number of people could access charts and reports and make data-driven decisions. At first glance, the problem could be solved by providing people in charge with temporary access to the data system. However, the unfamiliar and tangled interface of the monitoring system in use handicapped the monitoring process. The negative effect of the limited access to the fully transparent monitoring system led to technical and financial problems. The application performance monitoring culture degraded, and the apps’ efficiency tracking deteriorated.   The access above restrictions affected developers' use of New Relic; therefore, the monitoring system’s ROI was not high.   Solution: switching to Datadog About the service provider Datadog is a cloud-based monitoring and analytics platform that provides comprehensive visibility into the performance of applications, infrastructure, and networks. Organizations widely use it to monitor their IT infrastructure, troubleshoot issues, and optimize performance. We analyzed existing monitoring solutions that could appropriately cater to the project’s needs. The solution was to switch to a new monitoring platform — Datadog. Our main goal was to increase the engagement of developers in the monitoring processes and adhere to the best DevOps practices. At the same time, we assumed that fewer “out of the box” monitoring functions would be available with the new solution, but that was an acceptable tradeoff. As mentioned, the project deals with patients' sensitive personal data. We carefully selected the hosting provider so it would not be a regular shared hosting or a common platform like WS, K8S, or Heroku. Aptible's rigorous data security policy was why we chose the provider.  About the hosting provider Aptible is a platform that provides solutions for deploying, managing, and scaling infrastructure and applications securely and competently. Aptible primarily focuses on serving businesses in regulated industries, such as healthcare, finance, and others, with strict data security and compliance requirements.   It took our team 3 months to entirely switch the monitoring system to the new Datadog platform. Due to some peculiarities of the Aptible system, we employed open-source OpenTelemetry instrumentation to gather observability data.  We are finalizing our Datadog set-up to develop a comprehensive data-tracking solution. Although the transformation took significant time and resources, it has already enhanced the monitoring process and empowered more developers to access critical metrics and logs.  Impact of switching to Datadog We can summarize the results of our decision to switch to Datadog as follows: “...the bill remained the same, and we increased our user count from ~5 to ~50".  Having managed to keep the cost on the same level as before, we increased the user throughput ten times (for clarity: we mean the number of monitoring system users). As a result, we optimized the delivery process by involving DevOps specialists in the monitoring phase, leading to improved transparency. This led to enhanced transparency and quicker response times from specialists when dealing with incidents.   ### Boost Value of Your Business via UX Audit UX audit of the digital product is an incredible way to boost the value of your business. This article will tell you why.  So, how can you determine the quality of a design? It should be seamless for the user, almost invisible. A great UX designer ensures that every piece of information is placed where it needs to be and effortlessly discoverable, aiming to create a smooth interaction with your product. So, if you're perplexed as to why your product/website/app isn't performing up to par, the answer likely lies within the realm of UX. When you could benefit from a UX audit Here are just a few indicators that would be a sign to conduct an audit: High bounce rates: Complex and visually unappealing websites tend to drive users away swiftly Low user engagement: This could be attributed to various factors, such as an unclear call-to-action button, an overwhelming amount of text that is hard to read, intricate navigation, and countless others Low conversion rate User complaints and negative feedback Significant updates: A comprehensive UX audit can help ensure a smooth transition and prevent disruptions. Reaching a new market or scaling a product: Expanding your target audience may necessitate adapting your design to accommodate cultural nuances. A UX audit is a comprehensive evaluation conducted by experts to assess your product's usability and user experience. It serves as a means to analyze and rate software products, allowing stakeholders to identify areas of improvement. Both UX Audit and Usability Testing aim to obtain insights about user interaction with the product and what should be done to enhance the experience. Nevertheless, there is a difference in approach and results between these processes. The output of a UX audit is a detailed report with research-backed suggestions for improving your product and increasing conversions (which could be actionable insights and practical recommendations about changes). Auditing evaluates the product against a predefined set of standards or objectives, while usability testing identifies issues based on user actions and behaviors. It involves observing users interacting with the product and noting any difficulties or challenges. However, testing can be held during a UX audit.   Typically, a UX audit includes the following stages: Identifying business objectives and user concerns. Analyzing data (conversion metrics, customer care data, sales, engagement rate). Ensuring compliance with UX standards. Conducting usability testing. Undertaking heuristic evaluation. Performing external user research. Mental modeling. Analyzing competitors and best practices. Review of business and user objectives Wireframing & prototyping Coming up with UX Best Practices When is the ideal time to conduct a UX audit? It's advisable to conduct a UX audit when you already have an existing product that demands a redesign due to the issues above. Alternatively, a thorough examination can ensure a successful performance if you have a new product ready for development. However, even if you don't encounter any noticeable problems, a UX audit may still be necessary, especially during platform migration or as part of regular maintenance, usually every 2-5 years. Benefits of UX audit User experience significantly ensures user satisfaction by enhancing usability (including click-through rates, ease of navigation, time spent on interfaces, and more). It also delves into discovering pain points that often leave users feeling irritated, frustrated, or perplexed. Moreover, a UX audit significantly contributes to fostering customer loyalty. This, in turn, can pave the way for increased sales, higher conversion rates, and improved revenue, ultimately bolstering your reputation and making you stand out among the competitors. A UX audit can prove even more invaluable if you're starting your product. Identifying and resolving issues during the staging phase rather than in total production provides an opportunity to reduce costs and streamline development. What happens during the UX audit process? Let's consider a situation where a comprehensive audit is undertaken. In this case, a UX auditor will examine and test various aspects, such as: Identifying inconsistencies in design elements like fonts, colors, contrast ratio, and more Checking for any broken links or malfunctioning buttons Evaluating the information architecture to ensure a user-friendly layout and clear hierarchical structure Verifying if any outdated information needs to be rectified Identifying any flaws in the customer journey that may hinder smooth interactions Usability and accessibility of the platform Applying usability heuristics to evaluate the overall user experience Examining the tone of voice used and determining if the design aligns with the business objectives Utilizing analytics tools to gain insights into traffic, engagement, conversion rates, and other pertinent metrics if provided with access to analytics tools What can you expect as an outcome of a UX audit? There is no fixed template when presenting UX audit reports, as they vary in detail and timeframe. However, the result can include: A presentation summarizing the key findings from heuristic and accessibility evaluation. Practical suggestions on how to address the identified issues. Examples showcasing effective resolutions. A list of recommendations and the necessary next steps. To ensure the most successful UX audit experience, your initial input is highly valuable. Please provide the auditing side with clear business objectives, data about your product's users (such as their location, demographics, and behavior), any available analytics data, and previous UX audit results, and discuss the desired deadlines for the audit. To measure the impact of the UX audit, you can utilize various key performance indicators (KPIs). These may include monitoring the bounce rate, analyzing heatmaps and clicks, loading time, soliciting user feedback, or conducting surveys. Testing a beta version of an improved product can also be highly effective. ### Turn Your Design System into a Massive Hit! When you have a large-scale business, your team can face numerous challenges while creating user experiences. One solution to these challenges is the implementation of a design system. This system speeds up the work of designers and developers, fosters a common language and understanding between teams, ensures visual consistency for all the products, reduces costs, enables scalability, and simplifies the development cycle. What is a design system?  It’s a comprehensive set of standards designed to manage design at scale using reusable components and patterns. Sometimes, design systems might be mistaken for style guides, which strive to maintain a cohesive visual look. However, style guides have a broader purpose, which is described below. On the other hand, design systems are more grounded and detailed, typically including style guides, design principles, component libraries, and pattern libraries. Style guides comprise comprehensive guidelines and visual references for crafting interfaces or other design deliverables. Most commonly, they emphasize the aspects of branding, including colors, typography, trademarks, logos, and print media. However, they also provide valuable guidance for content, such as tone of voice, language recommendations, and visual and interaction design standards, also known as front-end style guides. As revealed by the Nielsen-Norman Group, these guides are valuable for ensuring specific implementation techniques.  Component libraries serve as a repository for UI elements that can be reused. They are an educational resource for designers and developers to learn about and incorporate specific UI design tokens. Creating these libraries requires substantial time and resources but benefits your product's design system. Apart from providing visual examples of components, they also consist of the following elements: Component name: a specific and unique UI component name so there are no misunderstandings between designers and developers. Description: a clear explanation of the element and its use. Occasionally, do's and don'ts are included to provide context and clarification. Attributes: variables or adjustments that can be customized to adapt the component for specific needs, such as color, size, shape, and copy. State: default settings for the component and how it changes depending on the user’s behavior. Code snippets: the actual code excerpt for the element. Some design systems offer multiple examples and a "sandbox" environment where you can try out different component customizations. Front-end & back-end frameworks are required to implement the library to prevent painful and unnecessary debugging. These libraries are meant to be utilized across various products and platforms. When used appropriately, you will begin to witness significant savings in terms of both time and money. Design Principles serve as informative descriptions, phrases, or ideas crafted to ensure consensual content and tone throughout an organization's diverse range of products. Pattern libraries clarify the intricacies of multi-state, multipurpose elements such as buttons, accordions, and filter bars. Component libraries specify individual UI elements, while pattern libraries feature a set of UI-element groupings or layouts. They offer clear guidance on the intended usage and when to employ them. Testing patterns for usability and accessibility is crucial, ensuring they are practical for everyone. These resources often incorporate content structures, layouts, and templates — and just like the documented UI tokens, they can be customized to suit each feature's requirements. Benefits of design systems United appearance — Using a unified repository of elements, templates, and designs enables one to perceive distinct product features as integral components of a cohesive ecosystem. This fosters improved brand uniformity across various channels without using numerous shades of gray or primary buttons that deviate from the style guide. When brand guidelines are revised, the design system automatically adapts, making it significantly simpler, quicker, and more secure to implement modifications across all products. Time saver — By utilizing functional components and pattern libraries, your team can confidently utilize UI assets and code snippets, knowing they will function seamlessly. These assets and components are efficiently implemented, guaranteeing a quick and flawless process. Valuable time that was traditionally wasted on research, meetings, and development can now be reclaimed by your team, empowering them to focus on innovation, learning, and refining their projects. Efficiency of resources — designers can redirect their attention toward tackling more intricate challenges, such as organizing information, streamlining workflows, and managing user experiences, rather than constantly building new components. It also acts as a unifying language, fostering enhanced collaboration and synchronization among all teams and stakeholders, including design, development, QA, and business functions. The need for exhaustive audits and extensive onboarding during design and code handoffs is significantly reduced when there is mutual understanding and trust. This also implies a better scalability for new product features. While this payoff might seem small when you create just a small number of screens, it becomes crucial when coordinating efforts across dozens of teams and thousands of screens. Cost reduction — whether it's through enhanced resource utilization, faster product development, or a seamless user experience, implementing a design system will undoubtedly have a positive impact on your costs. UI changes happen often. Sometimes, you make these changes to enhance accessibility and boost conversions after conducting an A/B test. Alternatively, you may update a brand or the operating system. Education tool — utilizing clearly outlined usage guidelines and style guides enables a smooth onboarding process for novice UI designers or content creators. Challenges of implementation Creating a robust design system requires considerable dedication. If implemented correctly, this process should consume a significant part of your systems team's time for several months. To ensure the success of a design system, it must be adopted and embraced by all team members, who must have the knowledge and skills to use and modify it appropriately. Teams should feel at ease when employing and adjusting patterns and components, and this requires adequate training, ongoing communication, and cultivating a sense of ownership among the teams involved. Regular component updates and comprehensive documentation are indispensable to establishing trust in your design system. When is a design system a must? There can be several reasons why design system becomes a necessity: If it requires a long time to make prototypes. You can save it using a component library such as a UI kit. With just a few simple actions — dragging, dropping, and tweaking patterns in your prototypes - you can expedite the process eliminating any additional development time or hassle. Suppose time is wasted on waiting for feedback across teams. There's a good chance that someone in your company has already created the component you're looking for and has explained how to use it. But if not, teams can consider if they will use it in the future and collaborate to develop it. By utilizing that valuable time, you can create more user-friendly products, enhance the smoothness of your application's animation, or discover innovative methods to boost its performance. This way, you can avoid the tedious task of fixing disparities and issues in your products' codebases and focus on what truly matters. If you’re building one large or more products — take a moment to assess the potential time savings for your entire product range. Imagine the positive impact on your product teams as they gain a deeper understanding of each product. Think about the incredible flexibility this will provide. Furthermore, consider the speed at which you can release updates if code documentation is clear and consistent across all products. When it may not be reasonable to have a design system If your organization specializes in digital consulting or contracting and works closely with other organizations, you may not see significant benefits from standardizing components unless you offer templated products. Each company you collaborate with will likely have unique needs and standards, making it risky to impose a rigid system that could hinder genuine innovation for your clients. As a small company or startup, shifting your focus and allocating resources toward creating a comprehensive system may be challenging. However, it's crucial to remember that if some experts leave, their knowledge goes with them. Design systems serve as a means to transfer knowledge wholly and swiftly, ensuring you aren't reliant on specific individuals. If you're not actively involved in product development, you may not find the need for a design system. The actual benefits of design systems become evident when you can leverage their building blocks and styles. However, setting up, designing, and developing all these elements requires significant effort. If there aren't many opportunities to apply these blocks, it may not be sensible to invest excessive time in creating them in the first place. Ways to use a design system There are commonly three approaches to utilizing a design system: Adopting an existing design system and utilizing it entirely (e.g., Google Material Design). Adapting an existing design system and making modifications according to specific requirements. Creating a proprietary or custom design system. When considering whether investing in a custom design system is worthwhile, it is essential to evaluate if the organization has specific needs that cannot be fulfilled by open-source design systems. As customization and adjustments to the design system increase, the cost savings derived from utilizing an existing design system will diminish. Developing a custom design system may be more advantageous in the long run. Design systems yield optimal results when a company anticipates substantial replicable design work in the foreseeable future. ### Website Optimization for Mobile Devices and Browsers Summary: The task of website optimization for mobile devices has drawn countless reviews and given life to innumerable guides. Still, all these articles are far from exhaustive, as digital product adaptation for various mobile devices and browsers always poses new challenges. Our publication overviews best practices for mobile-first adaptation fortified by our experience as a software development agency.  It also provides a unique checklist for cross-browser testing of design and layout. Building a responsive design through best-recommended practices creates a high-quality, impactful website where your audience feels at home. Let’s start with discussing the cross-browser adaptation.  Cross-browser compatibility We already know that any website is displayed differently on different devices. We call it a responsive design if it adapts to different screen resolutions. Websites “act” differently in browsers: Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Edge, Vivaldi, and Opera. These browsers may render the same elements on the page differently.  The main difference between browsers is the engines, the heart of any browser. The engine is the code that renders the pages, determines the loading character, animates the elements, and defines the standard styles for the elements. Usually, modern browsers display functional elements in their way: a date picker, password entry, and so on. Not all elements change drastically and interfere with the display of blocks around. Most differences are not critical as long as functionality and dimensions remain intact. Our task as developers is to keep the website performance the same in different browsers or at least keep it very similar. The tester's task is to check how the website performs in different browsers. This is an essential cue in website optimization for mobile devices. CSS language  To enable the correct display of the website in different browsers, we consider the following: Standard styles of different browsers  Functionality in different browsers. The CSS stylesheet language powers both properties. This includes the font, sizes, colors, and location. To set up an efficient website optimization for mobile devices, we can bring all elements to a unified style, both manually and with the help of ready-made CSS styles.  Website optimization for mobile devices: Checking cross-browser compatibility  To check how pages of your website are rendered in browsers, you do not need to download all known browsers and their latest versions. It is enough to ensure support by the most popular browsers: Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari. These browsers run on three different engines: Safari uses WebKit, Google Chrome runs on Blink, and Firefox is based on Gecko. These engines are standard, and almost all browsers run on them, for example, Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome run on the Blink engine, and Gnome Web uses the WebKit engine.  Pay attention to the following elements of the website optimization for mobile devices: Design. Page elements should not disappear or alter their width unless the design idea does not require it. Functionality. All interactive elements should work adequately in different browsers: buttons can be pressed, menus can be opened, and form fields must process the text input.  How to test cross-browser compatibility 1. Use your device or a test device. Install the most popular browsers on your device and check their operation. 2. Use assisting services like BrowserStack. 3. Remember about virtual machines. The advantage of this method is that you have complete control over the website environment. We prepared unique website optimization for mobile device checklists for our blog readers. Testing General Properties Checklist for Different Browsers Website Optimization for Mobile Devices and Browsers A mobile adaptation of the website  We’ve collected the following best design practices for website optimization for mobile devices that we recommend considering: 1. Ensure consistency of content on desktop and mobile versions The idea of this rule is to avoid having duplicate content. To be on the safe side, always ensure that all content is the same on both desktop and mobile versions of the website.  Responsive design is one of the best approaches to website optimization for mobile devices that help you build consistent content. Responsive design implies having a different design style for every major platform and device. If you want to enhance your development speed and keep your design simple, consider using CSS sprites and reduce server-side requests.  2. The first screen should not disappear completely The mobile environment is the space where all elements are infinitely scrolling down. Hence, the top of the first screen should not disappear completely. It is preferable to have at least some piece of text above the page end to show the user there is a reason to scroll further. The psychological benefits and the desire to see what you offer down the page have not entirely disappeared, so you still have to consider this while doing website optimization for mobile devices. 3. Use a top-down approach  A top-down approach means considering all potential outcomes of every design decision you make from start to finish. Your task is to design a mobile-first website rather than a desktop. The overarching advantage of this development approach is that the final design remains intact.  For example: you’re building a desktop site. After going about ¾ of the way, you also create a mobile site.  So, the mobile design layout appears. But at some point, you discover an error. Another error follows it in a new place. This is because the bottom-up approach does not work and leads to unnecessary iterations.  The “bottom-up” approach to website optimization for mobile devices leads to unexpected errors and extra workload to fix them. If you had kept up with the top-down approach to mobile-first design from the start, the bugs that needed fixing wouldn't have surfaced at the end.  4. Don't solely focus on the mobile device user As mobile and desktop landscapes merge, the goals and desires of users of these platforms follow this change. A holistic approach to website optimization for mobile devices means focusing on what the user wants on every platform. This way, you’ll be able to engage customers through your site more effectively. Whether the user comes to your website to buy a product or check it out, there is ample space where the user’s objectives and business goals to acquire more customers overlap.  5. Use responsive design techniques  Gone are the days of standalone sites. In the mobile-first era, responsive design is the ideal digital project implementation. Such designs use so-called media queries to determine the screen resolution supported by the design. Each resolution represents a "breaking point" in the design or the point at which responsive design transitions from one resolution to another.  The benefit of this structure is that it sets you free from the content duplication issues that can come with a subdomain. In addition, your mobile implementation will employ the latest technologies.  6. Set up CMS for mobile devices  Every Content Management System (CMS) is ready to offer many plugins. Some of them provide the functionality to improve mobile compatibility. For example, the popular CMS WordPress has such valuable plugins as W3 Total Cache, Duda Mobile, and plugins for minifying HTML and CSS.  7. Don't use intrusive banners to sell your product  Yes. We know. Your product is the greatest, most fantastic thing on this planet. That is why we probably visit the website and check it out before buying. But there is no need for intrusive ads that interfere with their activity on your site to force a sale. We suggest keeping the number of intrusive banners to a minimum and placing ads at the bottom or side parts, ensuring the possibility of hiding them with one click. Google doesn’t welcome intrusive banners. Check their developer and webmaster guidelines about banners.  Bottom line Mobile adaptivity and responsive design ensure that websites or web applications are user-friendly and visually appealing across various devices and screen sizes, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. You can check out the example of our adaptive design work for mobile versions in the “Portfolio” section. ### Four Software Testing Approaches Used to Ensure Product Quality Abstract: This article continues our series about the role of testing in software development and software testing approaches. It elucidates the automated approaches, load testing, and documentation testing.  Testing plays a crucial role in creating outstanding digital products. The lack of proper testing can nullify the tremendous effort invested in planning, developing, and releasing a digital product. Such failures have become well-known: it’s enough to recall false missile alerts or cancellation of flights due to computer system glitches. This review will provide experience-proven tips on digital product quality testing.  Documentation testing: where quality begins Some may roll their eyes regarding documentation testing. It may seem like an auxiliary stage. However, it is one of the handy software testing approaches to identify and fix errors before your code goes live.  It is another instance where we go through requirements and standards, shaping and defining them. These standards will be further followed throughout the product's lifecycle. This is when your eye quickly spots inconsistencies, contradictions, and misunderstandings. The documentation testing verifies that all product-related documents match how the product works. We ensure that artifacts, improvements, and changes are appropriately documented during this process. Here is the comment of our technical lead, Alex, who has been working on delivery improvement for our client during the company’s transformation:       “Once you’ve started creating the documentation, you should reserve the room for documentation and put specific triggers in the delivery process: who, when, and under which conditions must be updated. Otherwise, it would be a failure. If you use a random approach to the documentation, it can generate volumes of irrelevant papers.      The sad thing is that you won’t be able to wrap your head around which papers are up to date and which are not. So, in a while, you’ll intuitively follow a pattern: if some article hasn’t been updated for a year, you’d better not rely on it.     We spent a lot of time with our client to implement this framework for the documentation culture. Its main principle is to stuff up the explanatory and documentation resources for any new function in place. It means showing your team which buttons this new function pushes.      The products and technical team must see the elements that come into motion with the new function. And the documentation is a sure way to describe this. Next, you need to specify who is responsible for this new function and who implements it. Put it on paper. Then make sure to include this description in the Product Requirements Document, and as the last step, the technician documentation.” To summarize, ensure documentation testing is reliably listed among your regular software testing approaches. Documentation testing as one of the software testing approaches The types of reviewed documentation can be different, varying from user documentation to internal instructions. Internal instructions include all papers describing procedures and product requirements. We recommend starting with the top software process you have on your project. When reading through papers, you remove all mismatches between the description of a function and its actual performance. Go through test cases, plans, and requirements. Examples entail commands, interfaces, and their components. Look at them and spot errors, inconsistencies, and ambiguities. Thus, we can see that careful documentation testing is your way to eliminate incomplete or erroneous technical descriptions and keep them up to date.  Load testing Load testing is one of the critical software testing approaches. It helps to create stable and scalable applications. This type of testing plays a crucial role in preventing application failures and ensuring their successful operation even during increased user activity. Think of it as an investment in the stability and successful scalability of the application. Regular testing ensures the development of a product that meets current requirements and is prepared for future growth and changes. By the way, here you can find a detailed description of the load testing implemented for our client. However, reviewing the main pros of load testing is always a good idea. In a nutshell, load testing clearly defines the bottlenecks in your product. What insights can you gain from the results of a load test? You'll discover: – The capacity of your software to handle simultaneous user access. – How many additional users can it accommodate? – Your software's response to peak loads. – If your infrastructure is enough to support your software. The use of intelligent automation in testing  Automated testing has become a cornerstone in ensuring software quality. It is another valuable tool among software testing approaches. The principles of the testing pyramid drive the efficiency of automated testing, did you know? A further explanation reveals more. At the bottom, the testing pyramid has unit tests.  API and UI tests are on the next level of this hierarchy.  The modern view of this pyramid is that it provides just a core basis of the testing scheme. It is adjustable, but the main principle remains a "simple-to-complex" basis. With the higher level, there are fewer tests. You can write many manual brief unit tests, add a few more general tests, and some high-level tests that check the app from start to finish.  We believe that automated tests do not rule out manual testing. The intelligent combination of both software testing approaches is your path to maintaining stable, efficient, and intuitively understandable applications that meet user expectations. Don’t look down on manual testing too much, remembering about the pesticide effect. The repetitive execution of the same set of tests leads to the omission of deficiencies in the system. Automated tests often work with uniform data and scenarios, potentially missing the diversity of potential issues. Automated tests are saving you from thoughtless following click protocols. If you had to do massive refactoring without proper tests, you already know what’s coming. It means you would have to look through all test cases and clock every single test case.  Final thoughts In our review above, we discussed the intricacies of documentation testing, manual & automated testing approaches, and load testing. Subscribe to our blog to stay up-to-date on new trends and approaches to testing and software development. Meanwhile, you may find the following articles on software testing approaches: User Testing Mobile Testing Load Testing ### Get Rid of Common Performance Bottlenecks in Databases In this article, we will explore the concept of performance bottlenecks in databases and software services, shedding light on this challenge and the process of identifying and mitigating these obstacles. When software services fail to deliver within the predefined service levels, they confront a critical challenge known as a performance bottleneck in databases. These bottlenecks can take various forms, ranging from limitations in hardware resources and software capabilities to the quality of the code itself. Unraveling the complexities of performance bottlenecks involves meticulously examining the factors that influence a system's performance, with the ultimate objective of identifying the root causes of these issues. Common performance bottlenecks in databases and how to fix them Working with a database in a server-side application can introduce several performance bottlenecks in databases. These bottlenecks can vary depending on the specific application, database system, and infrastructure, but some common performance bottlenecks include: Database queries and indexing  Inefficient or poorly optimized database queries can lead to slow performance. Creating and maintaining proper indexes on the database tables is crucial to improving query performance. Solution:  Optimize SQL queries. Review and optimize your SQL queries to reduce complexity and improve query efficiency. Use appropriate indexing. Ensure you have indexes on columns frequently used in WHERE clauses to speed up data retrieval. Delete extra indexes. Inexperienced developers tend to create indexes for all occasions, which leads to slower insertion, deletion, and modification of data from tables Slow Disk I/O Disk I/O operations can be a significant performance bottleneck in databases. If the database server uses slow storage or heavy disk contention, it can lead to delays in reading and writing data. Solution:  Invest in fast storage. Consider using Solid State Drives (SSD) for your database server to improve I/O performance significantly. Implement RAID for redundancy and performance, or use SAN or NAS solutions if necessary. These two solutions are fast, but sometimes you must make a more significant step. In this case, revising functional and non-functional requirements may come in handy. These revisions enhance database design, optimize operations, set performance goals, and ensure system scalability, reliability, and security, addressing slow disk I/O issues. Network latency Network latency between the application and database servers can impact the response time. Reducing network round trips is essential; sometimes, techniques like connection pooling mitigate latency. Solution: Minimize round trips. Reduce the number of network round trips by batching database queries and using stored procedures. Optimize network configuration. Ensure that the network connecting your application server to the database server is fast and has low latency. Locking and concurrency  When multiple users or processes access the same data concurrently, there can be contention for locks, leading to performance issues. Effective database transactions and locking strategies are necessary to handle concurrent access. Solution: Use proper isolation levels. Choose the appropriate transaction isolation level to balance consistency and concurrency. Implement row-level locking or optimistic locking to reduce contention. Scaling and load balancing among performance bottlenecks in databases As the application grows, scaling the database to handle increased load can be challenging. Implementing techniques like sharding or horizontal partitioning and setting up load balancing can help distribute the load effectively. Solution: Implement horizontal scaling. Split the database into shards to distribute the load effectively. Use load balancers to distribute incoming requests across multiple database servers. Resource contention  Databases can consume significant server resources, including CPU and memory. Resource contention can occur if the server runs multiple applications or services, affecting the database's performance and contributing to performance bottlenecks in databases. Solution: Allocate dedicated resources. Consider hosting your database server on a dedicated server or instance to reduce resource contention. Adjust resource allocation based on the workload's demands. Inefficient Data Models Poorly designed data models can lead to inefficient queries, requiring more complex and slower database operations. A well-structured database schema is essential for optimal performance. Solution: Review and normalize data models. Ensure your data models are well-structured and efficiently designed. Avoid over-normalization. Balance normalization with denormalization as necessary for performance. Unoptimized data retrieval  Fetching more data than needed or running complex aggregations and calculations in the database can slow down query performance. Optimize the queries to retrieve only the necessary data and remove one of the essential performance bottlenecks in databases. Solution: Retrieve only necessary data. Optimize queries to select only the columns and rows you need. Use appropriate data retrieval methods, such as pagination for large result sets. Denormalization While normalization is a standard practice to avoid data redundancy, over-normalization can lead to complex joins and slower queries. Some level of denormalization might be necessary for performance. Solution: Carefully denormalize. When necessary, selectively denormalize data to reduce the need for complex joins but maintain data consistency. Inadequate caching A lack of proper caching mechanisms can result in frequent database queries, increasing load and response times. Caching strategies, like using in-memory caches, can help alleviate this issue. Solution: Implement caching. Utilize caching mechanisms to store frequently accessed data in memory and reduce database queries. Consider using caching solutions like Redis or Memcached. Security and authentication Implementing robust security measures, including authentication and authorization checks, can introduce overhead. It's crucial to strike a balance between security and performance. Solution: Implement efficient authentication. Ensure that your authentication and authorization checks are performed efficiently. Use appropriate security protocols and techniques without introducing excessive overhead. Long transactions Long-running transactions can lead to locks and contention issues. Minimize the duration of transactions and consider breaking them into smaller, more manageable units. Solution: Split transactions. Break long-running transactions into smaller, more manageable units to reduce lock contention. Consider using techniques like two-phase commit for distributed transactions. Inadequate Monitoring and Tuning Identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks in databases can be challenging without proper monitoring and performance tuning. Regularly monitor database performance and apply optimization techniques. Solution: Use monitoring tools. Implement monitoring and profiling tools to continuously track database performance. Review and adjust configuration settings, query plans, and indexes based on performance data. Database Maintenance Regular database maintenance tasks like index rebuilds, vacuuming, and data purging are essential for maintaining performance over time. Solution: Schedule regular maintenance tasks. To minimize disruption, run database maintenance tasks such as index rebuilds, vacuuming, and data purging during off-peak hours. Hardware limitations The underlying hardware of the database server can be a bottleneck if it lacks the necessary resources to handle the workload. Ensure the server has sufficient CPU, RAM, and storage resources. Solution: Upgrade hardware. If your hardware is a bottleneck, consider upgrading the database server's CPU, RAM, or storage to meet the application's needs. Final thoughts on performance bottlenecks in databases Addressing performance bottlenecks in a server-side application that interacts with a database is a multifaceted task that requires a holistic approach. While the previously mentioned strategies are essential, it's important to note that performance optimization is an ongoing process. Please check the table below illustrating common performance bottlenecks in databases: ### The Rise of Smart Policing: How AI is Enhancing Law Enforcement The article below covered Smart Policing or AI-powered solutions for Law Enforcement, how they assist police officers in crime prevention, and our contribution to developing a smart policing app. Imagine a world where police departments could predict crime before it happens, allocate resources more efficiently, and use advanced technology to enhance public safety. No, this isn't a Philip K. Dick novel. It's happening right now, thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI's foray into law enforcement might be best described as 'Smart Policing.' By harnessing the immense capabilities of AI, we're looking at a complete overhaul of traditional policing methods. AI is bringing into play its heavy artillery - machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and more. This array of techniques allows for analyzing extensive data, spotting patterns, and making smart decisions to make our cities safer. The digital age provides law enforcement with an overflow of data. With the leaps and bounds in computing power, AI is becoming law enforcement's new best friend. But let's remember the ethical considerations. As we stride into the future, we must ensure AI's deployment in law enforcement is done responsibly and with accountability. So, how exactly is AI helping keep the peace? Let's break it down. The Watchful Eye of AI AI algorithms are like Sherlock Holmes on steroids. They sift through vast amounts of data from various sources like crime records, social media, weather conditions, etc. These cyber detectives integrate all this data to form a cohesive and comprehensive view of crime in a given area. Playing Detective Collecting data is just the beginning of the AI story here; it uncovers hidden trends and patterns, much like a seasoned detective would. Using techniques like statistical analysis and data mining, AI identifies patterns in crime, making connections that might not be immediately obvious to human counterparts. Crystal Ball Predictions Having spotted the patterns, AI then puts on its fortune teller hat. AI uses historical data to forecast future criminal activity by building predictive models. It's like having a crystal ball showing when and where a burglary might occur. Constant Vigilance AI is ever-watchful. Thanks to real-time systems, AI monitors ongoing events and identifies potential threats as they happen. It's as if law enforcement has a tireless, eagle-eyed assistant analyzing surveillance footage around the clock, ready to sound the alarm at the first sign of trouble. Resource Deployment. Smart Style AI knows where the police need to be and when. By identifying high-risk areas or times, AI assists in strategically deploying resources. It's like having a chess Grandmaster directing patrol routes to keep the king - in this case, the public - safe. Prevention is Better than Cure The most significant advantage of AI in policing is its proactive approach. By recognizing patterns and predicting crimes, AI allows law enforcement to nip crime in the bud. More patrols and community engagement programs in the right places can deter potential criminals before committing a crime. AI's rise in law enforcement is a fascinating and promising journey. As we enter this brave new world, we must do it ethically. The future of 'Smart Policing' is now, and Artificial Intelligence powers it. The Future of AI Policing We're marching towards a future where AI becomes the linchpin of law enforcement. Yet, we can only look so far ahead to witness this shift. Certain startups have already begun to harness AI's potential and are bringing this future to our doorsteps today. Take, for instance, an online smart policing platform that is the Sherlock Holmes of AI, working tirelessly alongside police departments.  Smart policing app's features Enhanced by JetRuby for one of our clients, this app assists in crime investigations, sifting through data and seeking the vital clues that lead to perpetrators. The process is relatively simple: an officer fills in a case and uploads the details, including photos of suspects, and voila, a smart policing app matches these with a database of known criminals. But the app continues beyond there. This smart policing platform is a helpful tool for police officers to ease as a control center for the entire operation. It helps them oversee user access, provide guidance, generate detailed reports on platform usage, and helps to supervise the activities of affiliated organizations.  This hub in the right hand becomes the central nervous system of the operation, ensuring seamless integration and smooth collaboration between all involved parties. One of the app's standout features is the ability to upload crime videos for a more thorough investigation. Think of it as a digital forensic scientist meticulously extracting screenshots from the video and facilitating their analysis. It's mindful of the challenges the image quality poses and works around them to identify suspects effectively. As for security, the smart policing app checks all the boxes. In compliance with CJIS standards, the application is hosted on the Microsoft Azure Government Cloud. It employs rigorous encryption to protect all data during transmission and at rest. Five police departments have already validated the effectiveness of the app. As more get on board, its ability to identify criminals is expected to grow exponentially. To sum it up, the fusion of AI with policing has the potential to radically reshape how we maintain law and order. AI technologies like Eyewitness offer tools that span predictive policing, real-time surveillance, enhanced investigative capabilities, and more. However, as we step into this brave new world, we must navigate it responsibly. The use of AI in policing must be guided by transparency, accountability, and public trust. Striking the right balance between tech advancement and ethical considerations will help us create a future where AI-powered policing effectively safeguards our communities while upholding justice. We're on the brink of an AI revolution. AI is the game-changer you've been waiting for, with the potential to transform operations, enhance efficiency, and supercharge decision-making.   More articles on the topic of AI: AI-powered Farming Automation How to Build an Efficient AI-backed Team Leveraging Copilot, ChatGPT to Solve Technical Challenges ### Agile. The Ultimate Approach to Web Development? Agile is not just one specific method, but a generic name for various frameworks and methodologies that conform to the Agile Manifesto document. It was crafted by a group of skilled developers back in 2001 based on their own experience in optimizing the development process. Ultimately, Agile allows for maximum flexibility and responsiveness to the changes that are inevitable in the unpredictable world of software development. For agile software development, we in JetRuby use specially selected tools, methods, and frameworks that help maximize productivity. We've developed these solutions through experience and collaboration with our clients. And when new methods and techniques appear, we boldly try to implement them. In this article, we’ll take a look at the Agile approach as it is, compare it with a more traditional technique and figure out whether it actually works for any project.  Core Values Agile development involves more than just adjusting to changes and technological advancements. It's a set of methodologies well-documented in the Agile Software Development Manifesto. According to the manifesto developers have come to value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools; Working software over comprehensive documentation; Customer collaboration over contract negotiation; Responding to change over following a plan. Agile Trends According to the State of Agile 2022 survey, 52% of the respondents said they implemented Agile to accelerate time to market. The ability to move quickly yet be predictable is a key benefit that stands out from a host of others. The research has also shown that when people are satisfied with Agile practices in their organization, certain things are going well.  69% of respondents mentioned increased collaboration.  54% experienced better alignment to business needs  39% mentioned a better work environment  and an increased visibility in the product’s development lifecycle. Kanban vs. Scrum Scrum and Kanban are two popular project management methodologies used to manage software development projects. Both Scrum and Kanban are part of Agile methodology. Scrum is an iterative and incremental approach in which the team works in sprints to build a potentially shippable product increment each time. It follows a fixed set of roles, ceremonies, and artifacts including product backlog, sprint backlog, sprint planning, daily stand-up, sprint review, and sprint retrospective. Scrum is best suited for situations where requirements are not well-defined and the team needs to work collaboratively in an Agile environment to deliver a high-quality product. Kanban, on the other hand, is a continuous flow methodology that focuses on minimizing work in progress (WIP) and delivering small chunks of work faster. Kanban is best suited for scenarios where the team has a steady stream of work and needs to maintain a consistent pace to avoid overburdening the system. If you have a running application, Kanban is a suitable choice for managing your work. It can help you support your current clients more effectively as you can respond to their issues and bugs quickly. You can visualize the status of the work and prioritize tasks based on the criticality of the issue. It allows you to continuously improve your process and optimize the flow to provide better value to your clients. If you are developing a new application, Scrum is a better option as it provides a framework to move in iterations. You can define a product backlog, prioritize the features, and work collaboratively in sprints to deliver potentially shippable increments. The Scrum framework ensures that you have a clear vision, well-defined roles, ceremonies, and artifacts, which can help you deliver a high-quality product efficiently. Within the same team, these approaches can and will be combined in an existing application, as they allow development of new functionality, ensuring processing of Customer Experience Issues - what comes to the support service and requires a faster response. Agile vs. Waterfall  Agile and Waterfall are two different approaches to managing and executing web development projects. While the Waterfall one is considered to be traditional, they have distinct methodologies and philosophies, which can lead to significant differences in how projects are planned, executed, and delivered. Let’s have a side-by-side comparison of both approaches. So, Is Agile Better? While Agile has its advantages, it's not inherently "better" than other web development approaches. The choice of methodology depends on the specific project's needs, the team's preferences and capabilities, the client's requirements, and various other factors.  That being said, here are some reasons why Agile might be considered better in certain contexts: Agile particularly suits projects with changing or evolving requirements. It allows teams to adjust their course as new information becomes available, reducing the risk of building a product that no longer meets the client's needs. Agile focuses on delivering value to the customer and encourages frequent customer feedback. This ensures that the end product aligns closely with user needs and expectations. Agile's sprints allow for more frequent releases of functional software, which can be advantageous for projects that require rapid development and deployment. Also, by breaking the project into smaller iterations, Agile reduces the overall project risk. If a particular iteration doesn't go as planned, it impacts only a short time frame rather than the entire project. Agile methodologies promote a culture of continuous improvement. Teams regularly assess their processes and make adjustments to enhance productivity and product quality. Agile methodologies emphasize collaboration among team members, stakeholders, and customers. Regular meetings and open communication channels help prevent misunderstandings and keep everyone on the same page. Agile methodologies provide transparency into the development process through regular reviews and demonstrations of working software. This transparency helps build trust between the development team and stakeholders. Agile methodologies prioritize delivering features with the highest business value first, ensuring that the project delivers meaningful results early on. However, it's important to note that Agile might not be the best fit for every project. For instance, if a project has well-defined requirements that are unlikely to change, a more plan-driven methodology like Waterfall might be appropriate. Additionally, certain industries or regulatory environments might require a more structured approach. Ultimately, the choice of methodology should be based on a careful assessment of the project's characteristics and requirements. Therefore some organizations even use hybrid approaches that combine elements of different methodologies to suit their specific needs.  ### Designing Complex Web Applications: Secrets of Effective User Interaction We at Jetruby love design; it's one of our core areas of expertise. There are hundreds of applications that appear inconvenient and cause problems, especially in the B2B segment. Our clients are happy with our design choices, so in this article, we’ll share with you what we take into account in design and what experience we have gained over time. Buckle up; here are the secrets of effective user interaction. Easy Navigation We can’t help but mention the importance of easy and intuitive navigation. Did you know that 70% of online businesses that fail do so because of bad usability? Well, we know how to help you since we at JetRuby pay close attention to interface design. Check out this project, for example. Anyways, let’s get into the practices for achieving easy navigation. Create Clear and Consistent Menus When designing your menus, opt for labels that are easy to recognize and understand. Make sure they accurately describe the navigation items. Moreover, think about incorporating visual cues like icons or pop-up messages. These aids can help users quickly identify and choose the items they're looking for. Organize Information in a Logical Hierarchy Make it easy for users to grasp how different sections relate. Arrange your information in a way that makes sense and is easy to follow. Group similar items together and provide clear headings to guide users through the information hierarchy, making their exploration smoother. Use Breadcrumbs and Sitemaps Implement breadcrumbs to offer users a clear route back to previously visited pages. This function enables them to retrace their steps with ease. Conversely, sitemaps present an overview of your entire website's structure. This empowers users to comprehend the layout and navigate directly to specific sections they're interested in. Craft Mobile-Friendly Navigation with Responsive Design Ensure your menus and navigation elements adapt seamlessly to various devices using responsive design principles. Consider incorporating navigation patterns that work well on mobile devices, such as collapsible menus or icons. This enhancement will give users a better experience accessing your content on smaller screens. Interactive User Feedback People need to know their opinion is valued and taken seriously. Communication with users is crucial for any business. Here’s how to improve your communication and boost your users’ loyalty.  Provide Instant Feedback for Real-time Interaction Users receive quick feedback right after they take action. This instant validation is like a nod that reassures them they're on the right track. Progress indicators and loading animations also play a role in reducing confusion and enhancing the overall user experience. For instance, when users submit a form, a loading animation lets them know that their input is being processed. Implement Small yet Impactful Microinteractions Microinteractions are those tiny bursts of feedback that respond to user actions. They're usually visually pleasing and provide a sense of accomplishment. These interactions help users navigate the interface and make them feel in control. Consider things like button effects when you hover over them, subtle animations, and those helpful little tooltips that pop up to explain something when needed. Handle Errors with Care When users encounter problems or make mistakes, communicating clearly is crucial. Error messages should be easy to understand without any confusing technical jargon. Provide practical suggestions on how to fix the issue. Well-written error messages are like signposts, guiding users through what went wrong and showing them how to make it right. Accessibility To make your web application accessible for everyone, you should also consider people with impairments and their unique needs. Here’s what can help. Follow the WCAG Guideline The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) offer comprehensive requirements for web developers and designers. These guidelines cover a range of aspects, including how easily content can be perceived, operated, and understood, and how technically robust it is.  Enhance Accessibility with ARIA Attributes Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) refer to HTML features that enhance the accessibility of web content. By incorporating ARIA properties, you can provide additional information to assistive technologies. This empowers impaired users to navigate and interact more effectively with your web application. ARIA characteristics make screen readers, keyboard navigation, and other assistive technology interactions smoother and more effective. Explore the world of accessibility in design via this article. Personalization, Testing, and Continuous Improvements Keeping your users engaged is a never-ending work requiring adjustments, testing, and further improvements. Check out the practices below. Implement User-Centric Design Understanding your audience deeply involves researching their behaviors and creating detailed user personas and journey maps. This helps tailor the interface and content to provide an engaging user experience that resonates personally with each user. Instead of bombarding them with intrusive pop-ups, you offer content that truly matters to them. Tailor Content and Recommendations You can offer relevant suggestions and product recommendations by studying user behavior, like search history and purchases. This strategy moves away from generic pop-up messages and focuses on delivering engaging experiences that match individual preferences, resulting in happier users who are more likely to convert. Empower Users with Adaptive Interfaces Letting users adjust elements like font size, colors, and layouts gives them a sense of control. Adaptive interfaces allow people to shape their interaction with the website or app, enhancing user satisfaction. Test for Smooth Interaction Usability testing involves observing how users interact with your web application. This uncovers pain points, gathers feedback, and validates design choices. By putting real users through their paces, you gain insights into areas that need improvement and ensure your app meets their needs. Read more about user testing here. Welcome User Feedback Actively seek input from users through surveys, interviews, and feedback. Just encourage them to share their thoughts and suggestions. Collecting this feedback uncovers usability challenges and helps you prioritize changes that align with user expectations. A Cycle of Improvement Adopt an iterative approach by continuously refining your design based on feedback and user behavior analysis. Insights from usability tests and user feedback guide your decisions, allowing you to focus on enhancements that genuinely matter to your users. Final Thoughts Understanding how users interact with web applications is crucial for your success. When designing web apps, you have the power to make a real difference in capturing and engaging users. Check out how JetRuby implements these design practices on our Dribble and Behance. Feel free to follow and get inspired! ### Web App Redesign — UX Case Study This case study tells you how we helped our technological partner to double sales via the web app redesign app and increase customer satisfaction by around 35%. Our team meticulously implemented the redesign project for the web app in a technological partnership with Anova — a global leader in remote monitoring of industrial assets. Background Since the inception of our partnership in 2019, JetRuby has been an instrumental force in propelling the development of the Anova app. Anova provides remote monitoring systems for different industries on a global scale. Leveraging proprietary IoT fuel control sensors manufactured in-house, the company spreads its reach within the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and beyond. This web app redesign project aimed to improve the app's fuel monitoring dashboard and encourage fuel sensor sales by creating an intuitive user experience. The app’s end-user is the fuel supplier (a farmer or logistics company) managing individual or corporate fuel reserves. Hence, they must be aware of the level and need for fuel supplies along the route of the driving truck. Each truck has a fuel sensor that sends the data to the information dashboard, reflecting the fuel consumption data in the app. The “Devices” section of the app required a fundamental transformation and the whole web app redesign to enable more straightforward navigation. Challenges of the web app redesign According to the feedback of the app users, the “Devices” section of the app wasn’t easy to navigate. The customer service was overloaded with repetitive queries. The app interface hurdled the onboarding process for new users. Difficult navigation affected customer satisfaction. It is sufficient to say that only 58% of users managed to scroll all pages to find the needed information. Project goals Our business analysts have gathered project requirements before the web app redesign and assisted with formulating principal business goals: Elevating device sales: a primary focus was on bolstering sales among existing clients. Simplifying interface: intuitive interface design became paramount to ensure effortless user navigation. Enhancing customer journeys: The goal was to minimize customer support requests by refining the user experience. Research and Discovery At JetRuby, we firmly believe that careful research has a fundamental meaning for the subsequent development and design process. Therefore, we started with the focus group interview, intending to explore the importance of new options. The target group of 15 users was interviewed to test 5 hypotheses. 
 A seamless user interaction with all menu options was central to the business objective. But what did this interaction imply? We did surveys and prioritized a few crucial features. First, the survey results discovered that matching the data of multiple devices is critical to users. Users preferred to check the data of all fuel sensors with one quick overview. Fuel replenishment alerts and malfunction alerts were also on the waiting list.   “We run the interviews with respective focus groups to understand their needs. That’s how we shaped our vision of the app design that will be comfortable and smooth for all categories of end-users.”, said Daria, UX/UI designer. To summarize, the R&D phase highlighted the critical need for the following features: The technical condition of the fuel tank required an overview section. We would raise user awareness about current fuel resources by enabling the data match of several sensors connected to a fuel tank. The need for alerts about malfunctions of sensors. Other steps that will simplify overall navigation in the web app. Also, the first tests confirmed the navigation difficulties experienced by 67% of the app users.  User Journey Mapping the user flow diagram was our next step. This scheme navigated our understanding of how users will interact with new features and check the performance of monitoring devices. We’d been dynamically updating the map throughout the process to ensure that every new option was released as per the UX-first approach. Our approach to the Web App Redesign The customization strategy allowed us to solve the needs of each category of users by making every relevant section as informative as possible for them. For example, when a driver needs to check the condition of tank sensors, they will not have to interact with the app as a whole. We concentrated on the design of the following three sections: The "Devices" section provides users access to the location and indicators of special sensors linked to each fuel tank.  The "Tanks" component displays tank parameters for each truck the company manages.  We adhered to atomic design principles, the most appropriate tactic for organizing apps with complex functions. It means we started developing minor elements and then combined them as components of a more extensive system. When the user opens the app, they won’t be puzzled by an extended menu and will be easily navigated by its simple structure. Web app redesign process 1) Easy folding of sections. Previously, all fuel sensors belonging to the same tank were not displayed in a single space. The design showed stats on one tank at a time. The right sidebar could not be folded. The user had to view each sensor separately. We organized a single space from where you can see how the tank performs and match the data between all sensors connected to this tank.  Now, the sidebar shows all tanks. Also, any section can be easily folded. This way, all stats on the chosen tank are available to the user, and they can match it with other tanks' data without leaving the page. 2) Quick search enabled. Initially, device filters were hidden in the right-side panel. We put them inside the table to allow a quick search of needed elements. 3) Spreadsheet and scroll. The buttons of the top menu bar were scattered across the space. 
 Also, the pagination didn't have a fixed position. The top menu bar was not present. The page now has a fixed position of the top menu bar; the table has a header and pagination. You can scroll up/down, left/right inside the table. This step enhanced usability and speed. 4) Alerts. We enabled alerts about the fuel tank malfunction.  The alert option cut the average response time from 48 hours to 1 hour, which now the fuel suppliers take for troubleshooting. 5) More is less. The top menu buttons were arranged on the right side. By clicking on the "More" button, one can access additional options - this way, we kept up with a "clean design idea." When the first layouts were created, it was the right time to test three design options with various groups of users (drivers, employees, and engineers) within the platform. We opted for the multivariate test, proposing several solutions. This approach allowed us to sift through possible options and carefully craft the optimal design solution for all categories of users. According to the test results, the second design option was the top choice of all categories of users (with 71.8% of respondents voting for it). We shared this result with our customer and made minor adjustments to the design layout No. 2. After that, this design version was delivered for development. The positive impact of UX optimization Through a series of strategic changes in the UI/UX design, Anova doubled its sales volume of fuel monitoring devices and substantially reduced its customer service workload. Incorporating new and highly anticipated features, a streamlined menu bar, and an enhanced filter system reshaped the app design.  Customers were enticed by the new functionalities and found navigation through the product ecosystem considerably more intuitive. This shift boosted customer satisfaction and catalyzed the surge in sales volume: Anova has doubled the sales of monitoring devices. ### Implementing Currying in Ruby. A Step-by-Step Guide Currying is a functional programming technique that converts functions with multiple arguments into a sequence of functions with a single argument. When a function is curried, it takes one argument and returns a new function that expects the remaining arguments. Implementing currying in Ruby Ruby provides built-in support for currying functions using the curry method. You can use this method on objects of the Proc class, or any other objects that implement the to_proc method. When the curry method is called on a Proc object, it returns a new Proc object that represents a curried version of the original function. The curried function can be called with fewer arguments than it expects, and will return a new function expecting the remaining arguments. A small example for understanding: addition = proc { |a, b| a + b }.curry result = addition.call(10, 5) # => 15 plus_ten = addition.call(10) # => # plus_ten.call(5) # => 15 When calling the curry method, you can explicitly specify arity for the created curried function. That is, the function will be called if a given number of arguments are passed to it. For example: printer = proc { |a, b, c, d| "a=#{a}, b=#{b}, c=#{c}, d=#{d}" }.curry(3) print = printer.call('list 1') # => # print = print.call('list 2') # => # print = print.call('list 3') # => "a=list 1, b=list 2, c=list 3, d=" Creating specialized functions Currying allows us to create specialized versions of functions with predefined arguments. This is useful when we need to use a function with fixed values in a certain context. For example, suppose we have a function “greet” that takes two arguments: a greeting and a name. We can curry this function by setting the value of one of the arguments in advance, and get a new function expecting only the remaining argument. greet = proc { |greeting, name| "#{greeting}, #{name}!" }.curry hello = greet.call("Hello") # => # hi = greet.call("Hi") # => # hello.call("Alice") # => "Hello, Alice!" hi.call("Bob") # => "Hi, Bob!" In the example above, we curry the greet function by fixing the value of the greeting ("Hello" and "Hi") and get new “hello” and “hi” functions. We can now call these new functions, passing only the names, and get specialized greetings. This approach is useful when we have a common function pattern, but with different argument values in different contexts. We can create specialized versions of this function with predefined argument values and use them in the right places. Simplifying function composition Currying also simplifies function composition, i.e. the sequential application of arguments from one function to another. This allows us to create chains of curried functions and pass values from one function to another. For example, suppose we have two functions: “add”, which adds two numbers, and “multiply”, which multiplies two numbers. We can curry these functions and apply the arguments sequentially, creating a new function that performs both actions. add = proc { |a, b| a + b }.curry multiply = proc { |a, b| a * b }.curry add_and_multiply = add.call(5).then(&multiply.call(3)) result = add_and_multiply.call(2) # => 21 In this example, we first curry the add function by fixing the value of the first argument to 5. Then we apply the “then” methodto successively call the multiply function with a fixed value of the first argument equal to 3. The result is a new function add_and_multiply, which first adds 5 to its argument and then multiplies the resulting value by 3. The composition of curried functions allows us to create more flexible and modular function blocks that can be easily combined and reused in different scenarios. Simplifying complex business conditions Let's imagine that we have a complex business logic with many conditions and we want it all to be displayed in one place and be readable. To do this, we will need to use the “case...when” operator property. When a proc is passed to when, when calls the method === on this proc , passing the value in case as an argument: is_high = ->(h) { h >= 10 } is_high.call(10) # => true # the same as is_high.(10) # => true # the same as is_high === 10 # => true case 5 when is_high then puts 'High' else   puts 'Not High!' end Let us now look at a more complex example. For instance, let's assume that we are in the business of purchasing printers and we need a system that will help us make the right choice: to buy a printer or not, depending on the incoming parameters.  First, let's declare basic predicates to work with Boolean logic and curry them (we’ll explain why a bit later): Basically, a predicate is a method/function that returns a boolean value (true or false) AND operator All = lambda do |predicates, attributes|     predicates.reduce(true) { |memo, predicate| memo && predicate.(**attributes) }   end.curry All it does is take an array of passed predicates and check that they all return true.  OR operator Any = lambda do |predicates, attributes|     predicates.reduce(false) { |memo, predicate| memo || predicate.(**attributes) }   end.curry Same thing, but checking for at least one predicate that returned true. NOT operator Not = -> (predicate, attributes) { !predicate.(**attributes) }.curry Inverts the result of executing the passed predicate. Now that we have the basic operators, we can start declaring predicates for business logic: WithWifiSupport = -> (printer:, **) { printer.wifi_support }   WithoutWifiSupport = Not.(WithWifiSupport)   Expensive = -> (printer:, tax: 0, **) { printer.price + tax > 500 } These are ordinary lambdas that take some arguments and return a boolean value. Now for the fun part - writing business rules using the above predicates: def check_proposal(attributes)   case attributes     when All.([Not.(Expensive), WithWifiSupport])       puts "Best offer"     when All.([Expensive, WithWifiSupport])       puts "Decent offer"     when All.([Expensive, WithoutWifiSupport])       puts "Worst offer"     when Any.([WithoutWifiSupport, Expensive])       puts "Bad offer"     end   end Due to the fact that we have curried the basic predicate lambdas, when we pass them the first argument - an array - we get a new lambda as a result. Accordingly, when when tries to check a condition, it passes the value from case to this new lambda, which, already having  all arguments, is executed and returns either true or false. Let's check if our code works: Printer = Struct.new(:wifi_support, :price, keyword_init: true) printer1 = Printer.new(wifi_support: true, price: 400) printer2 = Printer.new(wifi_support: true, price: 800) printer3 = Printer.new(wifi_support: false, price: 200) check_proposal(printer: printer1, tax: 50) # Best offer check_proposal(printer: printer2) # => Decent offer check_proposal(printer: printer3) # Bad offer check_proposal(printer: printer3, tax: 400) # Worst offer The resulting code: All = lambda do |predicates, attributes|     predicates.reduce(true) { |memo, predicate| memo && predicate.(**attributes) }   end.curry   Any = lambda do |predicates, attributes|     predicates.reduce(false) { |memo, predicate| memo || predicate.(**attributes) }   end.curry   Not = -> (predicate, attributes) { !predicate.(**attributes) }.curry   WithWifiSupport = -> (printer:, **) { printer.wifi_support }   WithoutWifiSupport = Not.(WithWifiSupport)   Expensive = -> (printer:, tax: 0, **) { printer.price + tax > 500 }   def check_proposal(attributes)   case attributes     when All.([Not.(Expensive), WithWifiSupport])       puts "Best offer"     when All.([Expensive, WithWifiSupport])       puts "Decent offer"     when All.([Expensive, WithoutWifiSupport])       puts "Worst offer"     when Any.([WithoutWifiSupport, Expensive])       puts "Bad offer"     end   end Printer = Struct.new(:wifi_support, :price, keyword_init: true) printer1 = Printer.new(wifi_support: true, price: 400) printer2 = Printer.new(wifi_support: true, price: 800) printer3 = Printer.new(wifi_support: false, price: 200) check_proposal(printer: printer1, tax: 50) # Best offer check_proposal(printer: printer2) # => Decent offer check_proposal(printer: printer3) # Bad offer check_proposal(printer: printer3, tax: 400) # Worst offer Summary In general, currying is a useful tool for writing functional code in Ruby that can increase its flexibility and expressiveness. Understanding the concept of currying and applying it correctly can create cleaner, more modular, and more efficient code. But, its application can also make code more difficult to understand. Also, curried functions can be inconvenient when debugging, especially if there are too many of them or they are used incorrectly. In most cases, simpler and more straightforward solutions may be preferable to currying. Always evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of using it within the context of the specific task and the overall architecture of your project. Missed our previous article? Follow our blog and let's stay in touch! ### 8 Killing Features of GPT models in Web Applications Summary:  The Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT) rocked the world of human-like text writing, turning neural networks into a vivid creative power. This article analyzes how GPT models in web applications enhanced their functionality and how they will develop in the future. Goals of using ChatGPT models in web applications: GPT is essentially a language model built on a transformer architecture. A GTP model was designed to help us generate human-like text and better understand language patterns, semantics, and grammar.  Now, applications increasingly employ the opportunities provided by GPT models. And there is a simple explanation for this fact. Obtaining reliable information directly from the LLM based on identifiable sources is challenging. The information the user receives requires careful verification and control. The distortions of ChatGPT make developers seek a solution in processing information from specific sources or a group of sources instead of using the capabilities of ChatGPT in general.  Integrating Large Language Models (LLM), such as ChatGPT, is advantageous for app owners for many reasons:  Obtaining the most valuable information for the consumer, including texts in foreign languages. Think of ChatGPT as an alternative to search engines.  Comparison of data from different sources. For further analysis, retrieve data in the text and other forms (contracts, protocols, etc.). Transformations of texts, including 1) abstracting and summarizing, 2) modifying data in formal documents, 3) creating educational materials, etc. Meta-analysis of sources. Use in other tasks related to working with the knowledge base  Roleplay. The chat works on potential questions and hypothetical scenarios for designated groups of users.   New capabilities of GPT-4: Better memory capacity (being able to process up to 25,000 words of text), image processing, larger context GPT models in web applications The integration of GPT models into web services has natural limitations.  GPT models in web applications offer limited capacities for processing input text. A ChatGPT prompt is limited to 4097 tokens covering both query and response. On average, it includes about 3000 words in English and can be even smaller in other languages. According to the ChatGPT, the GPT-4 version can work with 32,000 data tokens, but this is not a solution.  Many online services claim to be GPT-4 based or provide you with access to GPT-4. However, integrating the ChatGTP service is meticulous work; most such services will be false. GPT-4 API access is limited, while development costs are relatively high. So, at the moment, only well-established apps can afford to develop valuable services based on the capabilities of ChatGPT models in web applications. We suggest you bear this fact in mind when you’re doing your search for ChatGPT resources.    Best ChatGPT-powered applications The use of GPT models in web applications: Duolingo  A renowned EdTech learning platform offers courses in more than 40 languages. Early in 2023, Duolingo released a new tier subscription enhanced by ChatGPT and an AI tutor. A paid subscription program became available the same day the GPT-4 version was launched. The company says the “Explain My Answer” and “Roleplay” features were developed closely with OpenAI and took months of testing.  “Explain My Answer” verifies if the answer given by the user at the lesson was correct. The app “explains” why their answer was right or wrong, enhancing this reply with examples. This feature helps language learners avoid making repetitive mistakes in the future.  With the “Roleplay” feature, users talk to characters in the app and improve their conversational skills using different scenarios — from ordering coffee in a cafe to discussing vacations. The capabilities of GPT-4 ensure the conversation is responsive and interactive simultaneously. The text prompts consider the user’s language skill level. So far, these features are limited to particular languages, and the company plans to expand the range of languages supported by the in-app AI tutor. Duolingo experts improve the AI knowledge base and enhance generative explanations' relatability, ensuring all answers are provided in the same tone and factually correct.  Khan Academy Khan Academy, a non-profit educational center, launched the Khanmigo AI tool in March 2023. A self-learning tool, Khanmigo supports students and teachers by generating relevant prompts and providing real-time feedback. Testing a new version of OpenAI’s language model began in 2022. An AI tutor offers personalized learning experiences, highlighting students' errors, engaging them in exercises, and asking them questions. Students need to elaborate on their thought processes, as prompted by the AI tutor. The educational flow is close to the human approach, guiding a student with the help of hints instead of referring them to ready solutions. The reasoning and thought process become accents of such an approach.  ChatGPT Plus A paid subscription plan from the AI company provides users with guaranteed (without the popup message  “ChatGPT at Capacity”) and stable access to the service even at peak times for $20 a month. It means priority access to the latest features, for example, GTP-4, the ability to read (but not produce) images, and a faster response time. The paid subscription model is expected to gradually bring new services and release some features to paid users before including them in the free plan.   Bing Chat A fresh iteration of Bing released by Microsoft features an AI chatbot as its distinct innovation. This chatbot is fueled by the same technology that powers ChatGPT models in web applications. As Microsoft states, the upgraded Bing incorporated a conversational function driven by an advanced iteration of OpenAI's extensive language model, surpassing the capabilities of ChatGPT. Subsequently, it appeared that Bing's AI chat functionality was based on OpenAI's GPT-4, the pinnacle of OpenAI's advancements. With this enhanced Bing version, users can engage the AI chatbot to seek answers and receive comprehensive responses akin to human-like interactions, complete with footnotes and citations that connect to primary sources and current data. Beyond assisting with inquiries, the chatbot also caters to creative needs, such as composing poems, essays, or songs. Moreover, it utilizes Bing's Image Creator tool to generate visuals based on textual input, all within the same integrated platform. Be My Eyes Since 2012, the “Be My Eyes” app has been assisting the expansive community of over 250 million individuals who are visually impaired or blind. This Danish app is the point of connection between volunteers and people with visual challenges, navigating product identification and orientation in airports. Harnessing the cutting-edge capabilities of GPT-4 through its research preview phase, Be My Eyes has embarked on creating a GPT-4 powered Virtual Volunteer™ integrated within their app. This innovative feature can emulate a human volunteer's contextual understanding and empathy. In early 2023,  the company initiated a beta-testing of this GPT-supported assistant. The outcomes have been remarkably positive, leading to the imminent availability of this feature for users within a matter of weeks. Unlike other machine learning models, GPT-4  has outstanding conversational prowess and heightened analytical capabilities. It is a transformative technological advancement and a significant advantage of using GPT models in web applications. Stripe Earlier this year, Stripe embarked on an unconventional initiative, engaging its employees in a unique endeavor: temporarily setting aside their regular tasks to think about the platform’s new features, using OpenAI's latest language learning model, GPT-4. The team identified the areas where artificial intelligence, particularly GPT-4, could be utilized to comprehend unstructured text and images, generate human-like responses, and enhance existing features and workflows. Stripe provides small and large businesses with payment tools across the digital landscape. With developers being the primary users of Stripe's software, strengthening their development proficiency is the focus. Previously employing GPT-3 to augment their team's effectiveness in tasks like serving issue tickets and handling user inquiries, Stripe has now advanced to the GPT-4 phase. The Stripe team implemented 15 GPT-4 prototype models to enhance personalized support, improve responses to support-related queries, and fortify fraud detection measures. Morgan Stanley A financial service corporation of global standing has a vast database of knowledge and market research analysis. Morgan Stanley’s employees must dig into numerous internal sites to sift through extensive content and develop a solution.  Morgan Stanley has turned to OpenAI’s GPT-4 capabilities to address this challenge. This journey started when the GPT-3 model was in place, and the approach has now evolved to incorporate the capabilities of GPT-4. The focal point of this endeavor is the development of an internal chatbot powered by GPT-4. This advanced chatbot performs comprehensive searches across the knowledge base, allowing employees to resolve their requests most efficiently. Morgan Stanley is currently considering employing AI capabilities to streamline client communication.   Conclusion   We hope that our review of the GPT-4 resources in top applications could shed some light on the opportunities of this language model. Please enter your email address in the headline above and subscribe to our blog to learn about the latest IT developments! You may also be interested in the following: Leveraging Copilot, ChatGPT to Solve Technical Challenges: Case Study Core ML as a Technological Solution for Fitness Apps How to Build an Efficient AI-backed Team ### Continuous Refactoring. 12 Best Practices from Ruby Developers Have you ever heard of the broken windows theory? If not, the broken windows theory implies that visible signs of disorder and neglect in a community, such as broken windows or graffiti, can lead to an increase in crime and antisocial behavior. And what if I told you that you can apply this theory to coding?  In coding, the broken windows theory suggests that ignoring or neglecting small issues (e.g., code quality, naming conventions, or documentation) can lead to a deterioration of overall codebase quality and an increase in software bugs and maintenance challenges over time. However, refactoring is here to help you lessen the impact of this phenomenon. If you want to make your code better and your life easier, here’s a list of tips on continuous refactoring you should consider taking into account.  Understanding refactoring In simple terms, continuous refactoring means regularly improving and tidying up your code as you work on it, just like keeping a room clean by picking up after yourself, so that it remains easy to understand and maintain, rather than letting issues pile up and become harder to fix later. Note that refactoring only works if your code is thoroughly tested. The easiest way to find out if your code can be refactored is to break it and check how many tests have failed. For example, you can change a condition or delete a private method call. If a few tests, or, ideally,  a couple of unit tests and a dozen integration tests have failed, you can easily refactor your code. That's why you should keep in mind that tests are an important part of the project. No refactoring will work without them. So the basic improvement of any project is writing tests. If you want to do better, find out from testers, business analysts or other colleagues the expected behavior and write a test. Having mentioned that, we can get to the most interesting part – the tips themselves.  Literals to constants Literals are fixed values that are explicitly written in your source code to represent specific data types, such as numbers, text, or boolean values, without any calculations or variables involved. They often engage with business logic, so any code where conditional operations are performed on literals must be rewritten. Note that we’re specifically talking about the literals that are used to define application rules (not configuration!) or separate parts of code. Large code bases are usually full of literals. Take MVC, for example. Literals leak into View, causing bugs and preventing extensibility. But here’s a solution. Just give those literals a name and put them next to the code that depends on them. This simple yet effective tip can make your life so much easier.  Naming literals links them to entities in the code, making any subsequent changes, whether large refactoring or extension of application functionality, much simpler and more predictable. In special situations, following this rule allows you to extend the functionality of individual classes by literally adding one line of code. For example, it is better to bring a very common condition like the one below to the form in which there will be a named variable in the right part of the comparison operation. This constant may not be in the project code yet, then you need to create it, but it's better to look for it anyways – maybe someone has already declared it and accidentally missed a place. if object.type == “MyObject”  In this case, the condition may look somewhat like the ones below, meaning that it needs refactoring.  if object.type == ALLOWED_OBJECT_TYPE  # or  if object.type == MyObject.name Which means that the condition can be refactored even further, like this: if object.is_a?(MyObject) It is worth noting the use of literals as keys in the lists. They not only hide the purpose of these keys, but can also lead to unpleasant bugs, when the same key wanders between the branches of business logic and at some point turns into a symbol. This is less the case for Hashes as literals( { ‘keyname’ => SOME_VALUE } ), but more for operations.  my_object_hash[‘keyname’] == SOME_VALUE  may be changed to  my_object_hash[MY_VALUE_KEY] == SOME_VALUE Overall, If you see a literal (a constant or a method of an existing class) in the condition, name it  If you see a literal used as a key, name themIf you see “magical numbers”, name them Name conditions There’s nothing worse than debugging multiline conditions with every possible operation from Boolean algebra in them. But once you start naming those conditions, you’ll see how patterns begin to appear. But don’t be fooled by the optimality of fulfilling conditions such as the following:  If condition_one_assertion || condition_two_assertion || condition_three_assertion This example shows us that conditions 2 and 3 won’t be tested if condition 1 returns “true”. Saved CPU seconds will be more than compensated for the time spent on debugging, and loss of reputation from dissatisfied customers. After all, such constructions often look much more confusing: if one_object.status == STATUS_ONE ||   DateTime.current.in?((1.day.ago)..(1.day.since)) ||  curret_user.role == ADMIN_ROLE Feel free to name these conditions. If there is a real problem with performance (after all, the logic behind the calculation of one boolean value can be quite complicated) – hide the logic into the method.  Named conditions bring clarity to code and eliminate cognitive errors in the interpretation of these conditions: object_in_good_state = one_object.status == STATUS_ONE it_is_already_time = DateTime.current.in?((1.day.ago)..(1.day.since))  Current_user_has_permission = current_user.role == ADMIN_ROLE if object_in_good_state || it_is_already_time || current_user_has_permission Name and group scopes  When you see a series of calls of ActiveRecord::QueryMethods you’re probably looking at code that needs to be refactored. Declare scope for most common QueryMethods. This will save time on refactoring and help you eliminate bugs when the same condition is changed in only one part of the logic.  It’s not necessary to name big scopes at first. On the contrary, try to keep the conditions inside the scope as atomic as possible. However, if you notice constructions of 3 or more scopes start to form, consider naming them too.  Visibility of methods/interfaces In general, this applies to projects developed following the object-oriented paradigm where violating the Open-Closed principle leads to problems on the architectural level. If you see a class that has more than one method (not including the constructor method) and all the methods are declared as public, this very well might be a poorly written class and you can benefit from hiding some of its methods behind the “private” keyword. This will protect the project from potential misuse of the class in the future, as well as its refactoring would do. It’s much easier to refactor private methods than methods that you don’t know where and how can be used. That’s why if the method is not used outside the class body (e.g. in other classes or somewhere else in the code) this method should be declared as private.  Variable and class namings If you see variables, methods, classes or modules in the code whose names confuse you, it probably makes sense to make some adjustments – give them more explicit names or a name that better describes its usage. If the name of your class is a verb then it’s safe to say that you have found a procedure. Rewrite the class and write the procedure.  Generally try to follow a simple principle that if your code describes some action, you’re most likely working with a procedural or functional approach and it should be named with a verb. For example, AuthenticateUserWithPassword, RetrieveDataFromEndpoint, CloneAttributes. Also such objects often don’t require additional methods as they are only supposed to carry out one operation, which the name suggests.  If a class describes some abstract object – an API client, a data validator or a message sender – then you’re most likely working with an example of OOP and its name should be a noun (not to be confused with verbal nouns. For example, SpreeApiClient, RequestDataValidator, EventsNotifier. Examples such as UserAuthenticatorWithPassword or DataFromEnpointRetriever are terrible and should be converted into procedures with an explicit verb in the name.  Interface shrinking Following the interface segregation principle our object should have reasonably simple and specific interfaces. In this case, we’re not always talking about redoing the entire dependency chain or refactoring services and controllers. It is often enough to fix places in your code that look like this:  def call(**params) def my_method(arg1, arg2 = 1, arg3 = 2, arg4 = 3, kwarg1:, kwarg2: 4) Generally you should always choose methods with named arguments rather than methods with an unnamed and infinite set of input parameters. Such methods are often difficult to call and even more often they are called with too much data. The earlier a method accepting an infinite set of data is passed to a specifically defined interface, the less problem you’ll have to deal with. Because it’s much easier to extend an interface in the future, adding 1 or 2 arguments, than to remove the support of 50 arguments that are used in various combinations in different parts of the application.  There are edge cases where you can pass a structure to a method, the structure being a typed (as much as possible) object with an explicitly written interface.  The same should be done with “swiss-knife-services”. The single responsibility principle suggest that we create objects that are able to do as few things as possible. If you see a class that does 5 different things, break it up into 5 smaller classes. It won’t do any harm but the number of problems with understanding these classes will be much smaller.  Get rid of state where it’s not necessary One of the most frequently used approaches that needs to be redone is using states where they are not really necessary. In OOP, states are usually used to manage an object's behavior. This exact use case is described in the Dependency Inversion principle. However in web applications that we develop, the DI principle is not always applicable. Especially when the state of the object stores data on which it performs some kind of operations. Almost always, this logic can be redone in a procedural style and you get rid of a state in class objects. Let’s take this class as an example: class MyLogicDoer   def initialize(my_object, options)     @my_object = my_object     @options = options   end   def do_logic(argument)     do_piece_of_logic     ...     do_another_piece_of_logic   end   private   def do_piece_of_logic     # calls @my_object   end   def do_another_piece_of_logic     # calls @options   end end Such a class can be turned into a procedure that will have no state, an easily testable logic, and may even use less memory: class DoMyLogic   def self.call(my_object, options, argument)     do_piece_of_logic(my_object)     ...     do_another_piece_of_logic(argument)   end   private   def do_piece_of_logic(my_object)     # receives my_object as an argument to call   end   def do_another_piece_of_logic(options)     # receives options as an argument to call   end end In this example, we simplified the code entity and now only logic is described in it, so there is no “complexity” that the class implies. Best case scenario – a function. Such code is easier to use. You don’t need to build a class object and it’s easier to maintain - finding the module name in the code base is enough to understand where it is used. It can be combined with other modules and even passed as an argument somewhere on the road of functional programming with its higher order function. Remove logic from the constructor If you ever come across a code that describes a convenient abstraction with some of the logic described in the constructor of this abstraction, you can easily get rid of it, especially if this logic may crash or needs too many resources. It doesn’t matter if it’s a part of preparation logic or it’s the logic of configuration and access verification. There is no place for such things in the constructor. Barely any developer thinks that MyClass.new can issue an error or cause memory leak. Thus, any logic in the constructor will sooner or later lead to unexpected results. Here’s what you can do. Move to a separate method From this: class MyClass   def def initialize(attribute)     @attribute = attribute                   process_attributes(attributes)     end   def my_logic     ...   end End To this:  class MyClass   def def initialize(attribute)     @attribute = attribute   end   def my_logic     process_attributes(@attributes)     ...   end End Move state to memoization class MyClass   def def initialize(attribute)     @attribute = attribute   end   def my_logic     get_processed_attributes     ...   end   def other_logic     get_processed_attributes   end   private   def get_processed_attributes     if defined?(@processed_attributes)       return @processed_attributes     else       ...     end   end end Optimize data structures The choice of optimal data structures is equally important, but more complex. Usually, in Ruby or JavaScript, developers don’t think much about how much it costs them to use certain embedded objects, because memory management lies with the interpreter, and the implementation of a long list of interfaces for certain “specialized” structures is already present in standard classes. Therefore, they take Array for collections, and Hash for lists or structures. This advice can be divided into two parts. The first one precisely concerns the misuse of embedded data structures, when several improvements can be made to the code at once with small changes. The second one is more about changing the data flow or reformatting them to achieve certain results. Use Set, SortedSet In Ruby, in addition to the usual list (Array), there are several other implementations for data collections. Using them, you can achieve significant performance improvements and improve code readability. Any place where the #uniq method is called on an Array class object, can be easily replaced by using Set, which will initially store only unique elements. Another feature of Set is that, compared to Array, it checks the occurrence of an element in the collection faster, therefore, if somewhere in the code within the same logic branch the Array class object is often called the #include? method (or its analogues) it is worth considering using Set. SortedSet has all the same features, but it also returns objects in sorted order. Therefore, if the #uniq and #sort methods are called on an Array class object, SortedSet is definitely needed here. Reassign data to make it easy use It is difficult to give any universal advice here, because the problems of data flow management, their processing and use cannot be considered inseparably from the field of application. Therefore, we won’t touch on the areas of Big Data, or the problems of parallel access. We will talk about common examples when unwillingness or fear to change the data structure before performing any operations on them starts to bring problems, whether it's the speed of code writing, semantic errors or irrational use of resources. We’ll focus only on a couple of small tips that will help you figure out how to organize the data flow yourself. Hash#key? and Hash#[] are quicker than Array#include? or Array#find  Array[Object], Array[Object, Object] easily turn into Hash with the help of the Hash::[] method Methods that change the state of an object (methods with an exclamation mark) are not so terrible if the data doesn’t leave the scope of the method, because they allow you to save some memory and time. Hash#new takes as arguments a block that will execute every time Hash#[] does not find the requested key Enumerable#inject with an argument and a block (...inject({}) { |hash, value| }) makes it very convenient to build a new Hash OpenStruct и HashieMash as arguments for methods Perhaps some of the most difficult refactorings were associated with these classes. We can understand developers who add them to their logic: it's fast, convenient, and doesn't require a description of structures and interfaces. You just take an object, put data in it, and send it deep into the dependency chain, hoping that everything will work. But as a development team that had to maintain code and business logic that depended on objects of these classes, we do not recall that any of these advantages made our lives easier. Therefore, in code we prefer to replace them with Struct or some other alternative “wrapper” that allows you to restrict the interface. #Map VS. #Each If you find a place in the code where #map is used (or another iterator that returns a new data structure), and the result of its execution is not used anywhere, it may be worth replacing it with an iterator #each. There are also other cases when the data structure is created using #each. For example: hash = {} some_values.each do |val|   hash[...] = val End In such cases, it is advised to explicitly replace such a construction with something else, for example #reduce: hash = some_values.reduce({}} { … } Get rid of magic In our practice we always follow a simple rule - explicit is better than implicit. So when we come across a logic that a computer can’t interpret on the first try, we either try to rewrite the code or ignore it. But when ignoring is not an option, here are some examples of such a code that can be improved by removing all the “magic” around it.  #constantize and #safe_constantize methods In our practice, using these methods (as well as using Kernel#eval or ObjectSpace) to build logic has never done any good. There are several more convenient techniques that do not require deep refactoring, allowing you to achieve similar behavior without harm to the code. # bad code “SomeModule::#{my_string.upcase}”.constantize.new # good code MY_MODULES_MAP = {   ‘first_class’ => SomeModule::FirstClass,   ‘third_class’ => SomeModule::ThirdClass,   ‘i_havent_thought_that_this_would_be_the_case’ => OtherModule::OtherClass } MY_MODULES_MAP.fetch(my_string).new # or you can use a good old case/when statement case my_string when   ‘first_class’:   SomeModule::FirstClass.new …. # and so on end The beauty of such constructions compared to the “elegant” magic of #constantize is that for a person who looks into this code, it immediately becomes clear which “my_string” are valid, and which dependencies the file in which this code is written has. #send and  #public_send No matter how much simpler and “more beautiful” they look, these two have no place in your code. These methods hide the real “scope” of the area of responsibility, and do not allow you to write normal logic tests. And sometimes they cause very strange and hard-to-diagnose bugs. Get rid of them as quickly as possible from legacy code, and do not use them in the new one. Again, the good old case/when can help you out. What works together lives together Rails naming conventions have only one goal - a quick unambiguous interpretation of the project. However, this goal does not correlate at all with the real project problem – complexity. Your project contains 300k lines, most of which are stored in the services folder? Most likely, this is a very complex project. The default file structure of a Rails project is not always suitable for complex projects. Therefore, you can keep a more transparent structure of files and folders describing the real purpose of the code in them, as well as grouping this code so that a person opening a project can immediately assume what this project is all about. The file structure in the project should be classified according to its functional connectivity. For example, if you have a lot of files that are responsible for exporting PDFs, shove them into the app/modules/export/pdf folder. In the same folder, you can put the activerecord model, if there is one. For example, do that to store an export record with a link to the exported document. Need Sidekiq for export? Then feel free to create a worker in the same folder app/modules/export/pdf/some_action_worker.rb Rail controllers, in turn, are pretty much tied to routing, and if you don't want to bother with a zeitwerk loader, you'll have to leave them as they are. You don't write business logic in controllers, do you? If you can't sleep knowing that the controllers live separately, you can move them to the module folder, just don't forget to explicitly upload your controllers to application.rb and put together a definition. However, transformations of this kind require much more effort and clear communication with other team members. Therefore, coordinate such changes in advance, or find out if it will not contradict the standards and documentation of the project. Missed our previous article? Follow our blog and don't miss our next post! ### 5 Best Practices to Keep Your Web App Stable as it Grows An unstable web app is a commercial disaster. Even the most skilled developers can't always prevent crashes. If users don’t trust your app, then it's definitely a failure. That's why it's important to prioritize stability from the very beginning of development to prevent unexpected issues. Although you can't foresee every problem, taking a proactive approach to solving them can make a significant impact. Let's explore some effective ways to ensure your web app remains stable and reliable! Identifying Issues in Your Web App It's best to catch any new errors as early as possible. One big reason people delete apps is due to bugs. While you can say sorry and suggest they give it another shot, apologies don't hold much weight nowadays. To demonstrate that you value users' app experience, work on spotting and resolving errors. Providing an excellent user experience involves being proactive about errors from the start. When there are issues, keep users informed so they feel confident you're dedicated to fixing things fast! More info about user experience here. Handling Web App's Memory Usage Problems App crashes can happen not only due to download spikes but also because of memory management problems. Keep in mind that not all users use your app on powerful devices with ample storage. To tackle this, your app should come with its own memory management system to identify areas that are using up too much space. Start by focusing on the most important features necessary for the app to work well. There might be features that take up space but don't really add much value to the app. Additionally, make sure that network requests are small enough so they don't overwhelm any device. Testing Your Web App To ensure your app's reliability, it's important to conduct thorough testing both before and after its release. Although many developers have robust testing procedures before the initial launch, these often taper off as the app evolves. However, since users install your app on various devices, maintaining consistent functionality is vital. By testing your app across different devices, you can overcome limitations and enhance performance effectively. Implement Caching  Caching is a critical technique used in web development to improve the performance and responsiveness of web applications by temporarily storing frequently accessed data or resources, such as HTML pages, images, database query results, and more. When properly implemented, caching reduces the need to repeatedly fetch and generate data from the source, which can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. Instead, the cached data is retrieved from a faster, more accessible storage location, such as memory, to serve it quickly to users. Keeping An Eye On Your Web App The smart approach to avoid issues is to examine them as they happen. Using an app monitoring system allows you to monitor your app's performance over time. This way, you can spot areas for enhancement before they turn into significant problems. By precisely recording errors, you'll be better equipped to prevent them down the line by addressing core issues wherever they arise. Getting User Input Lastly, the most effective way to guarantee your app's reliability is by asking for feedback from your current users. While developers understand their app well, user feedback offers a fresh perspective. Incorporating feedback options within the app can help you learn more about your current users. It's also essential to regularly review app feedback through user reviews. While not all feedback might be useful, it provides valuable insight into recurring issues and areas for potential improvement. Sustaining a stable web app is no small feat in today's world. If you aim to enhance your app and tap into monetization opportunities, it's crucial to take a proactive approach to its stability. By following the tips above, you can ensure that your app keeps evolving and realizes its full potential. ### How we drove a 4 mln artwork online store speed by 25% with no extra cost In the realm that applies to e-commerce, the notion "the more, the merrier" might not always hold true. While a growing number of products, customers, and data often signifies prosperity, it can also introduce challenges – particularly regarding platform performance and infrastructure costs. Managing such scenarios calls for careful and sustainable strategies. In our e-commerce experience with the artwork online store, we delved into a situation that exemplified these intricacies. The initial request from a customer, artwork online store owner Most e-commerce businesses operate through a website or application, facilitating the buying and selling goods or services. The typical online shop carries a limited quantity of items, often evading challenges related to performance or infrastructure costs. However, when a platform serves numerous customers, the dynamics change. These platforms, termed "Multi-Tenant," can host millions of unique products. Handling such vast data volumes can unveil numerous optimization opportunities. This article explores one such case. Similar to platforms like Shopify, our client is an e-commerce solution (an artwork online store) supporting around 10,000 active websites. Since its foundation, the platform has accumulated about 4 million products, leading to substantial costs on its Cloudinary account. The cost increase didn't occur suddenly but consistently grew over the years. Intermediate efforts In our attempts to address the escalating costs of the artwork online store, we focused on optimizing the Cloudinary storage. We came up with two primary strategies: Derived Assets Cleanup. We looked into the derived assets, the feature that allows the creation of transformed versions of original files. Since our application frequently involves scenarios where buyers apply these transformations, it was a logical starting point. Cloudinary offers a built-in feature to purge derived assets that haven't been accessed over a specific period. This action allowed us to save about 8% of Cloudinary storage. As part of our routine, we eliminate those derived assets that haven't been accessed in the past three months. Cleaning Deleted Database Products' Assets. Over time, we got rid of many products from our platform. However, due to a code-level vulnerability, the deleted products' assets sporadically persisted in Cloudinary storage, leading to unnecessary costs. Our strategy was identifying and eliminating these orphaned assets, ensuring we only paid for relevant content. This pivotal improvement led to a savings of approximately 20% on asset storage. Together, these essential steps led to a combined savings of approximately 28% on asset storage. While the outcomes of these measures were positive, our quest for further optimization continued. Brief domain description Understanding our artwork online store platform's core: It is specially designed for photographers and painters, offering them a space to upload, manage, and market their unique creations. Once artworks are uploaded, they don't only serve as visual goods like NFTs, but they also can turn into physical products through various methods such as: Prints on photo paper; Artistic woodcuts; Merchandise prints. Now, diving a bit deeper into the functionalities, our platform offers two distinct types of product uploading: Website Owner Products. This feature allows website owners to upload their artworks and place them within specific sections of their website;  Customer-Side Upload. Certain websites on our platform allow end customers to upload their images for customized product fulfillment. Example: a user uploads a photo of their pet to make a unique design on a T-shirt. The "Customer-Side Upload" quickly became a prime area for deeper investigation. About 2 million or 50% of the entire product repository came from this method. But was it necessary to retain them all? While we couldn't simply remove everything through one database transaction, this segment was a low-hanging fruit from the performance improvement perspective. It was a goal for the examination from a business point of view. Upon examining the codebase, analyzing the historical data of approximately 800k orders since 2014, and consulting with the Product Owner, we discerned several customer behavior patterns: Typically, customers purchase their self-uploaded products within a day; Products that were not purchased within the first week seldom found buyers later on; We must retain customer-uploaded products ordered in the artwork online store regardless of how long ago. It is crucial because their images or any supplemental information might be essential for fulfillment, and they also hold value for the website owners. Come up with a plan around the cleaning up We decided to concentrate on new incoming products rather than removing old customer uploads. This measure was motivated by the safer approach, allowing us to test the hypothesis on a limited number of items without risking large-scale errors. The agreed-upon procedure is as follows: Initialization: When a product is uploaded, we trigger a background job that is set to wait for one month; Evaluation: After the one month, we determine if the product has been purchased; Action: If the product remains unpurchased, we delete it, ensuring efficient use of our storage.  Appendix A: Pseudocode for Product Deletion Process After thoroughly testing the feature in our staging environment, we released it in production. We then patiently awaited feedback to determine if customers encountered any issues with the updated workflow. This approach did not negatively impact our customers, allowing us to confidently proceed to the next major step: removing old uploaded products that meet the specified criteria. Considering the significant system load associated with product deletions, we formulated the following plan: Job Creation: Design a delayed job that assesses whether a product qualifies for deletion. If the criteria are met, it initiates the removal service (Refer to Appendix B); Batch Processing: Establish another delayed job that handles product batches. This job schedules the product batch deletion tasks, spacing them out to mitigate performance issues (Refer to Appendix C); Rake Task: Develop a rake task that enables us to estimate the timing intervals and amount of products of the Batch Processing running, letting us identify the best settings; Scheduling: We'll initiate the rake task at the calculated intervals once we determine the best delay. After experimenting with various input parameters for our implemented rake task for the artwork online store, we found an optimal setting: a removal rate of 5,000 products per hour. Given the initial volume of data, the entire process of identifying and removing outdated products would take about one month. We established a daily routine during removal to guarantee we didn't introduce any critical issues. We began tracking several essential metrics daily: Number of Database Products, Amount of Database Entities related to products, Cloudinary Storage space used, and the Number of Cloudinary Resources. Appendix B: Pseudocode for Product Deletion Job Creation for the Artwork Online Store Share the results Having set the stage with our thorough testing and daily monitoring routine, we now focus on the outcomes of our efforts. The process went smoothly: the set-up restrictions allowed us to remove significant amounts of data and not experience any performance issues. Once all products were processed, we received the following results: The Cloudinary storage was reduced from about 50 TB to around 40 TB (even though continuous product uploading was not taken into account), so we saved about 20% of our storage; Roughly 2 million products were removed, leading to a 50% downsizing of the products table; A similar 50% reduction in products-related database entities resulted in the deletion of 200 million records. Beyond the primary goal of optimizing Cloudinary, we achieved substantial improvements at the database level. We assessed the loading times of our most frequented pages, and the average duration exhibited an impressive speed-up of approximately 25%. Appendix C: Pseudocode for Scheduling Product Batches for Deletion Conclusion Diving into the domain's internals and considering our customers' buying experience, we optimized Cloudinary storage and significantly improved database performance. This experience reaffirmed a well-known principle that meaningful business outcomes often arise from a deep understanding of domain specifics. Many impactful technical solutions might require simple implementations. Indeed, our journey echoed many of the principles outlined in Eric Evans' recognized work – "Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software." Evans emphasizes the importance of deeply understanding the problem domain, collaborating closely with experts, and modeling solutions that align closely with the domain's realities. Our experiences served as practical proof of these DDD principles. While the technical nuances of software can be intricate, they truly shine when grounded in a clear, well-understood domain context. It's an enduring reminder that, sometimes, the key to innovative solutions or successful performance optimization lies in revisiting foundational principles and applying them with renewed insight. In closing, while some new approaches are still invaluable, the power of deep domain knowledge paired with strategic action is transformative. True mastery often involves optimizing what's already known rather than perpetually seeking the new. Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Smash This to Mitigate Business Automation Risks This article about business automation risks is helpful for app owners considering scaling up their businesses. The developers’ sandbox is the solution that ensures smooth modernization without hiccups. The real case study below discovers how we applied the sandbox tool to facilitate the business automation process for our client.  Approaching business automation risks What if you need to roll out new features for your digital product but fear it will affect its performance? The concern is valid, but it doesn’t mean your modernization bumps into obstacles. There are cloud solutions that arrange isolated test environments and let developers see how the product will perform in real life.   Business automation is an example of such modernization, with various programs underpinning this process. Usually, these program utilities are intended to solve specific problems. These systems provide different facilities depending on the complexity of the business. They can be combined or used as a single end-to-end solution.  To address business automation risks, companies must move with the integration. At some point, it involves creating a single ecosystem with the automation program. This tends to be quite a challenge, both for the business and the technical teams involved in implementing and supporting such integrations. Our team often receives automation requests from our clients. Sometimes, it implies relatively simple actions to stabilize such ecosystems. On other occasions, it leads to more systematic work. The case we will tell you about belongs to the latter category.  Business automation risks in the e-commerce platform One of our clients, an e-commerce platform with a rather complex business model, is set on developing multi-feature functionalities. This platform's business targets B2B and B2C markets in three locations. Our team was invited to implement new features and estimate what it takes to realize this plan. We preface the development stage with a rigorous business analysis and discovery work. When gathering requirements and assessing the new functionality, we spotted low transparency in the automation and complex system of the entire business.   Our analysts, therefore, identified several essential risks that could bring the business tangible harm.  Before rolling out the new features, we needed to ensure the business works with a secure and robust system. The organization had a complex structure with different entities that had to be synchronized at each processing stage within the three systems. Hence, our foremost goal before development was to attune a seamless synchronization between all these entities.  The problem with the e-commerce website was that some sync functionality did not allow for modernization without the risk of a malfunction.  To ensure synchronization of the e-commerce order management system, we created a sandbox, a cloud-based test environment. This way, sales managers could spot potential weak points early and unblock modernization. What is a sandbox by Salesforce? After some research, we decided to use a Salesforce solution and test automation outside the e-commerce product.  Salesforce is a cloud-based software company; it provides customer relationship management (CRM) products working as an integrated CRM platform. The CRM software is delivered entirely online and greatly serves those who need to address business automation risks. Salesforce has a mobile SDK (software development kit) for building custom Android and iOS apps for customer instances.  Sandbox by Salesforce mimics your production instance with all or part of metadata, including contacts and account information, at a minimum. Using sandbox tests has become a best practice before implementing any real change. It’s never recommended to use development outright in production.  There are different types of sandboxes offered by Salesforce. Using a test environment cuts your operational time and reduces the cost of bugs due to their early detection and prevention.  Development using Salesforce is not much different from regular web development regarding approaches, technologies, and tools. In Salesforce, you can change the backend, frontend, and even the database model. Also, Salesforce provides declarative programming and offers a variety of built-in tools. As with any template solution, there are still some nuances and constraints, which we’ll touch on further. To begin with, Salesforce CRM is an entirely cloud-based solution. This means you do not have to compile anything on the local machine. If you prefer, you can collect the classes, but Salesforce handles the task automatically; the need to do this manually is rare. The manual compilation is only desirable when dependencies change.  Salesforce works with cached compiled classes. The system built on cloud technologies must not be installed on a local server. As a provider, Salesforce is responsible for setting up and maintaining servers. Its CRM architecture is multi-sphere and distributed; the principal servers are the USA, England, Germany, France, and Japan. AWS-based servers are set in the USA, Canada, India, and Australia.  Our solution  We set up the infrastructure necessary for testing before starting the development of the new functionality. For this purpose, we suggested adding another stable environment for testing and accumulating functionality. It was a preproduction environment. Our engineers created separate sandboxes for the development environment (stage) and the testing environment intended for the connected inventory management system and CRM (SalesForce). We have also adjusted the synchronization algorithm for all processes to use third-party sandboxes. At this stage, first of all, we made sure that the infrastructure was up and running.  Then, we faced the challenge of synchronizing each sandbox with three separate sites for each location. We had to manage the risk of duplicating order IDs from the three areas into one sandbox for the system to work smoothly. Mind that connecting a sandbox to each location was not economically justified. To this end, we provided a unique ID generation and duplicate control approach during synchronization.  Action time  It took us under two weeks to complete the work. Two specialists handled the process: one back-end engineer and one QA engineer.  The positive impact The underlying business system was successfully isolated from the effect of new functions, a direct result of our work that fully matched the initial goal. The business automation risks are now mitigated.  Another positive result is creating a stable environment for testing and accumulating new functionality. We could test and adjust this environment before it went into production.  Finally, we ensured 100% testing of all synchronization processes for the most vulnerable parts of the system without interfering with the business and operation processes.  Conclusion  Product improvement is crucial to the success of your business, but its sustainability and reliability cannot be overlooked. With modern testing environments, seeing the natural interaction between new features and your product is becoming safe. By following the best product safety practices while ensuring high functionality, you provide the mitigation of business automation risks. Check our startup section page to embrace all aspects of upscaling!   Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### 3 Web Application Development Trends to Keep an Eye on Before we delve into web application development trends, let's recall that CERN, the very first website, went live in November 1992. With all the modern technologies around, it’s hard to believe that websites used to be 100% text-based back then. Anyways, that was exciting and groundbreaking.  Fast forward to 2023. The internet has evolved immensely. Web development has become a superior and profitable niche, with more people every year learning to code and desperately trying to get a job. Being a web developer means you’re cool and intelligent. And rich, too. Right? Or? Finishing a web-dev course is not enough to become a professional and deeply understand web application development trends. It’s a long journey of endless learning, progressing, and catching up with trends, as those tend to shift quite often. In this article, we’ll uncover some of the latest web application development trends so that you can stay on top. But first, let’s figure out the difference between web applications and websites.  Web Apps vs. Websites The web application is software that runs in your web browser. They allow you to use complex functionality, such as item search, shopping cart, messaging, etc., without downloading and installing software.  Examples: Amazon, YouTube, Facebook A website is a set of connected web pages with images, text, audio, and video. It can consist of one or numerous pages so users can view and read the provided content. Example: JetRuby’s blog Now that we have mentioned the difference between those two terms, we can finally move on to the web application development trends. Multi Experience  “Multi-experience” term refers to delivering a flawless user experience through various touch-points. In other words, developers should now consider how users interact with their applications, whether through voice, touch, gesture, or even augmented reality. Creating a cohesive user experience across all these touchpoints can be challenging, but it is essential in today's multi-experience world.  Multi-experience is a massive web application development trend. However, it also includes other noteworthy tendencies. Let’s discuss some of them. Progressive Web Applications When responsiveness is not enough, progressiveness comes into play. Progressive web apps (PWAs) are web applications that look and feel like native mobile apps, although accessed through a web browser. Such applications aim at delivering a native-like user experience with faster conversion. PWAs are fast and designed to work offline seamlessly across many devices. Thus, they adapt to any screen size and browser. Huge companies, such as Facebook, Uber, Spotify, and others, have already adopted PWAs, and there’s no sign they’ll give up this idea soon. Optimized Voice Search Google introduced voice search in 2011, but this feature is still gaining popularity among users. The voice search assistant market is projected to grow to 11.2 billion by 2026. 51% of consumers use voice-enabled devices to research products. Voice search optimization is a set of SEO techniques that make your content more likely to appear in voice search results. Voice search optimization aims to address common verbal queries in your content so that voice search technologies and virtual assistants present your page to users in voice search results. Voice search presents another critical opportunity to capture organic search traffic, regardless of industry. By tapping into voice search, companies access a new cohort of users who rely on smartphones and smart speakers to find businesses and purchase products. AI Chatbots are at the forefront of Web Application Development Trends The increasing use of natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) technologies is expected to revolutionize chatbots, making them more “human-like.” These advancements could lead to more conversational and engaging interactions between users and chatbots, improving the overall user experience and providing more personalized service. Here are some of the scenarios of how AI chatbots can change businesses of different industries: eCommerce. Bots save support managers’ time by taking over mundane queries and offering personalized services to customers; Healthcare. More precise and personalized consultations, symptom analysis, appointment making;  Fintech. Financial consultations, expense control.  In terms of development, a user-centric approach is crucial for any project’s success. Although we’ve mentioned only three web application development trends, they all aim at delivering a smooth user experience. As these web application development trends evolve, they offer exciting opportunities for businesses, their customers, and developers, creating a compelling and user-friendly digital experience. Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Business Case: Reducing Maintenance Costs and Improving Efficiency At JetRuby, we understand the importance of staging and pre-production servers to effectively test a product during its active development phase, ensure production stability, and enable asynchronous feature release. However, we also understand that this approach can be quite expensive for enterprises, which may discourage many organizations from adopting this approach. This exact problem we have encountered with one of our clients. The Problem After creating an efficient supply stream that included deploying an additional pre-production server, the customer faced high maintenance costs. Satisfied with the improvements that the new infrastructure and delivery flow brought, our customer challenged us to reduce maintenance costs while maintaining all its benefits. Our Solution To solve this problem, we proposed implementing work schedules for the stage and pre-production servers, given the different time zones of our team and the three client offices (Australia, New Zealand, and the UK). This approach enhanced collaboration and responsiveness, while reducing downtime. We’ll cover positive results in more detail later in the article.  Since we originally used Terraform technology to design the project infrastructure (infrastructure as a code), we made all changes through Terraforms. This approach took us a little longer to implement, but it guaranteed that we could adjust the schedule without risking disrupting the entire system. We brought in a DevOps engineer to solve this problem. It took just over a day to complete the task. Positive Results The implementation of work schedules for the stage and pre-production servers had several positive results for our client: It led to a significant reduction in maintenance costs without sacrificing functionality or security. We implemented a solution that saved around $300 a month. It increased collaboration between our team and the client by streamlining the development process, resulting in faster feedback and issue resolution. It improved the overall efficiency of the development process by ensuring servers were only in use during peak hours, leading to more productive work days and fewer delays. At our agency, we provide technical solutions that solve business problems while improving efficiency and collaboration. By implementing work schedules for stage and pre-production servers using Terraform technology, we reduced maintenance costs, increased efficiency, and enhanced collaboration for our client. Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Manage Granular Permissions in Rails Applications and Forge App Security Summary: The publication continues our series about the advantages and specifics of the Ruby on Rails framework. Protecting sensitive files and data requires a reliable approach to granting roles and permissions inside the Rails app. This article describes the best practices of our developers applying granular permissions to assign specific roles in Ruby applications.  Why do we need granular permissions? Cybersecurity of web applications has been evolving over the years, raising the bar for organizations and applications to provide a sufficient level of security. Ruby on Rails is an efficient framework for building a scalable and secure web application.  Roles and granular permissions are crucial in restricting access to data and access. This way, you reasonably restrict access to the IT infrastructure, virtual networks, cloud systems, and sensitive information.  Top Rails applications benefit from the security features of the Ruby on Rails framework.  Permissions provide mechanisms for restricting access to specific actions for different categories of users. In a nutshell, they determine areas that the current user can access. For instance, granular permissions determine whether the user can edit or watch the post or whether the user changes these settings. The granular permissions system answers the question: Which part of a system can I access as the user? What can I do with this access as the user? Depending on the application’s type, we can install and use ready-made solutions like CanCanCan or Pundit, where the Policy implements all permissions. However, these options do not fit the applications allowing users to manage permissions or add custom roles. In the latter applications, we need a system that lets you dynamically change permissions without adjusting the code.  Below, we’ll describe our experience with designing granular permissions.  Requirements Our task is to enhance the new application with the granular permissions system. These detailed permissions can differentiate between actions made with attributes of entities (from now on, resources). Let’s delve into the core requirements:  Multiple resources, each has specific attributes.  Differentiation of access to individual attributes.  Ability to add roles by users.  Users can change permissions for roles. Example resources: Company, Workplace, Employee, Report. Every resource has its attributes.  Operation examples: CRUD (create, read, update, destroy), custom (import, download, etc.). We’ll underline it again that different resources may take different operations.  One picture is worth a thousand words, so let's move on to a diagram. Taking some inspiration from the permissions system on Salesforce and AWS, we came to the following structure of models and tables in the database: The above structure is abstract and is not tied to the specific domain industry. We will give a few simplified examples from our Rails application. Remember that the roles, resources, and permissions can be anything.  User  So, there are many users in the system. The row in the table “users” matches the user.  Role  Each row in the roles table represents a role with a set of permissions. For example, our application has several standard roles: Admin, Employer, and Worker. They have the element company_id=null.  These roles have fixed permissions that users do not alter. But users can create custom roles in their companies, respectively, company_id means the role in the company.  To allow configuring standard roles, each company must create a default set of three roles with the corresponding company_id. The choice of option depends on business requirements.  UserRole As the name suggests, this table is needed to connect the user and their role.  In our application, one user can have several roles. Still, inside the application, they can choose a specific role when logging in, so we don't have to worry about conflicting permissions in different roles. Permission We record a set of operations for each resource in the table, with all combinations and resource attributes to which the operation is applicable. For example, there is a Report resource with two attributes: description and filed_on (filing date). These attributes can be read or updated, and the report can be created. Bear in mind that it is a very simplified example. The following entries will be created in the permissions table: Permission(id=1, resource=Report, operation=read, field=description)  Permission(id=2, resource=Report, operation=read, field=filed_on) Permission(id=3, resource=Report, operation=update, field=description) Permission(id=4, resource=Report, operation=update, field=filed_on) Permission(id=5, resource=Report, operation=create, field=null) Some operations may not be applied to attributes and cover the entire resource. In our example, this is create. This system allows you to define possible permissions flexibly for various operations on resources and their attributes. RolePermission This table links roles to permissions. If the role has permission for a specific action on a resource attribute, you’ll find a record with the appropriate role_id and permission_id in this table.  Let's look at the following example. The Resource Report is already familiar to us. There's a role Employer. Let’s read the database to find permissions that are associated with this role through roles_permissions, and we get the following list: Permission(id=1, resource=Report, operation=read, field=description) Permission(id=2, resource=Report, operation=read, field=filed_on) Permission(id=3, resource=Report, operation=update, field=description) These permissions allow the user to read the description and field_on of the report. Still, only the description can be edited because there is no filed_on edit permission entry. How to use it? Here are some simple code examples. Creating new permissions: permission = Permission.create(resource: 'report', operation: 'read', field: 'description') Changing permissions for a role: # adding role.permissions << permission # removing role.permissions.delete(permission) Checking permissions This is the way to check if an operation is allowed on a specific resource: current_role.permissions.exists?(resource: 'report', operation: 'create') Checking if the operation is allowed on the resource attributes: current_role.permissions.exists?(resource: 'report', operation: 'update', field: 'description') Getting a list of all readable attributes of a resource: attributes_list = current_role.permissions.where(resource: 'report', operation: 'read') Creating a custom role: role = current_company.roles.create(name: params[:name]) role.permissions << Permission.where(id: params[:permission_ids]) As we can see, the Granular permission scheme solves many issues. We can add more resources, permissions, and roles without code adjustments (via new entries in the corresponding tables). Adding custom user roles is easy since everything is stored in the database. It is easy to cache, for example, with the help of Rails.cache function. Permissions and roles are rarely changed. Wrapping up Of course, there is no “one fits all” all-purpose solution. When you set up the permission system, don’t forget to ensure its compatibility with future development plans. Otherwise, its structure will have to be changed once in a while. Our task is to create a sustainable permissions system that entails current requirements and development plans. You may be interested in the following articles: Optimize the Performance of Ruby Web Applications Through the Server Configuration Optimizing the Web App Scaling Process with Ruby on Rails Join our community Once a month you will receive the most important information on implementing your ideas, evaluating opportunities, and choosing the best solutions! Email Subscribe By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Creating an Impressive Right-to-Left Design How we develop interfaces for Middle Eastern users Right to left design captures the focus of many creative agencies worldwide. The dynamic business landscape of the Middle East encourages us to closely monitor the preferences and habits of users in the region. First, that means making specific changes to the app design as writing and reading are done from right to left. Our agency follows the best UI/UX design practices that are good to remember during development.   The difference between LTR (left to right) and RTL (right to left) languages is the direction of the content and, therefore, the navigation.  RTL languages include Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew, with the majority speaking Arabic.   In this framework, the complete design must be mirrored or flipped. Since the navigation now proceeds from right to left, the header controls are mirrored, the back button leads forward, and even slide controls operate in the opposite direction. We want to tell you how we handle the localization of RTL languages. Let’s cover the fundamentals of the Right to Left design. Text direction in the right-to-left design UI elements, titles, and icons flow from right to left. If some parts of your text use LTR wording, phrases, or URLs, they are displayed respectively in the LTR format. Although the rest of the content is written in an RTL language, you follow this rule. Use the right alignment for the text, including headers. What if the interface is not mirrored yet, but you must paste the RTL text? In this case, text elements such as the toolbar buttons comply with RTL. Icons are flipped, and the text content is aligned right. Right to left design text orientation. Layout Orientation in the Right to Left Design The overall layout mirrors the RTL reading direction. Common elements like navigation bars, sidebars, and menus appear on the right side of the screen. Content like articles or main sections should start from the right and flow to the left. Research indicates that users from the Middle East region respond favorably to RTL progression when presented with content. App designers develop innovative solutions to avoid visually disordered app typography, such as organizing content in a single-column format. By doing so, they can ensure a more cohesive and aesthetically pleasing app design. Some aspects, such as symbols and icon directions, remain consistent in LTR and RTL layouts to accommodate diverse user bases and maintain familiarity across different regions. Should a UI alter its direction, designers do not mirror the following elements  Untranslated text or part of it Numbers We expect that UI mirroring causes these changes:  Icons appear on the opposite side of a space The layout reverses navigation buttons  Icons symbolizing direction (for example, arrows) are mirrored However, some elements should not be mirrored: Icons that don’t mean direction (for instance, a camera) Numbers Graphs and charts Icons and symbols: For clarity, let’s consider the icon design in iOS. With ready SF symbol, you can pick up interface icons for your app, as they already have right-to-left (RTL) languages. When designing custom symbols, you have the flexibility to specify their directionality to ensure consistency and clarity. If you are dealing with the icons that symbolize reading, right-align the text bars on the icon. Flip icons depicting motion: When we need to indicate the direction of movement, we put an icon in the respective RTL frame. Universal signs do not follow this rule. Put them without any flipping. Logos remain their orientation as well and are not flipped. An example of a universal symbol is a checkmark. The same also works for any items that are intended for right-handed people. Flipping them may confuse readers.  Media progress indicators and playback buttons are not reversed.  Flipping an element when working on the localized icon version is reasonable. When the app’s UI flips, the flipped version of the icon will perfectly fit it. We flip the linear representation of time in RTL, but the circular time symbol remains intact. The same principle works for the symbols with an arrow pointing clockwise — it is not mirrored, and the clockwise direction remains the same regardless of the writing format.  Progress indicators show the status of an action or process. In the case of RTL design, the progress bar also indicates a right-to-left directionality. Navigation The Right to the Left layout switches sides for the navigation and overflow menu. In the RTL format, we flip page selectors by putting relevant buttons to the right. Upon that, the “Next Page” indicators will be based on the left side. It is recommended to rearrange the numerals showing page numbers. However, putting the page selector in the LTR position makes sense if the primary content is still presented in English or another language with LTR writing.  Let’s consider the text of notifications. The layout and text are adjusted according to the notification language. We align the RTL text to the right.  Usually, operating systems automatically change the alignment of the search input text. The designer’s task is to position UI elements to avoid overlapping.  Rating indication is mirrored — the same works for directional animation, including Carousel.  Numerals Choose one type of numeral to be used in the UI. The mixture will be confusing.  It’s possible to use one of the two ways of writing Arabic numbers: 0 - 9 (Western Arabic) or ٨ ٧ ٦ ٥ ٤ ٣ ٢ ١ ٠ (Eastern Arabic).  Just like with the text, align numbers to the right.  Numbers must be read from left to right. Examples of images created in the Right to Left design format: Fonts A recommendation is to keep Arab fonts 1-2 px larger than non-RTL languages. You can increase fonds by about three points. The reason is that Arab letters are more complex and can quickly get less legible if you choose them to be the same size as, for example, English.  Of course, words from LTR languages don’t have to be mirrored, but they should be localized.  The comma separator is different in some RTL languages, and as long as it comes to Arabic, you should use the symbol (“،“). Arabic words are shorter, which cuts the final text. Make sure to check out the alignment after the translation is set.  To highlight the text, it is recommended to use overline rather than underlining.  You may consider agreeing on the font type with the client.  Conclusion  In each product's development, the users should be regarded as real individuals, not mere statistics to check off a list. The initial interaction with the product and its visual presentation largely determines the design's success. Subsequently, the ease and speed with which users can accomplish their objectives become crucial. Every user interaction with the product must effectively engage and guide them toward their desired outcomes. Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy Enjoyed the article? Check out other stories about design: Accessibility in design How to Build an App That Wows Users and Ensures the Success of Your Business ### 4 Tips to Build your Perfect Startup Structure How a startup is organized plays a crucial role in determining its success, particularly in the development team – a fundamental unit of any IT startup. An ill-considered organizational structure plan leads to miscommunication, downtime in the business cycle, and general sluggishness.  Therefore, investing time and effort in crafting an effective startup organizational structure is paramount. JetRuby began its activity as a startup, so we know. To illustrate this article, we’ve drafted a perfect startup structure frame for a young and technology-driven startup. Perfect startup structure Core Startup Organizational Structure: At the core of a startup's organizational structure are two critical positions: the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)  and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO). This role can also belong to stakeholders or founders. These key roles are leading in the startup structure.  Let’s delve into the structure of units. The development team is divided into four units, each assigned specific responsibilities. We’ll explore these teams and their roles within the startup structure below: UX Team: The User Experience (UX) team is vital for nearly every startup, as it focuses on creating an intelligent, customer-centered, and aesthetically pleasing visual design to offer users the best possible experience. This team closely collaborates with other units to deliver the final work. The proposed model for the UX team unit combines the efforts of the following members: UX designer Frontend developers Team leader. A UX researcher can join the team depending on how challenging the project discovery work is. Successful companies like Airbnb and Google have proven the pivotal role of UX research in ensuring a positive user experience and product performance. Gifted UX researchers create genuinely user-centered experiences by analyzing user behavior and providing valuable insights. Backend Team: The backend team is responsible for developing the app's core logic, handling interactions with cloud providers, and facilitating communication with the front end through API endpoints. The recommended organizational structure for the Backend team includes the following: Team lead Middle stack developers Backend engineers. A team lead coordinates the workflow inside the unit and supervises the job of backend developers. You may wonder about the role of middle-stack developers. We believe they enhance the relationship between frontend and backend developers, acting as a middle chain. This spares the time for both frontend and backend developers without being burdened by the intermediate layer or API endpoints. DevOps Team in the startup structure: The DevOps team is indispensable for the processes and tasks related to cloud infrastructure. DevOps ensures the smooth integration of new code into the repository before deploying new versions and conducting thorough code checks. Their primary objectives are to guarantee optimal user experience on their level of responsibility and reduce time-to-market. The DevOps unit typically has the following: Team lead Cloud Architect Site reliability engineer (SRE) System administrator. The DevOps lead manages the team, allocates roles and responsibilities, and supervises the workflow. Cloud architects handle the development and maintenance of cloud technology, while SRE specialists ensure applications and systems run smoothly without interruptions. The system administrator is responsible for managing and supporting the cloud. QA Team: The Quality Assurance (QA) team rigorously tests the application during its active development to identify and rectify bugs and errors, ensuring consistent and reliable operation. The QA team includes the following members: QA lead QA Analyst Testers. The QA lead manages and supervises the team, sets quality metrics and expectations for the product, and ensures they are met. The lead also drafts test plans and distributes tasks between team members.   The QA analyst develops and implements test plans, including manual and automated testing, and drafts necessary testing documents and unit tests. Testers conduct and run the checks, review system requirements, test scripts, analyze performance, and report to the QA analyst and Quality Assurance lead. Types of Startup Organizational Structures: Of course, startup structure comes in all different forms and shapes of organizational structure. It depends on many factors, including the activity character, achieved goals, and business patterns.  Let's examine five primary types: Functional Structure In this type of startup structure, a business is divided into role-based departments or teams, for example, sales, marketing, IT, finance, and human resources. This structure's advantage is its capacity to enhance performance and productivity by organizing resources according to their purposes. However, it may introduce bureaucratic layers and hinder creativity. Divisional Structure This structure breaks teams or units into larger divisions based on geographical or product-line criteria. Each division operates with its managers and teams, focusing on specific product or service lines. Unit leaders set up separate divisions in a particular product/service line.  This way, a product-based system is created. For example, a clothing business creates a product division for women, men, and children. Each of the three lines has dedicated marketing, distribution, design, and customer service teams. While suitable for product growth, it may lead to increased costs due to duplicated efforts. When you have different design teams in each unit, there is a risk of raising the total business cost as fabric supply is broken into parts.  Geographic Structure This type of business structure is tied to regional geography. It helps businesses to be cost-effective due to the proximity to specific resources. However, it may decentralize large companies, leading to disengagement of strategies. Every local unit may become self-contained without much effort to attune one’s actions with other units. Businesses will try to solve this challenge by ensuring a common understanding of the company’s goals and objectives.  Matrix Structure Initially developed for the space industry, this structure resembles a grid and establishes clear reporting lines between employees and their team leads. Grid encourages collaboration among team members with similar skill sets. An employee reports to their supervisor and functional manager at the same time. This way, operational and project systems overlap, ensuring excellent flexibility.  For example, someone with similar skill sets may be assigned to different units but collaborate on a single project. However, having multiple lines of command can lead to conflicts. Matrix structures are easily adaptive. Network  This structure implies collaboration with other companies or outsourcing specialists, such as contractors and freelancers. Third parties and independent contractors significantly contribute to the company’s activities.   You can find a lot of external similarities between the network and functional structures. If you’re considering employing this model, you should consider how much you are ready to rely on third parties. Suppose a significant part of your development work belongs to in-house activities. In that case, it may not be the most reasonable solution to integrate the network of freelancers or those specialists who are not reporting directly to your leading team.  How to Build Your Perfect Startup Structure? Involving the right talents in your startup organizational structure requires careful consideration. You have three main options: Local Team:  The traditional approach of hiring a full-time local developer team might seem logical. Hiring a full-time local development team allows for quick control and management. It provides you with complete control and quick access to your team. However, this approach can be costly due to expenses such as payroll taxes, employee insurance, office space, and supplies. For startups, this may not always be the most cost-effective option. Partial Outsourcing:  Under this model, the startup identifies specific areas that should be outsourced and delegate those tasks to an external team, including project management. The startup provides technical specifications, while the outsourced team handles the rest.  Another option within this scenario is to recruit remote workers for specific roles through a recruiting firm. The remote hires become part of the team but operate from the staffing company's headquarters, which covers their employment obligations. In this case, the hiring firm represents the official employer, handling taxes, salaries, and employment benefits. By employing this model, you can recruit several remote developers and organize them into dedicated development teams. Full Outsourcing:  Some entrepreneurs may choose full outsourcing, working with a specialized software development team located overseas, prioritizing cost savings. Another possibility is to employ a technical software development team. A dedicated team will handle the entire development work compared to partial staff recruitment, which involves hiring remote developers for a few key roles. This model is similar to the local team option, except it is located overseas and operates at the staffing company’s headquarters.  Bottom Line  Choosing the proper organizational structure is crucial for startup success. Adequate delegation of roles is essential to streamline operations and achieve your business goals. Suppose you have established your first startup organizational structure but are hesitant about further product development steps. What happens, then? Seeking professional guidance in navigating the startup landscape can help. Over the past decade, our experts have assisted numerous startups in bringing to life one-of-a-kind digital products. Through our Product Development Strategy Session, we provide personalized business consulting and craft a detailed plan for your product development. The following articles may spark your interest: How to Build an Efficient AI-backed Team Outsourcing Your App Development ### Success Story: AI-powered Farming Automation Farming automation is hitting record-breaking levels. According to the most recent Western Growers report, about 70% of growers invested in automation last year. Harvest assisting and weeding robots were the top priorities of the field automation process. As a technology company, we don’t remain on the sidelines! This post reviews our contribution to the farming automation project that made a sound technological impact. Building the AI Farming Automation System for the agricultural holding In this project, we performed as a development and technology partner for an Asian agricultural holding that intended to cut expenditures and maximize cow productivity. We developed customized hardware and software engineering solutions to address these goals. Our approach was developed for large-scale farming as the partnering holding operated a herd of 3000 cows and three dairy farms. Our farming automation concept implied building a one-stop system that fully satisfies the project goals set by the client. We approached this concept through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, relying on IoT systems (sensors) for data collection. First, we sought to understand farming activity with the help of data. Challenge We intended to collect the raw data with the help of sensors. Our goal was to establish control over the condition and behavior of cows by configuring IoT systems and synchronizing their operation. However, no manufacturer on the market could fully match our sensor requirements. Of course, there is no shortage of hardware products in the world. But the security considerations did not allow us to choose hardware centered around cloud storage. Also, we were stipulated by technical limitations of equipment that could be employed on a large scale in the AI-backed Farming Management System. That’s why we decided to conduct deep modernization and customization of equipment components supplied by different manufacturers. Solution An intense R&D phase allowed us to understand how equipment behaves in various conditions. Farm automation equipment included multi-channel oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, multi-spectral cameras, IR and UV light sources, thermal imagers, and pyrometers. The hardware equipment was divided into groups: Wearable animal sensors; Wearable sensors for staff; Stationary sensors on farms; Data transmission equipment; Equipment for collecting and storage of information. Automation project for the cow farm   Our data collection systems worked permanently, regardless of whether an animal was on the farm or field. Data was sent into storage in two ways: a) from on-farm stationary sensors in batches every 10 minutes; b) from on-animal sensors systems when animals were grazing in the field — the collected data is automatically reset when the herd returns to the farm. We collected the following list of parameters that should be controlled: the walking distance and speed the amount of time spent in one place a record of eating and drinking facts that allow for spotting deviations in the process of eating (rumination) geo-position the position of the animal body and its parts in space convulsions basic vital signs position relative to other animals gait disturbance milk parameters whether the milking and feeding routines are followed milk productivity indoor and outdoor microclimate staff duties schedule livestock morbidity pregnancy characteristics. Having studied similar solutions existing on the market, we came up with the following stacks: Equipment that monitors animals’ behavior: a micro radar for monitoring heart rate, 6-axis accelerometers mounted on the collar from different sides, electret microphones, geo-position tracker, Wi-Fi tracker for precise indoor position control, RFID tag, several contact temperature sensors, controller for collection, storage, and transmission of information. Employee monitoring sensors: we developed a compact personal device with an in-built movement tracker, a microphone, an RFID tag, and a controller for storing and transmitting information Stationary equipment: video cameras, methane and carbon dioxide gas analyzers, temperature, humidity, illumination, wind speed, and direction sensors, remote thermal sensors (pyrometers), sensors for measuring levels (forage, water, manure, etc.), network equipment for data transmission to the server. We chose Hikvision HD cameras with IR illumination to solve the problem of data extraction at night, which is essential for monitoring the birth and behavior of young animals. Data processing for farming automation 1) Following the data collection, analytical modules systematized information on production processes, cow feeding, care routines, staff responsibilities, microclimate parameters, and genealogical and veterinary data. Our Data engineers created data preprocessing and validation pipelines based on Apache Kafka. At this step, we applied the following stacks: Spark, Databricks, PostgreSQL, and S3. 2) Training of the neural network based on the data. This implied data standardization, filling in missing values, and splitting the data into train and test datasets. The applied stacks were Pandas and Dbt. 3) Next step was to create and train a neural network using ML algorithms such as MLP (Multilayer Perceptron) or SVM (Support Vector Machine). Neural networks were trained on a dataset of 1500 images and 17 GB of text and tabular data. We used a "lightweight" model of the YOLO-v4 detector - YOLO-v4_tiny. We applied non-parametric and robust regression for tabular data using a t-model. The applied stacks: TensorFlow, PyTorch, Python, C++, Git, Keras, Stan. 4) It was necessary to evaluate the model quality using accuracy, standard deviation, and coefficient of determination metrics. If the model did not meet the requirements, we made additional adjustments or changed the parameters of the training algorithm. Stack: Mlflow You can compare the “before and after” dynamics: Project impact Successful integration of AI&ML-powered monitoring systems became a game changer for the Asian agricultural holding: Milk production at the dairy farms was increased by 28-30% The holding cut its expenses by 20-22% AI Farming automation   Bottom line We help integrate AI and ML technologies into farm management systems that consolidate data from various sources, such as sensors, machinery, and weather stations. These systems provide farmers with comprehensive insights into their operations, facilitating data-driven decision-making and optimizing overall farm performance. Meanwhile, you can check our previous reviews of smart agritech solutions and subscribe to our blog to keep up with further publications! Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### 5 Key Elements of a Successful e-Store According to Statista, the retail eCommerce revenue in the US is expected to cross 1.3 trillion dollars by the end of 2025. If you’re an online retailer you probably know how demanding this sector is and how harsh the competition may be. Especially with the top players such as Shopify, Amazon or Alibaba dominating the market. However, what factors make an online store successful?  A variety of products to choose from?  Only good customer reviews?  Satisfied staff?  A combination of everything?  Well, as long as any business depends on customers’ trust and money, it’s safe to say that this question revolves around customer satisfaction. Having a loyal customer base results in higher overall profitability for your business.   We’ve agreed on the fact that success comes to a business focused on customer satisfaction, therefore let’s proceed with the best practices aimed at achieving that.   Ensure a Smooth User & Shopping Experience We’ve already dedicated a comprehensive article to this topic, but it is worth mentioning anyway. If a prospective customer is having trouble navigating your store or making a purchase due to technical issues, they will leave and maybe even bad-mouth your store.  Make sure the design of your e-store is intuitive, accessible for everyone and simple yet unique and thoughtful, as brand identity is also crucial for any thriving business. Also keep an eye on your website’s performance and try to solve any loading issues or errors on time to minimize your store’s downtime.  Speaking of shopping experience per se, you can use various features to keep your customer engaged. For example, personalized recommendations based on the user's location, purchase history or even personal data such as name or birthday date.  Also, the checkout process must be easy and a shipping cart must be reachable in as few clicks as possible. People are ready to pay, so why not make it easier for them?  Read a full article about UX here, and we’ll move on to the next point. Invest in Social Media Marketing Marketing campaigns in social media can help your business raise brand awareness, extend customer service and generate more leads.  Social media platforms offer a range of advertising options that allow companies to target specific demographics and interests. This can be especially useful for e-commerce stores, as it will enable them to reach potential customers most likely to be interested in their products. Moreover, social media is a great tool for communicating with clients. Leaving reviews on platforms such as Instagram or Facebook is much easier and efficient than filling out forms on the website.  Provide Customer Service & Support Customer service is the way staff assists clients with everything related to their business: from making a purchase ro resolving issues. According to Microsoft, 96% of customers find customer service crucial for brand loyalty.  Of course, simply having customer service is not enough. It must be superior in order to bring a positive impact. Forbes claims that 80% of businesses believe they have exceptional customer service, but only 8% of customers agree.  Here’s how you can make your customer service better: Organize your customer service department. Keep track of conversations with customers, equip your team with needed tools for comfortable communication and maybe even work on text templates for frequently asked questions to save your workers some time on replies.   Meet clients on their terms. People are different, and different people prefer different means of communication. Use various communication channels in your e-store, such as social media accounts and online chats on the website, so that any person could contact your customer service and get help.  Personalization is key. People enjoy feeling valued. Implement at least one personalization feature to guide your customers to the right purchase. Don’t forget about customer reviews. Reviews contait true power over your customers, as nowadays people are more inclined to making informed decisions. They go to the reviews section to make up their mind about the products you sell or about your store in general. Remember, customer reviews is a strong social proof and a great tool that provides you with more insights about your clients.  Improve your response time. Online shopping is about saving time. Allowing customers to reach your customer service team using different channels is not enough. The key to a well-performing team is the balance between speed and convenience. Choose a Pricing Strategy  Healthy competition creates balance. It’s a great thing, but there’s always somebody who takes even the smallest competition too seriously. In real life it may be too much, but in eCommerce such behavior can really pay off. Or not. A competitive pricing strategy is one in which brands price products based on comparable competitors. Different competitive pricing strategies may price products lower than, equal to, or higher than the competition.  Types of competitive pricing strategies:  pricing lower than the competition; pricing higher than the competition; pricing equal to the competition. Explaining the pros and cons of each of them is a topic for another article, but the point of any competitive pricing strategy is considering your buyers, and not only competitors. Knowing the prices within the competition is helpful, but you also should take into consideration what drives your buyers to make a purchase.  This technique is called psychological pricing, and it allows sellers to stay ahead of the competition without resorting to unprofitable prices. Setting prices attractive to buyers encourages purchases and strengthens your brand at the same time. However, this technique requires a deep understanding of the target audience and a strong brand positioning. Provide a Multi-Level Security  eCommerce retailers are notorious for being a desirable target for hackers. Small businesses are especially vulnerable. Possessing people’s personal information and credit card’s information requires multi-level security.  Here is a list of security tips fo you: Final Thoughts The road to success may be long and thorny, but knowing and implementing the five practices described above will definitely make it easier. Be reasonable with your business decisions and stick to your brand identity.  Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Optimizing Health and Wellness App This article highlights our technical solutions and the results of optimizing the health and wellness app. Context: Our partner, the U.S. health and wellness company, embarked on the digital transformation journey. It released a helpful mobile app that assists users in maintaining their food habits and meal programs with the guidance of professional coaches. By tracking one’s progress, they move to a healthier lifestyle. The app has the following features: a meal plan to promote weight loss while keeping users on track for their health goals; a weekly grocery list that allows users to customize their meal plan according to their preferences and has alternative food choices; a dedicated personal coach who keeps users motivated and well-informed throughout their journeys; a personalized page with milestones and achievements in clear graphs, visually representing weight loss progress. The health and wellness app also contains a resourceful recipe repository, community platform, and leaderboard pages to interact with other members and exchange experiences. In short, the app creators aim to promote a long-term lifestyle change rather than resorting to occasional diets. However, the app required significant technical improvements soon after the first release. Our team was invited to make necessary improvements and set on enhancing the app’s performance. Goals of the Health and Wellness App's Improvement The project encountered several challenges that required meticulous planning and creative problem-solving. We mapped the implementation path with our business analysts and created several product hypotheses to drive revenue and bring value. Our team identified several significant challenges: Slow performance. Before we started our work, the app experienced low operational speed on iOS and web platforms, which needed to be optimized to provide a seamless user experience. When we measured app speed, we found that opening a chat room takes more than 35 seconds. Media storage optimization. The space took more than 170 GB Poor test coverage: only 5% of the backend was covered with tests. To ensure the app's stability and functionality, it was essential to implement comprehensive testing coverage. Process: 1) Media storage optimization was crucial because every photo was uploaded as an original file and downloaded every time the user opened the screen. Upon that, the average size of the picture was around 10-12 Mb. We applied compression techniques without compromising image proportions, which resulted in faster loading times. Additionally, the storage space was reduced by a remarkable factor of ten, from 170 GB to 17 GB, by utilizing DigitalOcean Spaces, an S3-compatible object storage. 2)  To ensure database consistency, we made it impossible to delete attachments without a file and vice versa. 3) An essential update that boosted the app performance was to achieve a faster opening time for multiple app pages. For example, the web app took a user 15 to 30 seconds to open a chat room and more than 30 seconds on average to open the “Teams” page. Two patches were released at one-day intervals. The below chart represents the dynamic of time responses to different requests. On the first date, it jumped to 50 seconds; after the patches, it was reduced to 5 seconds. The web app user can now open a chat room for 6 - 9 seconds on average. 4) We identified the N+1 query problem that affects the requests’ performance. By eliminating N+1 for the latest messages for chat rooms, we cut the processing time from 3,9 to 3,5 seconds. 5) Optimizing the main request for the chat room was essential. Our engineers measured the request time before the optimization, found it to be 16,89 sec, and cut it by more than a half down to 7 seconds. 6) One of our goals was to increase testing coverage. Only 5% of the backend was covered before the work, with more than 40% being covered now. The app parts covered by testing now include: api/meal_plans_controller api/user_meal_plans_controller api/coach/meal_plans_controller api/playments_controller set_status_suspended_worker 7) Improving and tracking performance is impossible without adequately understanding the metrics. Implementing New Relic agents in staging and production environments enabled real-time application performance tracking. We also integrated Slack to enable critical alerts and permanent monitoring of essential metrics. Immediate alerts were enabled for main infrastructure entities, such as: CPU usage (should be less than 80%) Memory usage (should be less than 80%) Disk usage (should be less than 80%) Host responding (should be available with 5 min intervals) Redis process presence (should be available at 5 min intervals) Alerts are sent to the dedicated Slack channel, covering technical incidents and allowing us to address them quickly. There is more to that: we introduced the incident management procedure. It allowed the customer team to forward a matter to the engineer in charge rapidly. In general, New Relic provided multiple informative dashboards to track application performance. This tool helped us identify the most frequently used backend endpoints, along with the frontend request statistics Performance improvements: The following statistics visually represent critical improvements of major tracked parameters that were included in our “to-do” list: The combined design, testing, and optimization efforts transformed the app into a feature-rich, lightweight, and user-friendly tool for health and wellness enthusiasts. Users experienced improved performance, faster loading times, and increased ease of use, allowing them to embrace and maintain a healthy lifestyle effortlessly. This digital health project's success not only delighted the U.S. health and wellness company but also positively impacted countless individuals seeking a healthier and happier life. You can find the following articles interesting: Core ML as a Technological Solution for Fitness Apps MOVE Shanghai app How to develop a healthcare app Thinking about the development or improvement of your digital health app? Our custom development team will be glad to assist you with that! JetRuby has a sound health tech app development experience, delivering exceptional products that aid health brands in enhancing medical care. Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### How to Improve User Experience in an Online Store “If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.”- Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com The retail sector has changed vastly since the beginning of the pandemic. Customers, on the other hand, stayed the same. The competition between online stores is tough nowadays: there are so many stores available, that it’s getting harder to earn customers’ attention. Therefore, ensuring positive user experience should be in the best interest of business owners.  In this article, we’ll discuss how to make the shopping experience as smooth as possible, as well as explain why it’s so important.  What Is User Experience (UX) User experience (UX) basically means people’s impressions of using a product or service. In the context of eCommerce, it all comes down to how customers feel while navigating through your online store. How easy is it for them to find an item? Is the purchasing process convenient? Is the design intuitive enough to uncover the real functionality of the store? Eventually, creating a user-friendly design for an online store requires a deep understanding of the needs and objectives of the end-user and taking them into consideration. We also borrowed some eye-opening statistics concerning UX, so that you could really understand the impact it has on businesses.  The Costs of Poor UX  89% of consumers shop with a competitor after a poor user experience. 79% of people will immediately look for another site if they don’t like what they see on the first one. 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience. 67% of customers claim unpleasant experiences as a reason for churn. 44% of shoppers will tell their friends about a bad online experience. 70% of online businesses that fail do so because of bad usability. Best Practices for Improving UX There are three fundamental factors to focus on when building an online store with great UX: Website speed User-friendliness An accurate description of products Let's dive deeper into the practices that will help you improve the UX of your store. Ensure fast loading speed Online shopping is about saving customer’s time. Users expect pages to load quickly, and a delay can lead to higher bounce rates and lower conversion rates. So, how to achieve faster loading speed? Use appropriate image sizes. Although it’s crucial to use high quality product pictures, sometimes you should optimize them. For example, with this tool. Resizing the images reduces the file size, which helps you decrease the load time of your web pages. Test your speed. Conduct an audit of your website’s performance. There are various free tools available online, but we recommend using WebPage Test. Check out our article to learn how to utilize it. WebPage, just like other performance testing tools, will help you identify load time and detect issues that affect your website’s performance.  Use Fast Hosting. Choose a reliable and fast hosting provider. Shared hosting might be cost-effective, but it can affect loading times during peak traffic. Consider using dedicated or cloud hosting for better performance. Make sure UI is clean & intuitive  First impression is everything in the current overheated eCommerce business. It only takes 0.005 seconds for a user to make up their mind about your website and decide whether to stay or leave.   Your store’s homepage must look clean and have a straightforward purpose, since it brings most of the traffic. Enhance your website's UX by ensuring a consistent and user-friendly design. Optimize navigation to facilitate easy browsing for users. Limit unnecessary clicks and implement features like auto-scroll to help avoid users losing interest. Additionally, choose themes for your online store that offer a seamless experience across various devices.  Consider your clients’ opinion Considering customer’s needs and pain-points is crucial to every aspect of your business. Remember to read customer reviews, both positive and negative, and look for solutions to their complaints. Implement feedback forms for efficient collaboration with your clients, if you haven’t already.  Your customers will appreciate your attention to their needs and it will positively affect their user experience and overall satisfaction with your service.  Implement personalization Personalization does not only boost the UX of your store, but also facilitates customer loyalty and makes shopping more productive and quick. There are various kinds of personalization for you to try and implement: Personalized recommendations based on the previous purchases or search history; IP personalization or utilizing customer’s geo location in order to demonstrate items popular in their region or relevant to their national holidays; Personalization based on profile data means that you can use customers’ names, preferred shopping time and shopping history to greet them on the homepage or make special offers. Make checking out process simple Let your customers reach the cart in as few clicks as possible. As long as they are ready to give you their money, make this process easy for them. Also, implement a feature that lets your customers save their cart to come back later and finish the transaction.  It’s also great to have a wish list, so that people who liked your products but could not pay for them for some reason were able to save them for later.  Optimize product description It should be in your best interest to provide customers with accurate information about the products you sell. People need to understand your product and why they need to buy it. This is how you can optimize your product description.  Don’t copy-paste manufacturers' product description. You can either devote some of your own time to come up with unique and clear descriptions for your products, or hire a copywriter to do that. Descriptions should be intelligible and simple, so that any customer could understand it. Provide use-cases. Add stories into your descriptions such as use-cases or how some particular product may be helpful. This trick not only makes the text itself better and more engaging, it also affects clients’ decision whether to buy an item or not.  Product descriptions are definitely important, but don’t overestimate them. Text itself is not a magic wand that lures people into buying. But your product is. Good quality products + simple yet informative product descriptions =  successful sales.  Final thoughts In this article we’ve covered only some of the ways to improve your store’s user experience. In fact, there are many more. Remember that you can always reach out oto us for consultation and we’ll find the best ways for improving your store’s user experience. ### Top Ten Ruby on Rails Applications in 2023 This review lists the top 10 Ruby on Rails applications. Ruby on Rails offers an exceptional ecosystem to create robust, high-performance web applications. Its reliability, speed, and extensive community support make it a top choice for many projects. Numerous well-known brands have harnessed this technology, delivering outstanding solutions to their clients. GitHub, Airbnb,  SlideShare, Shopify, CrunchBase, Dribble, and Bloomberg have trusted Ruby on Rails, integrating the framework into their applications. What puts Ruby on Rails at the forefront of development? As a widespread versatile technology, Ruby on Rails proves its efficiency across various industries. This web framework enables developers to swiftly build web applications, not just with speed but also by streamlining the development process. Its flexibility empowers companies to scale projects seamlessly (read our Ruby web app scaling guidelines) and integrate new features effortlessly. Unlike other programming languages like HTML, JavaScript, SQL, and CSS, Ruby on Rails combines front-end and back-end capabilities, facilitating more efficient web application development. Next, we'll check which features were beneficial for building the top 10 Ruby on Rails applications. To summarize, Ruby on Rails app development offers significant benefits: Easy MVP development. One example: Twitter used Ruby as its development framework as a startup. Due to easy scalability and object-oriented programming language, building impressive MVPs with RoR is so fast and efficient. The tools to ensure high code quality. Using the famous RubyGems reduces the line of code produced by developers. RubyGems offer plugins for many purposes. It dramatically enhances development speed and makes it a good choice for startups. Fast framework.  The framework's simplicity reduces the time and effort required to design a product from scratch. Also, Ruby on Rails removes some redundancy in writing the code. The “Don’t Repeat Yourself Principle” ensures the accessibility of reusable code. Test automation, extensive community, and high performance are other principles of Ruby on Rails that contribute to bringing high-quality software to life. Typically, Ruby projects belong to the following domains: Non-standard projects Information websites SaaS Solutions E-commerce websites Social Networks Up to one-third of the software market belongs to Ruby on Rails applications. This framework inspires developers to create unique projects and take advantage of its architecture and ease of use. We’re excited to list the top 10 Ruby on Rails applications as of 2023. Top 10 Ruby on Rails applications: 1. Dribbble Annual revenue: $16M Userbase: 3.5 Mln Dribbble's technology stack was known to include Ruby. Dribbble is a popular online hub for creatives, including designers, illustrators, artists, and other visual content creators. It is a platform where professionals and aspiring artists can showcase their work, discover inspiring projects, and connect with like-minded individuals. Initially, this platform was more intended for showing your progress over time, but it eventually became one of the most significant online communities for visual creators. Its terminology is based on basketball, with new images called “shots” and “buckets” being the name of the image collection. The number of “shots” is limited to 24 to prevent spamming, and their original size is 400*300 px, with the possibility of attaching full-size files to the initial upload. It’s easy to browse on Dribbble (no registration required) and hire designers. Users can "like" shots, leave comments, and follow each other's profiles to stay updated on the latest design trends and inspirations. The website offers various membership plans, with the option for free accounts and paid subscriptions that provide additional features and benefits. Overall, Dribbble has become an essential online community that fosters creativity, collaboration, and innovation in the design world. 2. SoundCloud Annual revenue: $273M Userbase: 75 mln subscribers The world's most prominent audio and music streaming platform was initially built on the Ruby monolith. In October 2022, the outdated Ruby and Rails versions were upgraded to modern versions. You can find free and paid membership plans on SoundCloud, enjoy the vast collection of songs and upload your podcasts and music. SoundCloud offers a variety of features, such as liked audio collection, blog writing, and many more. Niche and non-commercial musicians find the platform beneficial, being able to self-promote without a stipulation from major music publishers and labels. 3. Kickstarter Annual revenue: $9.5 Mln Userbase: more than 20,000 backers Some believe Kickstarter is the most successful web development project built with Ruby. The Kickstarter app has been using Ruby on Rails and upgrading it in increments. The Ruby framework’s rich library of gems greatly benefited Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a famous crowdfunding platform that allows individuals and businesses to raise funds for creative projects, products, and ventures. The platform facilitates the connection between project creators and backers, supporting entrepreneurs in pursuing interesting or valuable ideas. 4. Shopify Annual revenue: $5.6 Bln The number of e-commerce websites using Shopify: 4.12 Mln This huge marketplace meta platform has extensively used the Ruby on Rails framework to speed its development and leverage robust backend solutions. The modular architecture of Ruby on Rails enabled adding multiple plugins and boosting the platform’s capacity. Besides, the admin interface of Shopify benefited from the flexibility RoR offers and lets merchants efficiently manage their intricate interfaces. At JetRuby, we enable switching from Shopify to a customizable and cost-efficient Spree solution. You can find more details in the “Services.” Fully customizable and functional Shopify-powered platforms help millions of stores maintain an easy-to-manage retail business daily. If you want to learn about the financial side of the story, you can read our review “Shopify vs. Custom eCommerce Solution. Financial Perspective”. 5. Airbnb Annual revenue: $8.4 Bln Over four mln hosts are registered with Airbnb This renowned Rails website has always been rooted in the power of scalability offered by the RoR framework. Airbnb switched to Ruby over the last few years. Its expanding network of hosts and travelers in more than 200 countries relies on Ruby on Rails as a significant part of its stack. 6. Netflix Annual revenue: $32.12 Bln ~240 mln registered users Netflix employs Ruby on Rails as a part of its technological stack. The microservices of Netflix and its internal security system take advantage of the Ruby framework that ensures their sustainable and smooth operation. 7. GitHub Annual revenue: $1 Bln Registered users: 100 mln developers A unique platform for software developers — GitHub — utilizes the efficient testing mechanism of Ruby on Rails and offers APIs written with Ruby on Rails.  GitHub provides a comprehensive API that allows developers to interact programmatically with GitHub features. Rails is used to create and manage these API endpoints. 8. Zendesk Annual revenue: $1.3 Bln Customer websites: more than 616,000 Companies worldwide use Zendesk for smooth customer interaction. Zendesk is also the choice of expansive international businesses, such as Shopify or Airbnb.  With Ruby powering the backend of API services, Zendesk can satisfy the high-profile requests of its customers and help them maintain excellent user acquisition strategies. 9. Couchsurfing Annual revenue: $20 Mln Registered users: 14 Mln Couchsurfing is a well-known social media platform connecting hosts with travelers. The platform used  Ruby to build web services and power the online community and member interaction. 10. Fiverr Annual revenue: $343 Mln Registered users: over 830,000 freelancers and 5.5 Mln buyers Another famous freelancer platform, Fiverr was initially designed as an online marketplace. It brings together freelancers working as translators, programmers, designers, entertainers, etc. The platform employed the Ruby on Rails framework to build its web service with essential user registration, profiles, losing, and messaging features. Bottom Line The robustness, swiftness, and capacity for expansion of Ruby on Rails render it an ideal selection for enterprise- and consumer-oriented applications. Nevertheless, due to its well-established nature, integrating Rails into your technology stack requires proficient professionals and seasoned developers. JetRuby is a prominent player in the Ruby on Rails domain, with 12+ of experience and recognition in the community. Get in touch with us to discuss your project! Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Top 4 Challenges of Migrating a Store from Shopify to Another Platform Setting up an online store on a platform such as Shopify may be a good choice for small businesses. However, when your store’s revenue starts to exceed $1 million, overheads are rising or transaction fees are eating away your profit, you may consider migrating it to another platform or even a custom eCommerce solution. The term “migration” refers to moving your store to another platform. The main reasons for that are: Rising business costs and commission fees; The unconditional limitations of most out-of-box eCommerce solutions, such as customization features, dependency on third-parties and an overall lack of control over your own store. This article will explain what issues may arise when moving your store to a new platform and how to deal with them. Everything mentioned here is based solely on our experience.  Additional Expenses Custom solutions can be pricy to build, and it is recommended to carefully obtain the estimate ahead of making your mind to start your own development project. Besides, you’ll still have to pay Shopify fees while the development is ongoing - as you don't want to lose customers in that time because of the downtime. Development itself as well as transferring all your data may take considerable time, so it's worth taking into account. As a general rule, you may consider your own custom e-store, if your annual revenue reaches 1m or more and you experience particularly painful and costly inconveniences while working on Spotify. Potential Design Changes  Since Shopify is an out-of-box solution, customers are used to pre-made features and mechanics when navigating online stores. When migrating to a custom platform, it's crucial to maintain a pleasant user experience and not to confuse customers with all the changes.  However, If you choose custom development, the business analysis stage will minimize these issues. A business analyst will look into the business process of your store on Shopify and plan the development work to include these preferences ahead of engineering. Also, they would analyze Shopify's features and user flow to determine their necessity with a customer. Based on that information, the team can proceed with building an MVP – a draft of your dream store. Having considered all the pain points and needs of the customers, a business analyst would create a user story map and rate the features by the time they would take to be implemented. Then the work goes on to the development team and designers.  Store Data Transfer Migrating one store from Shopify to a custom platform usually has no problem since the amount of data is smaller. But when the business is big enough, there are usually dozens of stores, meaning the servers may overload during the migration.  This issue can be solved by development and DevOps teams by writing scripts for bulk upload. The whole process can be automated for all the stores, so there won't be any technical issues or data loss. Also, after the bulk upload, a business owner can manually update any item from the catalog via the admin panel if needed.  Payment & Checkout  Different platforms have various payment gateways and checkout processes. Ensuring seamless integration with the new platform's payment options and checkout flow is crucial to avoid checkout-related issues. Also, as we keep saying in each article of the eCommerce series, there is an excellent opportunity to save on commission fees by choosing a suitable payment provider for your custom solution.  Unlike on Shopify, you can choose any payment provider you want, depending on their required commission fees.  Ensuring Proper Results. Final Checklist Migrating an online store to another platform is a significant undertaking, and ensuring that everything is working correctly after the migration is crucial to maintaining a seamless customer experience. Here's a checklist to help you check whether your online store is functioning properly after migrating to a new platform: Website Functionality: Test basic functionality such as browsing products, adding items to the cart, and checking out; Ensure that all pages, including product pages, category pages, and checkout pages, are loading correctly; Verify that the search functionality is working as expected; Test different payment methods to ensure smooth transactions; Check if discount codes, coupons, and gift cards are working correctly Mobile Responsiveness: Test the website's responsiveness on various devices, including smartphones and tablets; Ensure that the layout, images, and buttons adjust appropriately to different screen sizes. Product Data: Verify that all product information, including names, descriptions, prices, and images, have been migrated accurately. Check for any missing or incorrect product attributes. SEO and URL Redirects: Set up proper 301 redirects from old URLs to new URLs to maintain SEO rankings and prevent broken links. Use tools like Google Search Console to identify any crawl errors and fix them. Images and Media: Check that all images and media files are displaying correctly. Verify that image quality and resolution have been maintained during the migration. Get complete checklist   Remember to inform your customers about the migration process and any temporary disruptions. Transparent communication can help manage customer expectations and reduce frustration. Moreover, productive cooperation between the client and the team is crucial for seamless migration. So, if you're looking for an experienced team of developers and designers, JetRuby is here to help. Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Optimize the Performance of Ruby Web Applications Through the Server Configuration Summary: This article reviews server configuration approaches that will help you to maximize the Ruby app performance. Our previous article dealt with the Ruby web app optimization scaling challenge. This time, we will address the server configuration as a crucial way to optimize the Ruby app's performance. Key server configuration settings Misconfigurations in Ruby web application servers can bring everything to a standstill. Interestingly, application servers don't dramatically boost app speed; they function similarly, and switching between them won't significantly change throughput. However, avoiding wrong settings or server misconfigurations is crucial for Ruby web app optimization as they commonly hinder client applications. This article will focus on optimizing resource usage (CPU and memory) and boosting throughput (requests-per-second) for the three primary Ruby application server configurations: Unicorn, Puma, and Passenger. For the sake of simplicity, "server" and "container" are interchangeable terms here since the principles apply universally. The three widely used application servers share a similar design. These servers are subdivided into other processes that handle incoming requests, like a thread.  While the servers' fundamental structure is the same, some nuances can impact performance significantly. We want to handle the most requests per second using the least server resources for the Ruby web app optimization. Resource consumption and performance largely depend on specific settings. The principal server settings affecting performance are: Number of threads Number of child processes. Container volume Copy-on-write Let's delve into each of these settings. Threads number You will find Passenger Enterprise and Puma maintaining the multi-thread structure. The following description of thread structure is relevant for those two server configurations. Threads provide a resource-efficient way to boost throughput and enhance your application's concurrency. Fortunately, Rails is already threadsafe. It means most applications don't engage in peculiar practices, such as doing custom threads. Thus, being thread-safe is the characteristic of most Ruby applications. The best way to verify this is to try it for the Ruby web app optimization. Usually, Ruby applications expose thread bugs in a loud and exceptional manner, letting us experiment and assess the results quickly. Now, let's explore the optimal number of threads to use. You can boost as much performance from extra parallelism as the volume of your program's simultaneous execution allows. In the context of MRI/C Ruby, parallelization is primarily limited to tasks waiting on IO (such as waiting for a database result). For most web applications, this IO-bound portion is approximately under 25% of their total processing time. It was established that thread settings exceeding five have minimal impact on client applications. In contrast to the process count, which requires constant monitoring and tuning based on metrics, it’s enough to rely on initial thread settings. The number is around five threads per process. It's essential to be aware that in MRI/C Ruby, threads impact memory significantly. Thus, checking the memory consumption before you add lines is crucial. A similar check-up is done after the thread installation. Don't expect each thread to consume only an extra 8 megabytes. They boost memory resources by far more excellent. Now, let’s describe how to set threads up: Passenger thread count As a side note, threads can be parallelized. You can increase thread counts until CPU memory depletes. The number of child processes Web servers like Unicorn create one app process to copy it and, therefore, have multiple child processes responsible for the incoming requests job. The challenge is to let the server have as many processes as it endures without exhausting its capacity. It’s among the best practices to let all Ruby web applications have three operations per container. This approach enhances routing capacity. Puma and Unicorn allow the OS to distribute load among process copies hosted on one socket, creating a balance. On the other hand, Passenger utilizes a reverse proxy (for example, nginx) so that requests will be routed to child processes, loading the least busy operation first. This ensures that requests are quickly routed to idle workers. Both approaches are viable. Routing higher-level requests is even more challenging, as these layers often lack information about the server's workload. Let’s take, for instance, a setup with three servers, each running one operation (in total, we have three processes). The task is optimally making the load balancer route requests to those servers. Suppose these processes are busy handling requests; a new request may be assigned to an already busy server, even if other servers have idle processes. We can mitigate this risk by running more processes per server, ensuring requests back up at the socket level or reverse proxy until a worker is free. Each server handling three processes is a recommendation. If resource constraints prevent running at least three processes per server, consider upgrading to a larger server. The available memory and CPU resources determine the maximum number of child processes it can run. Each child process consumes a certain amount of memory. We shouldn't add more child processes than the server can support to avoid overloading the server's RAM. Notably, the memory usage of Ruby processes is logarithmic, which means it approaches a limit instead of leveling off due to memory fragmentation. Measuring the exact memory usage of a single Ruby application process can be tricky, as it may increase over time due to various factors. To obtain an accurate measurement, disable all process restarts (worker killers) and wait up to 24 hours before using 'ps'  to measure memory usage. Usually, most Ruby applications use 200-400 megabytes per process; some might take up to 1 gigabyte. Ensure you leave some headroom for memory usage. As a guideline, consider setting your child process count to a value that keeps the memory consumption in check. Going beyond the memory capacity of a server can lead to significant slowdowns due to memory overcommitment, which causes swapping. Ensuring predictable and consistent memory usage is crucial to maintain optimal application performance. It helps to avoid sudden spikes in memory usage. Equally important is not surpassing the available CPU capacity of the server. Ideally, we should keep CPU usage below 5% of the total deployed time. Exceeding this threshold indicates a CPU bottleneck that can impact overall performance. While most Ruby and Rails applications are typically memory-bottlenecked on various cloud providers, the CPU can also become a limiting resource. To identify CPU-related issues, server monitoring tools like AWS's built-in tools can be used effectively to determine if CPU usage frequently reaches its maximum. Previously, there was a misconception that OS context switching incurred significant expenses, but actual production use has shown otherwise. While it is often advised not to have more child processes per server than CPUs, this is not entirely viable. Although it is a reasonable starting point, CPU usage is a crucial metric to monitor and improve. In practice, most applications are satisfied with 1.5th the number of hyper threads as a process count. Employing the "log-runtime-metrics" feature for Heroku users provides a CPU load metric in the logs. Keeping an eye on the five and 15-minute load averages, especially when they consistently approach or exceed 1, indicates a CPU nearing its maximum capacity, necessitating the cut in child processes. Fortunately, setting child process counts is relatively straightforward across various application servers: Optimizing the Performance of Ruby Web App To wrap it up, three-eight processes per server can be used by most applications. You are only limited by the resources available to you. Web apps with 95th percentile times have access to higher numbers, up to 4x the number of hyper threads. In most cases, with a process count exceeding 1.5x, the number of hyper threads is not recommended. Copy-on-write (COW) technique The COW technique works in all Unix-based operating systems. When a child process emerges as the result of the fork, the child's memory is entirely shared with the parent process. Thus, any memory reads from the child process directly accesses the parent's memory. However, if the child process modifies a memory location, a copy of that specific memory portion is created only for the child's private use. This mechanism proves highly advantageous in reducing the memory usage of forking web servers. It enables child processes to share “read-only” memory, such as shared libraries, with the parent, rather than duplicating it. COW is an inherent process that cannot be explicitly 'supported,' but there are ways to make it more effective in conserving memory. Although it cannot be "turned off," enhancing its effectiveness is achievable. The idea is to load the entire application before forking, often called "preloading" in many Ruby web app servers. This alteration modifies when the fork is called - before or after the application's initialization. Additionally, it becomes necessary to reconnect to databases being utilized after forking, as demonstrated with ActiveRecord. Passenger thread count Theoretically, this reconnection should be done for each database used by the application. However, in practice, Sidekiq generally defers connecting to Redis until it performs an actual operation. As a result, reconnecting after fork may not be mandatory unless Sidekiq jobs are executed during application boot. Despite the benefits of copy-on-write, there are certain limitations to consider. Transparent Huge Pages can result in an entire 2 MB page being copied even for a 1-bit memory modification, and fragmentation may also impede potential savings. Nevertheless, enabling preloading remains a recommended practice, as it has no adverse effects and can prove beneficial in various scenarios. Container volume It is crucial to optimize server configuration, aiming to employ around eighty percent of memory. Nevertheless, different applications have different requirements, impacting the CPU/memory volume ratio. No one-size-fits-all size exists, so it's vital to choose the appropriate ratio based on the metrics you use in production. Memory volume is most important among processing resources and often needs careful tuning. Sometimes, providers offer limited memory options, such as Heroku, with only 512 megabytes. Complex Ruby applications have a particular demand for large memory volumes. Three hundred megabytes of random access memory is a typical volume Rails applications require. You want to have three processes per server at a minimum. Therefore, a server with a minimum of 1 GB of memory is generally necessary for most Rails applications. Furthermore, the CPU needs optimization, too. How many CPU cores can we have? Is Hyper-Threading supported? The answer to these questions determines how many threads can be executed simultaneously. Each container is expected to keep three child processes at a minimum. Ideally, request routing gets much better with eight or more operations per container. It reduces latency, resulting in better overall performance. Instead of conclusion: 4 steps of a successful Ruby web app optimization Determine memory usage for one worker with five threads under production load. Start a few workers on a server and keep them for at least 12 hours without restarting. Utilize 'ps' to retrieve the worker’s memory usage. Container size selection: Choose a container with a memory capacity of at least three times the memory usage determined in the previous step. The RAM of most Rails apps is approximately 300-400 megabytes per worker, which means a minimum of 1 GB container is recommended. This way, you obtain sufficient memory volume to accommodate three processes per server at a minimum. CPU Core consideration: Check the number of hyper threads and CPU cores in your system. If the container's hyper threads are fewer than the memory can support, you have two options: Pick up a container volume with more CPU cores or less memory; Child processes should be 1.25-1.5 times the number of hyperthreading. Deploy and monitor: Deploy your application and carefully observe memory consumption. Adjust the child process count and container volume to optimize resource utilization and maximize throughput. Following these steps, you can efficiently scale and fine-tune your Ruby web application servers for optimal performance and responsiveness. Check out related articles: Optimizing the Web App Scaling Process with Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails Is Dead Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Compare Shopify vs. Custom eCommerce Solution From a Financial Pespective In the previous article of the eCommerce series, we've already mentioned the primary benefits of customizable eCommerce solutions. Today, we'll dive deeper into a side-by-side comparison with Shopify, a complete platform that lets you start, grow, and manage your business. Specifically, we'll discuss the financial side of the question and find out what kind of solution would be more profitable for your business in the long run. Shopify Overview Shopify is an e-commerce platform that allows individuals and businesses to create online stores and sell products or services. It provides many tools and features to help entrepreneurs easily set up and manage their online businesses, even without extensive technical knowledge or coding skills. It is considered one of the most popular platforms thanks to its ease of use, wide variety of tools and features, reliable hosting and security, etc. Since we've already discovered the nature of custom eCommerce solutions, it's time to figure out some of the critical aspects of Shopify to make a comparison. Store Creation. Shopify allows you to set up online stores quickly and easily. It provides a user-friendly interface and a variety of professionally designed themes. Thus, you can customize the design and layout of your stores using the built-in theme editor or by modifying the code directly. Sales Channels. Shopify provides multiple sales channels to reach customers across different platforms. In addition to the online store, you can sell products on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, integrate with marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, and even set up physical point-of-sale (POS) systems. Payment Processing. Shopify offers a built-in payment gateway called Shopify Payments, which allows you to accept credit card payments directly through your store. It also integrates with various third-party payment providers for alternative payment methods. Order Management. Shopify simplifies order management with product tracking, fulfillment, and customer communication features. Users can view and manage orders, generate invoices and packing slips, print shipping labels, and send automated order status notifications. Marketing and SEO. Shopify includes marketing tools to help promote and grow businesses. It offers features like discount codes, gift cards, email marketing, and integration with social media platforms. SEO features like customizable meta tags and URL structures help optimize store visibility in search engine results. Security and Reliability. Shopify takes care of hosting, safety, and server maintenance. It provides secure and reliable infrastructure, including SSL certificates, data encryption, and backup systems, to protect customer data and ensure store availability. Shopify vs. Custom Solution Determining which option is more profitable, setting up a business on Shopify or a custom eCommerce platform, depends on various factors. Each option has advantages and disadvantages, and the decision should be based on your business needs, goals, and resources. Let's make a side-by-side comparison of both. Development and Maintenance Costs Setting up a custom e-commerce platform typically involves higher initial development costs than starting on Shopify. Custom development requires hiring experienced developers and designers. Additionally, ongoing maintenance, updates, and server costs can add to the expenses. It's important to mention that setting up a business on a custom eCommerce solution makes sense only for big companies with revenues of $1 million or more due to higher costs. Shopify's monthly subscription fees may be lower than custom development costs, depending on the scope of requirements for a custom platform. The minimal price for a Shopify Plus account is $2000/month + 0.25% of your revenue. Also, Shopify takes a 2.5% fee from each payment via ShopifyPay. Even though you can choose a preferable payment provider, Shopify would still take processing fees, thereby receiving the same share. Thus, opting for custom eCommerce solutions saves you money on transactions since you can choose the most profitable option for your business. There's also a problem with expanding your business on Shopify. If you decide to scale your business to the international level, additional costs might be related to currency conversion, localization, and international shipping. Time-to-Market Shopify lets you launch your store relatively faster than building a custom platform from scratch. This faster time-to-market can be advantageous, especially if you want to start selling quickly. Although Shopify starts quicker, implementing any custom feature will take time. Since it is out-of-box, you'll need to request any feature you'd like to add and wait a while, as thousands of people like you'd want to customize their stores in any way. You can't control this process on Shopify, unlike custom solutions. Flexibility and Customization A custom eCommerce platform offers greater flexibility and customization options since it can be tailored to your business needs. This can be beneficial if your business requires unique features or workflows. Shopify operates within a predefined framework while offering customization options, limiting the extent of customization. Marketing and Exposure Shopify benefits from its established brand and marketplace presence. It offers built-in marketing and SEO features to help you promote your store. While custom platforms can achieve similar marketing results, building and optimizing these features may require more effort and investment. Marketing and exposure are essential for Shopify platforms because they drive growth, enhance brand recognition, and help you stay competitive in the e-commerce market. These efforts can increase sales, customer loyalty, and overall business success when executed strategically. Here are some key benefits of investing in marketing and exposure for your e-commerce store: Increased sales and revenue Brand awareness Customer acquisition Customer retention Competitive advantage Data and insights Improved SEO and organic traffic Diversified traffic sources Better conversion rates Customer trust and credibility Feedback and improvement Scale and growth Partnerships and collaborations Long-term sustainability As you can see, the profitability of your business depends on various factors beyond the platform itself. Even though custom eCommerce solutions are much more profitable than Shopify in the long run, it is not an option for small businesses. Also, when migrating to a custom platform from Shopify, you'll likely have to pay both developers and Shopify since creating a new platform from scratch takes time, and you probably don't want your business to stop during that period. If you still need to decide whether to choose Shopify or a custom solution, please get in touch with us. We'll discuss your business and its objectives and help you decide. Also, follow our digest to receive more useful articles about eCommerce and marketplaces!   Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Optimizing the Web App Scaling Process with Ruby on Rails This is the opening review of the article series dedicated to web app scaling on Ruby on Rails. JetRuby Agency was named the top Ruby on Rails developer by Clutch, and we are glad to share our insights on applying this famous framework. As a popular web development framework, Ruby on Rails is appreciated for its practicability. It is often a choice of startups when there is not much thought about the future structure of the web app. We’ll address the Rails app’s scalability challenges. Can I scale up my web app using Ruby on Rails? The short answer is yes. You will be able to expand the functionality of your web application by leveraging the right approach through the Ruby on Rails framework. We’ll make sure to cover this approach in our article. Over the past decade, Ruby on Rails has been regarded as the dominant all-in-one web framework, reigning supreme in the industry. However, in recent times, it has faced stiff competition from newer, faster, and more lightweight alternatives. This has sparked debates about whether Rails is becoming outdated and losing its ability to compete effectively. Some would argue that Ruby on Rails is not an appropriate framework for modern web projects. We dissected this view in the article “Ruby on Rails is Dead” and explained why Ruby isn’t going away anytime soon. Ruby on Rails perfectly fits MVPs as it is a proven technology that boasts community support, allowing you to work with a transparent development budget and scalability. The choice between different web frameworks and languages should consider factors beyond mere speed. Other aspects, such as ease of development, maintainability, scalability, and a vibrant community, also play crucial roles in the success of a web application. While performance is important, it is just one piece of the larger puzzle that web developers must consider when selecting the most suitable tools for their projects. Our article considers the scaling aspects of web applications in the first place. CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations often work for web applications—more than 80% of them match the description of this category with core data interactions. While faster languages and frameworks improve request processing times and optimize rendering, they don’t dramatically improve functionality improvement. Ruby on Rails apps may expose app server constraints, memory management issues, and restrictions of the System Architecture while you're following your way to handle an increased volume of customers and user requests. When your startup project grows and begins to handle massive user requests per minute, you may think about its performance optimization in advance. We’ve scrutinized the information and tried our multiple approaches to a Rails-based app’s optimization. Whether you run a startup or a mature business, you can substantiate your plans with our guidelines. The effectiveness of Ruby on Rails assists both startups and mature companies, but a few critical prerequisites must be considered. We believe (and this is proven by many years of experience in this industry) that a scaling challenge, in this case, should be addressed with a solid understanding of Ruby on Rails processes. Why do you need scaling, exactly? The answer to this question is more critical and less self-evident than it may seem. We’ve observed numerous Rails applications, some unnecessarily over-scaled, leading to wasteful expenses. The plethora of services offered by AWS simplifies the scaling process. Still, they also make it tempting to scale up even when it's not truly necessary. A common misconception among Rails developers is that by increasing instance sizes, they can automatically make their applications faster. However, the reality is quite different. Scaling will not inherently improve the application's speed unless the app frequently experiences queued requests and significant waiting times. Even PX dynos, while they can enhance performance consistency, won't necessarily make the application run faster. On the other hand, altering instance types on AWS, such as moving from T2 to M4, may change app instances' performance characteristics. When faced with performance issues, some Rails developers tend to reflexively upgrade instance sizes reflexively, hoping spending more money will resolve the problem. Unfortunately, this approach does not yield the desired results in most cases, and their website continues to suffer from sluggishness. In summary, developers must be mindful of their application's actual needs before scaling, as indiscriminate scaling can lead to unnecessary expenses without addressing the root cause of performance issues. A thorough analysis of the application's performance bottlenecks and a focused optimization strategy will be far more effective in achieving the desired speed improvements.  The role of routing requests in Ruby scaling Now that we have come to terms regarding the proper purpose of scaling let’s discuss what it takes to create prerequisites for this process. Scaling primarily increases throughput, not the speed of individual requests. The benefits of scaling become evident when requests are waiting to be served by your application. If there is no backlog of requests, scaling may lead to unnecessary expenses. A comprehensive understanding of your application server and HTTP routing is essential to scale Ruby apps from handling 1 to 1000 requests per minute. In this example, we'll use Heroku as a reference, but various custom DevOps setups operate similarly. Have you ever wondered about the "routing mesh" or the queuing process for requests before they reach your server? Well, you're about to delve into those details. An undisclosed quantity of Heroku routers exists, likely numbering in the hundreds or more. The principal function of these routers is to locate your application's dynos and forward incoming requests to one of them. After investing approximately 1-5 milliseconds in the dyno-finding process, the router connects to a random dyno within your app, yes, entirely at random. This point led to some issues for RapGenius when Heroku's clarification on the router's selection process was somewhat ambiguous and confusing. Once a random dyno is selected, Heroku allows up to five seconds to acknowledge the request and establish a connection. The request is placed in the router's queue during this waiting period. It's important to note that each router operates with its request queue, and given the lack of information from Heroku on the total number of routers, your application could be facing numerous router queues at any given time. Heroku employs request queue pruning when the line becomes too large, and it attempts to isolate unresponsive dynos by quarantining them. However, each router executes this quarantine action independently, meaning every router in Heroku handles individual dyno quarantines. This mechanism resembles how most custom setups utilize nginx, as the DigitalOcean tutorial exemplifies. In such setup arrangements, nginx often functions as a load balancer and a reverse proxy. The same behavior can be replicated using custom nginx configurations, although more aggressive settings might be preferred. Nginx can actively send health-check requests to upstream application servers to verify their responsiveness. It's important to mention that custom nginx setups typically lack their request queues. For Heroku users, two critical details are worth noting: firstly, the router waits for up to 5 seconds to establish a successful connection to your dyno, and during this waiting period, other requests queue up in the router request queue.  Choosing the web server The 55 Custom router setup is closely associated with your choice of web server, which can be "Nginx". Understanding the connection process with the server is crucial as it significantly varies based on your web server selection. The following process depends on the web server you’re choosing. Unicorn: Unicorn spawns multiple "worker processes" (app instances), each listening on the same Unix socket, coordinated by a "master process." A worker process accepts a request from the socket, waits for the download to complete, processes the request, and then listens on the socket again. As the worker cannot accept new connections while downloading the request, Unicorn is vulnerable to slow clients since Each slow request ties up a worker, limiting the number of slow requests that can be served simultaneously. However, it can handle slow application responses because other available workers can still accept connections while one worker is busy. Puma: In its default mode, Puma is a multi-threaded, single-process server. It employs a Reactor thread, similar to Thin, to handle downloading requests and can asynchronously wait for slow clients to send their entire request. Once the request is downloaded, a new thread communicates with the application code and processes the request. Puma can specify the maximum number of application threads running simultaneously. Puma (clustered): Puma's clustered mode combines its multi-threaded model with Unicorn's multi-process model. In this setup, Heroku's routers connect to Puma's "master process," which handles downloading and buffering incoming requests before passing them on to available Puma workers. This combination allows Puma to deal effectively with slow requests and application responses. Thin: A single-process, event-driven web server. Thin can accept other connections while waiting for a slow request to complete. It starts receiving parts of the request and can handle slow clients more efficiently. However, it becomes unavailable while processing your application code. Unless you use EventMachine creatively, it cannot accept new requests while waiting for input/output operations in the application code to finish. Dealing with slow application responses requires significant custom coding. Webrick (Rails default): Webrick operates as a single-process and single-thread web server. It keeps the connection open with the router until the entire request is downloaded. The router then moves on to the subsequent request, and Webrick runs your application code to generate a response.   During this process, your host remains busy and cannot accept connections from other routers. If another router tries to connect while the request is being processed, it must wait (usually up to 5 seconds on Heroku) until the host is ready. Webrick struggles with slow requests and uploads. This server is unsuited for handling slow client requests or application responses. Phusion Passenger 5: It encompasses a multi-process architecture that has a buffering system. The reverse proxy, which functions like Nginx, receives requests directly from the router, and downloads the entire request before forwarding it to the worker processes. This way, workers are protected against the slow process of uploading. The HelperAgent process routes requests to unused worker processes, allowing Passenger 5 to handle slow application responses and slow clients effectively. Every web server has advantages and disadvantages, making it crucial to select the one that best aligns with your specific requirements and workload. Interestingly, when it comes to Ruby application servers, their primary differentiation lies not in their speed but in their distinctive I/O models and characteristics. It’s not the speed that makes Ruby application servers different but their varying input/output models. In essence, for a Ruby web application to be scalable, it necessitates protection against slow clients, which can be achieved through request buffering, and defense against slow responses, which can be accomplished through some form of concurrency — either multithreading or multiprocess/forking (ideally both). Based on this criterion, the two most suitable scalable solutions for Ruby applications on Heroku running MRI/C Ruby are Puma in clustered mode and Phusion Passenger 5. However, if you manage your setup, an alternative viable option is Unicorn with Nginx. By considering these factors and assessing your specific circumstances, you can decide which web server best fits your Ruby web application. Deciphering the web server options for scaling Ruby applications If you've followed along, you might have realized that a scalable Ruby web application requires slow client protection. The latter is done via request buffering. In parallel, multiprocess/forking or multithreading  (ideally both) tackles slow responses. Among the options discussed, Puma in clustered mode is a scalable solution for Ruby applications running on Heroku. For those managing their setup, Unicorn with nginx becomes a viable alternative. While these web servers boast varying claims about their "speed," getting too caught up in minute differences may not be productive. They can handle thousands of requests per minute, generally taking less than 1ms to process each request. Thus, a mere 0.001ms difference between Puma and Unicorn might not significantly impact overall performance if the Rails application takes an average of 100ms to respond. The critical distinction among Ruby application servers lies in their input/output characteristics rather than speed. As they have many other differences, conduct your feature research and determine the right fit for your web project.  Scaling app instances It is essential not to base the scaling of your application solely on response times. Although a slowdown in your application may be attributed to increased time in the request queue, it might not always be the case. Scaling your hosts without considering the status of the request queue could result in unnecessary expenses. Therefore, before scaling, ensure that your request queue is not empty. The same principle applies to worker hosts as well. Scaling them should be determined by the depth of your job queue. Scaling the worker hosts becomes meaningless if no pending jobs are waiting to be processed. Both worker dynos and web dynos have incoming jobs (requests) that require processing, and their scaling should be based on the number of pending jobs in the queue. NewRelic offers a feature to track the time spent in the request queue, but gems can also help you measure it independently. The scaling ensures minimal benefits should the time spent in the request queue be less than 5-10 ms of the average server response time. If you carefully consider these factors, it will provide you with the foundation for more efficient scaling decisions. The brief for web app scaling on Ruby to 1000 RPM Scaling a particular web application implies unique challenges. So, this list cannot be exhaustive. Our primary checklist includes the following recommendations: Prioritize queue times over scaling hosts. Scaling your hosts without addressing queue times would be counterproductive. Understand Scaling Dynos: Scaling Dynos primarily increases throughput, not the actual speed of your application. If your app is slow, scaling should not be your immediate solution. Instead, focus on optimizing the application's performance before scaling. Choose the correct web server: Opt for a multi-process web server with features like intelligent routing and slow client protection. You choose between Puma or Unicorn with an Nginx front end. Also, Phusion Passenger 5 can be considered. Leverage the three layers. Scaling implies working with three significant goals: minimize response time variability, cut response time, and increase application instances. As a result, you will obtain a scalable application requiring fewer instances, having lower response time variability and faster response times. Conclusion: Optimization of the scaling process on a Ruby on Rails web application is not straightforward, but a correct and professional approach brings the right results. You can achieve maintainability and good performance using the best practices of this optimization. The following articles may catch your attention, too: Migration from PostgreSQL v.9.6 to v.12.11 with minimum downtime Ruby on Rails Is Dead — 2020 Edition In the following reviews, we will continue to cover our Ruby on Rails expertise and hope that this set of articles becomes part of your RoR guide in many instances. Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### 6 Benefits of Customizable eCommerce Solutions When COVID-19 hit the world, the offline retail sector in the US suffered a major decline. Most of the consumer activity was shut down, since people stopped eating out, visiting places and going shopping due to lockdowns. The industry experienced a significant downturn in sales during the period from February to April 2020, witnessing a 20% decline. Take clothing and accessory stores as an example: total plunge was 89%, with department stores’ share of 45%. Everything considered, online presence has become crucial for retail businesses – a new era of eCommerce has officially started. When deciding to open an online shop, entrepreneurs usually opt for out-of-box eCommerce platforms, such as Shopify, Wix, Bigcommerce etc. They don’t require any technical expertise, which enables quick business setup. Moreover, such solutions are usually cheaper than the customizable ones. But are they really better? In this article we will answer this question and explain why a customizable solution is great for your business. Exploring custom eCommerce solutions There are so many ready-made eCommerce platforms available for your business, that you may wonder why even bother creating a new one. The truth is that sometimes the basic features of most out-of-box platforms are not enough for a particular business. Let’s take a quick look at one of our case studies to get the idea.  One of our clients with a multi-brand online store on Shopify has outgrown the solution. Their rapidly developing business was gaining more and more demand between customers, meaning that they needed to scale the store up to a global level. As you could’ve realized already, out-of-box solutions and platforms were not an option. Shopify couldn’t handle this much traffic and it was impossible to implement needed features. That’s why the client reached out to us. Why customizable eCommerce?  Opting for a customizable eCommerce solution may be time consuming, but profitable in the long run for various reasons: Tailored User Experience. Such solutions allow you to create a personalized user experience for your customers. By customizing the design, layout, and functionality of the online store, you can align the UI with your brand’s identity, making it more engaging, intuitive, and memorable for customers. Scalability and Flexibility. As your needs evolve, customizable eCommerce solutions allow your business to adapt to them. Whether it's accommodating a growing product catalog, expanding into new markets, or integrating additional features and functionalities, custom solutions can be tailored to meet the specific requirements of the business. Integration Capabilities. Customizable eCommerce solutions offer seamless integration with other essential business systems, such as inventory management, customer relationship management (CRM), or enterprise resource planning (ERP). This integration streamlines operations, improves efficiency, and enhances the overall business workflow. Competitive Advantage. With customizable solutions, you can differentiate your business from competitors’ by implementing unique features and functionalities specific to your industry or target market.  Enhanced Security. Customizable eCommerce solutions offer robust security measures. With increasing concerns about data breaches and online fraud, having control over security protocols ensures implementation of the necessary safeguards to protect customer data and build trust with your audience. Long-term Cost Efficiency. While customizable eCommerce solutions may require a higher upfront investment compared to off-the-shelf options, they result in long-term cost efficiency. Custom solutions eliminate the need for ongoing subscription fees or additional expenses associated with plugins or extensions, which may be required with out-of-the-box platforms, such as Shopify. Ownership and Control. Customizable eCommerce solutions grant you full ownership and control over your online store. Unlike hosted platforms that impose limitations or restrictions, custom solutions empower you to make changes, updates, and optimizations, without relying on third-party approvals or constraints. How to choose the right eCommerce solution? With the amount of factors to consider, it can be difficult to choose the right eCommerce platform. Here is a list of steps that can help you make an informed decision. First, define your business objectives. Where do you see your business in five years? What resources do you need in order to grow? What’s the goal of implementing a customizable eCommerce solution? Answer these crucial questions to yourself in order to get a clear vision. Secondly, develop an understanding of your customers’ buying patterns and demographics. Who is your client? What features could potentially improve their user experience? What stops them from buying your goods? Knowing your client and taking their needs into account leads to customer loyalty. Thirdly, research available solutions and their customization features. Explore the market. What do people write in reviews? Are the providers reputable? Are the platforms flexible enough for your business needs?  Also pay attention to integrational features. Will you be able to add your ERP or CRM features? Do they contain analytics tools? Is there a payment gateway? Here at JetRuby we help our clients analyze such data in order to set up a business on a tailored customizable eCommerce solution or migrate an existing store data to one. Feel free to follow our digest to receive more useful information about eCommerce and marketplaces! ### 5 Crucial Steps to Create Brand Identity for Online Stores Creating a brand identity for online stores is a complex process that requires a deep understanding of business goals, as well as conducting market research, determining a targeted audience, establishing workflow, etc. In this article, we'll discuss fundamental steps designers take toward creating a brand identity for online stores. The branding design process includes five major steps illustrated in the roadmap below. Let's take a closer look at each of them.  Step 1. Inquiry The process of creating a brand design starts with getting to know each other. This initial phase focuses on comprehending the client's requirements and defining the project's scope. Certain formalities must be addressed once a team gets acquainted with a project. They will discuss pricing, timelines, and deliverables with clients and solidify these details by signing a contract. Step 2. Discovery Once the initial formalities are taken care of, diving into the specifics is crucial. A team will discuss a client's brand through email, phone calls, video chats, or face-to-face meetings. This process involves questionnaires, surveys, research, workshops, interviews, and other methods to understand clients and their brands better. During this stage, the team aims to understand your business comprehensively. If you're interested in our approach to conducting the D&D phase, check out this case study. Step 3. Ideation Concepts Now that designers have a solid understanding of business, it's time to embark on the creative process!  It's important to note that these concepts may not be as polished as the final product. The level of detail and quality in these concepts will vary. The initial concepts can encompass elements such as logotype variations, icons, colors, typography, illustration style, and photography style. They serve as a starting point to give a client an initial glimpse of their brand's potential direction. Feedback After reviewing the initial designs, the team eagerly seeks the client's feedback. They will be interested in understanding what aspects were appreciated, what elements a client wasn't fond of, and any suggestions they have for the future. This stage is about client and team collaboration to achieve the desired outcome. It is crucial to engage in open and honest discussions, expressing your thoughts and feelings and collectively devising a plan to move forward. Step 4. Iteration Based on the client's feedback, the team will take the initial concepts and proceed to refine them according to the discussed direction. This iterative process typically involves multiple rounds of changes (the specific number of iterations is generally determined and agreed upon in the contract). Designers will incorporate all feedback, make necessary adjustments, and present the revised versions for the client's review. This collaborative cycle continues until a client is delighted with the results. Step 5. Delivery This step involves delivering the project, making necessary payments, and collecting feedback. By the end of this phase, all the mockups should be turned into a working solution.  The process may look simple, but it takes lots of time and effort for design and development teams to go through each step productively. The duration of each of them may vary depending on the team, store type, business goals, and cooperation with a client, but this aspect is usually covered in a contract.  If you found this article interesting, follow our blog to receive more useful content weekly. Want to discuss your project? Let's talk! First Name Last Name E-mail Phone Tell us about Submit By submitting request you agree to our Privacy Policy ### Build an Effective App Monitoring System This article sheds light on setting up a proactive app monitoring system to help you minimize downtime, reduce costs, and improve overall system health as an app owner. First, let’s get settled with the definitions. Software app performance monitoring requires collecting app metrics, recording transaction traces, ensuring code-level visibility, etc. Infrastructure monitoring implies tracking hosts, processes, containers, etc. A proper app monitoring system is not just a utility Instead of taking the app monitoring system as another utility-level software, regard it as the project that intends to organize the monitoring process. Installing app monitoring software and hoping it will capture all you need is not a holistic approach. When setting up the tracking system, you’ll spend most of your time arranging the check-up work and observing how services interact. This work does not encompass scriptwriting as its core. It is about software development and must engage the team, which essentially understands what the project is doing. If the app monitoring process is fully delegated to one person, it may lead to problems. The start-up team often puts this process off until the product is launched. The system load increases when the product starts bringing profit and new features are added. At this point, you may still need to monitor the previous pieces of work, which greatly exceed 1% of the work time dedicated to monitoring earlier. With all new features coming, you may find yourself in a deadlock situation as long as the monitoring function is concerned. App monitoring tools and utilities A few words about app monitoring tools: below, we’ll refer to the most widely used utilities helping to track the status of apps and infrastructure. Graphana Graphana is a widespread open-source app monitoring and visualization platform that enables you to visualize and analyze data in real time. With Graphana, we create interactive dashboards, set up alerts, and monitor various metrics such as CPU usage, memory usage, and network traffic. Prometheus Prometheus is another popular open-source monitoring platform designed to monitor time-series data. It is highly scalable and can monitor multiple metrics such as CPU usage, memory usage, and network traffic. Zabbix Zabbix is an open-source platform providing real-time monitoring, alerting, and visualization capabilities. It can monitor many metrics, such as CPU usage, memory usage, and network traffic. Nagios Nagios is an open-source monitoring platform with real-time monitoring, alerting, and reporting capabilities. It can monitor various metrics such as CPU usage, memory usage, and network traffic. ELK Stack The ELK stack is an acronym for three open-source monitoring and visualization platforms: Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana. All components aggregate and index log data.  It is designed for monitoring and analyzing log data in real-time by companies with large volumes of data and apps with complex search requirements. It starts with planning So, how do you proceed with monitoring the app project from the beginning, or if you continue the monitoring project without understanding where to start? First, you need to plan. It means you decide what part of the project you want to track rather than determine the tracking tool. People like to start with easy-to-do steps, while your focus should be defining the most critical actions. For example, if you start with the infrastructure monitoring and overlook the app’s backend, it may lead to downtime in the app’s backend, with users losing connection with the app. A few tips can be helpful in this regard: It’s good to start with the user’s entry point. Following this, we can set to the infrastructure monitoring or run this process in parallel with the first one. For example, we can install the Zabbix platform. Check the app’s roots to understand what exactly does not work. The primary cue is that monitoring must be parallel to the development process. Suppose you draw the monitoring tea’s attention to other tasks (creation of CI/CD, sandbox, infrastructure reorganization). In that case, the monitoring may slack off, and it won’t be able to catch up with development.   How to set up an effective app performance monitoring system Let’s now think about establishing that the app works for the user. We check the following: app’s business logic; health metrics of services; Integration monitoring. This level of monitoring must be considered at the development stage. It’s good to delegate unit-test writing to the developers responsible for the code. The admin can be puzzled if you provide them with the list of API protocols of multiple functions intended for monitoring. For example, developers may take part in writing Grafana plugins, which will assist admins. Every time the API is changed, the relevant changes must be brought to the monitoring flow. Arranging a check-up through the entire API protocol rather than specific endpoints is recommended. Don’t forget about the Integration Monitoring  Integration Monitoring focuses on the interaction between the systems that are critically important to the business. For example, you may have ten services that communicate with each other; they are no longer separate websites. We cannot check on their statuses separately, as we used to do before. Hence, the communication must be synchronized.  It means the necessity to test how services interact with other services. Infrastructure monitoring There are three core elements in this process: monitoring the orchestration level, system software; the hardware level. Often, when we say monitoring, we imply infrastructure monitoring. It must be a separate process. However, the best practice is to precede it with application monitoring. While setting the alerting system up, be reserved regarding the number of alerts. Given the complexity of modern techniques, the permanent inflow of information messages is guaranteed. Try to configure alerts so that they will cover only critical changes. The alerting systems can include the following: Organization of the alert system; Organization of monitoring shifts. Alerts cannot be sent to everyone. “Oncall” developers must also be present. Organization of the “knowledge base” and workflow of incident processing. Each serious incident requires a postmortem discussing why it happened and which steps were taken to prevent it. The alert system must utilize a single channel while monitoring multiple components. For example, it can be done based on PagerDuty or Grafana. The source of these alerts must be clearly defined. Technology stack The below stack construes an example: Prometheus and Grafana are used for data collection; ELK is for logs analysis; Jaeger (Zipkin) is utilized for application performance monitoring or Tracing. Choosing utilities is not as critical as understanding the monitored system and following your initial plan. The original method dominates the choice of tools. So, if you come up with the tool first, later, you may understand that this specific tool doesn’t meet your requirements. Conclusion Setting up the monitoring system doesn’t involve installing tracking software and utility tools alone. It’s mainly about the coding process: coding in services, check-ups of external services, etc. Although engaging developers in the monitoring process may be costly, their participation in the monitoring process is vital. If your project is already running but beyond comprehensive monitoring, think about allocating some resources for monitoring. Monitoring system aside, your project may need thorough business analysis, design, and MVP implementation. Check our page for start-ups for more details and inspiration. Some more valuable articles and reviews? Click the “subscribe” button below. ### User Testing: Top 6 Practices for Involving Users in Product Development User testing and quality assurance in total plays a vital role in ensuring that products meet the highest performance, functionality, and user satisfaction standards. Traditionally, quality assurance has been an internal process conducted by dedicated teams within organizations. However, businesses now recognize the significant value of involving product users in the quality assurance phase. In this article, we will demonstrate the benefits of involving user products in its development by introducing one of our projects.  The Role of Users in Quality Assurance Quality assurance (QA) traditionally ensures that products meet predetermined standards and specifications. However, involving users in the QA process expands the scope to include their perspectives, experiences, and feedback. User involvement in QA refers to actively engaging product users in testing, evaluating, and providing input on the product's quality and performance.  Product users possess firsthand experience and knowledge that can significantly contribute to the QA process. They interact with the product in real-life situations, encountering various use cases, challenges, and expectations. Users bring a fresh and unbiased perspective, providing insights that can lead to valuable improvements and optimizations in product quality. By recognizing the unique perspective and insights of product users, companies can leverage their involvement in QA to drive improvements, enhance user satisfaction, and deliver products that truly meet the needs and expectations of their target audience. User-centric quality assurance empowers users to contribute to the development process actively, creating a collaborative environment that fosters continuous improvement and ensures a high-quality product. Our Experience The Issue We Faced  Once, our team worked with an application, and we needed to leverage its performance at some point. However, there wasn't enough load during staging for us to test the changes and take down metrics. Also, the client's funds were insufficient to create the environment for full-fledged loaded application testing. That's when we've decided to bring users in. How It All Started Our team had tested the functionality minding the specific restrictions before the app was released. We also notified the users about the upcoming new application version and asked for their help identifying and fixing the bugs. We released the build with a prompt roll-back scenario into production in case of any issues. User Testing As users began the testing process, we started receiving their feedback via our support channel. We analyzed the data to decide whether we should do a roll-back or solve the problem with a hotfix. Thanks to that approach, we've eliminated numerous bugs and improved the app's quality.  Benefits of User Testing User testing has brought numerous benefits to us as a team and the application itself. Here are some of the most significant ones: Improved User Engagement. Users were actively communicating with our support group, which helped us receive more accurate data about bugs and issues. Also, they shared their experiences, provided insights, and connected with fellow users, creating a community around the application. This sense of community encouraged users to engage with the application and contribute to its growth and success. Better Teamwork. During the application testing, our users and engineers worked as a team, motivating all the participants to indulge in improving the product.  Improved user experience and customer satisfaction. User testing improved the user experience (UX) and overall customer satisfaction. By involving users in QA, we gained valuable insights into their preferences, expectations, and pain points. Increased product reliability and reduced risk of failure. User testing was crucial in identifying and addressing product defects, vulnerabilities, and shortcomings. By involving users in QA, we validated the product's reliability, stability, and performance under real-world conditions. This helped minimize the risk of failures, crashes, or data loss, enhancing the product's overall quality and reputation. Competitive advantage and market differentiation. By involving users in QA, we also gained a competitive edge by delivering a product that stands out in terms of usability, functionality, and overall user experience. User-driven enhancements and improvements helped differentiate the product from competitors and attract a larger user base, leading to increased market share and business growth. Best Practices for Effective User Involvement As our experience shows, to ensure adequate user involvement in quality assurance, companies may consider following these practices: Clearly define the goals and expectations. Clearly articulate the goals and objectives of user involvement in the quality assurance process. Outline what specific aspects of the product will be tested, what feedback is sought, and how user input will be utilized. By setting clear expectations, the organization and users can align their efforts toward achieving the desired outcomes.  Identify the right target audience for user engagement. Identify the appropriate target audience for user involvement based on the product's target market and user demographics. Consider user expertise, experience level, and diversity to ensure comprehensive coverage of user perspectives. Tailor user involvement strategies to match the characteristics and needs of the target audience. Establish a feedback loop and maintain continuous communication. Create a structured feedback loop that allows for ongoing communication between users and the development team. Implement channels, such as online forums, feedback forms, or dedicated user testing platforms, where users can provide feedback, report issues, and suggest improvements. Regularly communicate updates and progress to users, demonstrating that their feedback is valued and acted upon. Ensure timely and structured feedback collection. Establish a systematic approach to collecting and analyzing user feedback. Define a process for collecting feedback, triaging issues, and prioritizing enhancements. Regularly review and analyze user feedback to identify common patterns, recurring problems, and areas for improvement. Promptly address critical issues and provide feedback to users on how their input has been utilized. Provide incentives and recognition for user contributions. Motivate users to participate in quality assurance activities by providing incentives and recognition for their contributions. Offer rewards, such as early access to new features, exclusive discounts, or recognition as beta testers. Publicly acknowledge and appreciate users who have made valuable contributions to the product's quality, fostering a sense of appreciation and encouraging continued engagement. Continuously iterate and improve based on user feedback. Treat user involvement as an iterative process that spans across multiple development cycles. Constantly gather user feedback, integrate it into product improvements, and provide opportunities for users to test and validate the changes. Regularly iterate and refine the product based on user input, ensuring that the development process remains user-centric and responsive to user needs. By utilizing these practices, organizations can effectively involve users in quality assurance, leveraging their insights and feedback to enhance the product's quality, user experience, and overall success. User involvement becomes a collaborative and iterative process that fosters a strong connection between the organization and its users, resulting in a product that genuinely meets user expectations and drives user satisfaction. If you missed our previous article feel free to follow this digest to stay up to date with our insightful blogposts! ### From Skepticism to Success: Maximizing Value in a Mature Business From shifting market dynamics to emerging disruptive technologies, value of various businesses is in a constant state of flux. However, the potential for success remains within reach for mature businesses that dare to embrace change and harness their unique assets. By adopting a forward-thinking approach and leveraging their experience, these companies can not only thrive but also set new standards for innovation and excellence. In this article we will cover a project of ours, a mature business, that we enabled to rise above doubts and achieve remarkable growth and value. With the help of our business analysis department, we helped the client to move away from day-to-day tasks and took a bird's-eye view of their business. It provided a clearer understanding of the importance of the product and a vision of possible growth points. About the client One of our customers is an accomplished wellness and health food leader. They operate as a business-to-consumer (B2C) company, catering to clients who are enthusiastic about achieving weight loss or gain goals while prioritizing a healthy lifestyle. For years we helped to grow and nurture the client's technology landscape. Their business has reached a mature and stable stage, and their increasing focus was on supporting and reinforcing the existing processes. The business owner perfectly understands them and chooses to collaborate directly with the development team, personally assigning tasks and identifying issues. Challenge With their extensive knowledge of the business's intricacies, the client primarily engaged in fine-tuning and supporting the already well-functioning mechanism. They knew their pains and gains and got used to them. Considering all the points above, the client was skeptical about the advantages of working with Product Owners or Business Analysts. Solution We proposed implementing a new approach that incorporated our Business Analysis practice. Our objective was to demonstrate to the client that, despite having an already efficient business, taking a holistic view and emphasizing value could uncover new points for growth. The client gave their consent to participate in the experiment. Throughout our interviews with them, we consciously tried to avoid discussing specific features and bugs. Instead, we focused on delving into the product's values and understanding the reasons behind customer loyalty. Based on the information we gathered, we formulated several product hypotheses regarding the product, the process, and the users. Based on these hypotheses, we developed high-level features. We shared these hypotheses and features with the client and engaged in brainstorming sessions together. Some ideas the client considered inapplicable, while others generated interest and were further developed into features. Some of these features were based on our findings, while others were expanded upon the client's ideas. Results As a result of our work, the client was inspired to further product development and involved us in the process. Throughout this project, we successfully transitioned the client's mindset from initial skepticism to optimism and understanding. We effectively conveyed that the project's objective was not simply an upsell but focused on enhancing the product, delivering added value, fostering customer loyalty, and ultimately driving revenue. Conclusion By reimagining their core offerings, mature businesses can breathe new life into their products and services, appealing to evolving customer needs and preferences. Embracing innovation and staying ahead of emerging trends can provide them with a competitive edge and position them as industry leaders. Moreover, the power of business analytics cannot be underestimated. Understanding business processes and client’s requirements, as well as implementing them efficiently, can uncover valuable insights and influence strategic decision-making. Leveraging technology and digital tools can enable these companies to streamline operations, enhance efficiency, and better understand their customers, leading to improved value creation. Read our previous case study here. Don’t forget to follow our blog to keep up with new articles. ### 8 Steps to Build an Effective Product Roadmap A product roadmap becomes a strategic weapon in the hands of a skilled product manager. This article gives you some ideas on crafting a perfect roadmap and turning it into a beacon of the project. What is a product roadmap? The purpose of the product roadmap is to convey the main ideas of the product and progress in tasks to team members and stakeholders (shareholders, customers, partners). The product roadmap entails a global-level initiative and planned steps. It doesn't have to include every feature of the product and detailed lists of bugs. You’ll need to update the product roadmap throughout its life cycle to encompass features, initiatives, and requirements from many parties of the process: management, customers, sales managers, partners, support, developers, etc. It is essential not to confuse a roadmap with a vision, although having an idea is necessary to build a roadmap properly. A global vision won’t let you end with a "here and now" mindset. As part of the vision, you set goals to which your roadmap is supposed to lead. When your team follows the map, this path's milestones and stages become releases. Where is the planning horizon? It can be different, but limiting yourself to 6 months is better. If you know exactly where your product will go, it could be 3 or 5 years. With the right approach, a Roadmap is a tool to break product development into stages and ensure the launch of primary functionality in the first iterations. In contrast, subsequent iterations will cover functions with lower priority. That said, a roadmap is not a commitment but rather a prediction. We may think about the roadmap as the current plan. You may receive a feature request from a new client in a month. It could be a higher priority than previously planned when added to the backlog. The general rule is that this plan should not be static because we need to adapt to changing market conditions. Proper feature prioritization is an element of the corporate culture. In this frame, stakeholders follow the same scoring principles, so the first step is to discuss the calculation formula and then follow this rule. How to create an understandable roadmap for everyone? 1. Define goals and strategy This step involves understanding the target market, customer needs, and business objectives. Once these goals and objectives are defined, they should serve as the foundation for the product roadmap. It's essential to ensure that the goals and objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). This helps ensure the roadmap is focused, feasible, and aligned with the business's overall strategy. Usually, global strategies are based on key objectives. A deep understanding of your customers' needs supports a strong product vision. It captures the essence of what you want to get. Make sure your team has this understanding to develop their future product. 2. Gather product requirements How do we collect and process product requirements? When we receive requirements from different parties, they all need to be recorded. For example, you can use the Jira system. Startups can document requirements using more straightforward tools like Redmine or Asana. At this stage, all product ideas you have must be registered.  If an idea is not worthy of implementation at some stage, then its priority will remain low. All ideas enter the so-called “Incoming backlog.” They can be well-described and “half-baked” without evaluating and understanding who needs these features. Some pictures may fall into the next release after the team works on requests and adds details. The rest are sent to the Backlog and can stay there long. 3. Prioritize Features Once the goals have been identified, the next step is prioritizing the features that will help achieve them. This step involves evaluating the potential impact of each element on the product's success and prioritizing them accordingly. It's important to involve stakeholders to ensure everyone is aligned on the product's priorities. One approach to feature prioritization is the MoSCoW method, which categorizes features as "must-haves," "should-haves," "could-haves," and "won't-haves." This approach helps ensure that the most critical features are prioritized first. Let’s discuss some of the methodologies that help with feature prioritization. Epic Agile or Scrum frameworks utilize “Epic” to break cross-functional and large requirements into smaller user stories.  Impactful features require the involvement of all participants: developers, testers, interface designers, technical writers, and so on. When creating an epic, it’s advisable to evaluate its importance from a business point of view, calculate labor costs and decide whether teams can include it in the current release or send it to the backlog. Epics are prioritized in the task management system. For example, in Jira, you can set "high," "medium," or "low" grades of priority. If the product backlog has hundreds or thousands of features, mere prioritization is insufficient, and the below methodology can be applied. Calculating Feature Score  A more sophisticated scoring methodology is called Feature Score. The idea is to assess all the development impact factors per a single rating. Then, the team will decide on adding certain features based on their importance calculated through the rating. Positive metrics add a score to a feature. Positive metrics include: 1. Urgency. 2. The size of the customer who needs it. 3. If adding this feature allows for entering the new market or obtaining its share. 4. Potential profit or potential loss 5. Strategic achievements (whether this feature brings the team closer to identified goals). Negative metrics decrease the score. They include: 1. The volume of labor to be done to add a feature 2. Possible risks. Feature Score is not a qualitative assessment but represents a number. Feature Score must be determined based on normalized values, the company's market goals, and other parameters.  The Customer Factor, Market Penetration, and Revenue can be such parameters. 4. Set Timelines With the features prioritized, the next step is to set timelines for their development. This involves estimating the time required for each feature, identifying dependencies between features, and determining the overall timeline for the product's development. Setting realistic timelines that consider potential delays and unforeseen challenges is essential. 5. Communicate a product roadmap Once the product roadmap is created, it must be communicated to the entire team so everyone understands the vision and direction. It's common for product managers to develop their roadmaps in PowerPoint or spreadsheets and then email screenshots to the team. Despite good intentions, this strategy has flaws What is the best way for Product Managers to keep the team informed? Post the plan on a shared platform and keep the team updated so you have a single source of updates. Most collaboration tools will automatically notify everyone on the project that the product roadmap has changed. It is essential to keep your team's work connected to the roadmap. 6. Align with Business Objectives To ensure that the product roadmap is aligned with business objectives, it's important to regularly evaluate its progress against key performance indicators (KPIs). This helps ensure that the product is on track to achieve its goals and enables the team to make adjustments as necessary. 7. Incorporate Customer Feedback. Customer feedback is a critical component of product development and should be incorporated into the roadmap. You can use the Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure customer loyalty and satisfaction. This approach helps ensure that the product meets its target market's needs while also providing a way to track customer satisfaction over time. 8. Adapt to Changes By maintaining flexibility and adapting to changes, businesses ensure that their product stays relevant and competitive. Since a roadmap often guides product development for an extended period,  deadlines and understanding critical features can be shifted. The project manager's task is to assess changing conditions and promptly adjust a roadmap. This flexibility is another advantage of using a roadmap. Tips for establishing effective product roadmaps ✔ Feature development priority matters, as does the development team's capacity. We also evaluate how many hours developers can dedicate to each next feature. Understanding the capacity for the next release (scope) helps to avoid wasting valuable resources in vain. ✔ This tip is helpful for large products, where reserving some human resources for non-development matters is desirable. For example, your development team may need to move to a new version of Python. To anticipate the problem-solving for such cases, you can reserve, for example, 10% of the team's capacity as a buffer. ✔ From time to time, review the map’s backlog and the feature score for those features that your team plans to develop. ✔ Use a tool that allows easy updates and sharing with your team members. Final thoughts A smooth roadmap aligns short-term tactics with strategic, long-term goals. A great way to help this balance is to review the roadmaps regularly, adjust its short-term plans and keep updating the team members about it. Understanding our global goals helps create a roadmap with an accurate and specific plan to achieve our goals shortly. If your startup is on the way to its product development roadmap, our Design and Discovery process can perfectly help you to craft a working and clear map. Want to explore other articles about product and feature development? Click the below button to subscribe! ### 6 Sure Benefits of a Robust Continuous Integration with GitLab Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) are the development practices that replace the manual code-writing job through automated builds and tests. If done right, CI and CD dramatically reduce the code release times. GitLab keeps CI and CD fundamentals in one environment without switching between various tools in the long building, testing, and product deployment chain. Let’s figure out what is CI and CD Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) are principles and practices that enable developers to deploy software changes more frequently and reliably. CI/CD is one of the DevOps practices. It is also regarded as an agile practice.  We expedited the development process four times, which you can find in one of our previous publications.  Continuous Integration brings minor changes to the code with frequent commits. Since now most applications are developed using various platforms and tools, there must be a single point to take a record of all of them. It is called an integration mechanism.  From a technical standpoint, the goal of CI is to provide a consistent and automated way to build, wrap and test applications. With a well-established CI, developers are more likely to contribute frequent commits, which in turn will improve communication and software quality. Most teams stick to the rule of making git commits at least daily. Minor changes make it easier to identify defects and various problems. Also, short commit cycles don’t let developers change the same code.  CI not only wraps all software components and databases but also automatically performs unit tests and other types of testing. Such testing allows developers to ensure these changes have not broken anything.  Continuous Deployment delivers the artifact to the environment, such as QA, staging, or production. Continuous Deployment implies that all pipeline steps are automatic without the manual intervention of DevOps.  Why choose GitLab as a CI/CD platform? Let’s first dig into CI/CD tools to answer this question. The main task of the CI/CD tool is to coordinate the activities of many systems: version control systems, build tools, automated testing frameworks, dependency managers, bug trackers, and containerization platforms.  Each tool has its purposes and specifications. So, to ensure a smooth CI/CD process, teams add various tools to the pipeline that close our tasks one by one. For example, SonarQube is utilized for test coverage; Docker is used to build a Docker image, etc. These tools cover a specific part of the CI/CD process.  GitLab CI was one of the first platforms that approached an “All-in-One” principle. GitLab CI is not just a repository of source code but a full-fledged DevOps platform where you can manage projects with tasks and boards, monitor environments’ statuses, store all kinds of artifacts, use an integrated storage container, and much more.  Due to its stability, accessibility, and strong community support, GitLab CI has become one of the significant tools supporting continuous methodologies. The platform has undergone many updates to transform into a flexible, feature-rich CI system that facilitates a consistent CI/CD pipeline. Another benefit of using GitLab is that it can be installed locally and in the cloud. Benefits of using CI/CD (1) By bringing automation now, you ensure further development through process automation.  If processes are automated, a project can quickly and seamlessly scale up. If automation is not a priority from the beginning, it will become a hindrance as the project progresses. (2) CI/CD helps to reduce Lead Time, enhance stability, increase the speed of releases, and achieve more transparency One of the primary reasons businesses implement CI/CD is the possibility of cutting Lead Time. This crucial metric describes the time from ideation to the final delivery and readiness of the product. CI/CD helps reduce Lead Time, enhance the stability and speed of releases, and achieve overall project transparency by visualizing the flow. (3) Reduced risk of bugs The approach eliminates some errors on the way to production. The price of mistakes in the code is high, and often, they are caused by a human factor. Manual testing scenarios require a lot of repetition and heightened concentration. Even the most responsible QA can get distracted and repeat the same steps with a slight difference. The central part of any CI/CD pipeline is a set of automated tests. Test automation ensures that tests are accurate and the results are reliable. The continuous methods also allow for faster bug rectification. CI/CD keeps a history of builds over some time. If necessary, one can see when a specific change took place and roll it back. The earlier a bug is discovered, the cheaper it is to fix it. Firstly, a developer is still working on the same part of the code and does not need to switch between contexts, so changes are done on the fly. Secondly, the code forks haven’t become a part of new releases, and you do not have to edit the same bug in several places. (4) Improved code quality CI/CD automates the launch of many test routines, such as unit testing and integration testing. This advantage allows developers to focus on programming and code rather than wasting time analyzing incidents and their causes.  (5) Bridges the gap between development and operations CI/CD is a single point of communication, bringing together software development and integration. Through the CI/CD, you achieve transparency in the development process and collaboration of specialists engaged in product development. (6) Increased feature velocity New features are released faster because the workflow happens in a single and simple interface while all development teams work on different parts of the project simultaneously. Each team builds and deploys the part of services it owns without interfering with the work of other groups. Solving the problems above, CI/CD streamlines the workflow and communication between the business and IT parts. A CI/CD pipeline makes the software development and release process more efficient and understandable. Configuring GitLab Pipelines for Automated Testing GitLab pipelines enable teams to automate the build, test, and deployment processes. Pipelines are defined in a YAML file, which specifies the tasks to be executed and the order in which they should be performed. Here's an example of a simple pipeline for NodeJS application that includes unit tests, integration tests, and code coverage reporting: In this pipeline, the build stage installs the necessary dependencies and builds the application. The test stage runs both unit tests and integration tests. The coverage option specifies a regular expression that matches the code coverage report generated by the tests. Finally, the deploy stage deploys the application to a staging environment. Automated Deployment Processes Automated deployment processes are another critical component of CI/CD. GitLab provides several application deployment options, including Kubernetes, AWS, and Heroku. Here's an example of a simple deployment process using Kubernetes: In this example, the deploy stage uses the docker image to deploy the application using Kubernetes. The image option specifies the Docker image for running the deployment script. The script option specifies the commands to be executed during the deployment process. Finally, the environment option specifies the name and URL of the staging environment. Best Practices for Ensuring Code Quality Ensuring code quality is essential for achieving reliable and bug-free software releases. Here are some best practices for ensuring code quality using GitLab's CI/CD capabilities: Maximize test coverage: Use automated testing to achieve maximum test coverage and reduce the risk of bugs and other issues. This step involves implementing unit tests, integration tests, and regression tests. Streamline the release cycle: Use GitLab's CI/CD capabilities to streamline the release cycle and achieve faster, more reliable software releases. This stage implies automating the build, test, and deployment processes and ensuring all team members work on the same codebase. Ensure code consistency: Use code linting and formatting tools to ensure code consistency and reduce the risk of bugs and other issues. Teams usually use tools such as ESLint, Prettier, and RuboCop to enforce code style and formatting standards at this step. Implement code reviews: Use code reviews to ensure that code changes are thoroughly reviewed and validated. To implement the code review, use GitLab's merge request functionality and collect feedback from other team members. This ensures that code changes meet the team's standards. Conclusion It is essential to understand that implementing CI/CD practices does not provide immediate tangible results. However, they push businesses to grow and develop faster through process automation in the long run. At the same time, CI/CD methods require professional support throughout the entire process. Like our articles on development practices? Check the below button to subscribe for more updates!   ### Migration from PostgreSQL v.9.6 to v.12.11 with minimum downtime About a year and a half ago, we had the following situation: We used PostgreSQL version 9.6 as a database, which was hosted on AWS RDS. Even though version 9.6 was quite old (PostgreSQL v.14 had already been released that year), we constantly postponed migration because this process was quite demanding. Everything was further complicated by the size of the database itself—about two terabytes. At a certain point, there was no time to postpone the update: AWS RDS stopped supporting our base version. Within a specific time, we had to update our database version from 9.6 to 12.11; otherwise, AWS RDS would update it automatically after the deadline. We weren’t happy with this option, as it implies stopping the application, and in our case, it could take hours, which is entirely unacceptable to us. Challenge with PostgreSQL We faced the following challenge: migrating from PostgreSQL 9.6 to PostgreSQL 12.11 with minimum application downtime. The main difficulty was that the internal format of data representation on the hard drive was changed between the major versions of PostgreSQL, which led to a lack of backward compatibility between them. This means that when you update a major version of PostgreSQL, you must also update all the data. Accordingly, the more data in the database, the more work must be done when updating it. Solution Keeping that in mind, we started looking for a solution. The easiest way was to use the command pg_dump. This command allows you to take a snapshot of the database in text format, which can then be executed using the command psql.  For this purpose, a new base is created with an updated version in which the snapshot is completed. This approach, however, has a significant disadvantage – it takes a long time to work with large amounts of data. Since pg_dump captures the initial state at the beginning of making a snapshot, data in the database becomes outdated by the end of the process. Moreover, once the snapshot is done and the data transfer has started, the application can no longer use the original database or the new one until the transfer process is completed. Thus, the application must be stopped both during the completion of the snapshot and during its application. As mentioned, the commands pg_dump and psql are pretty slow, which can lead to downtime. Another preferable approach is to use the pg_upgrade command. It was explicitly created to migrate data between databases and update major versions most efficiently. Despite quite good performance in synthetic tests, we have decided not to use this command because it also requires the application to stop during the data migration, and there is no guarantee that the data migration will work out in time. Having dropped these options, we decided to look at data migration using data replication. The general scheme of such migration is the following: A new database (replica) with a new version is created; The replica is connected to the source database (source or master); Data is asynchronously migrated from the source to the replica; When the data in the replica is close to the data in the master, the application is paused until the replica is fully synchronized. At the end of step 4, the source and replica data are identical, so the application switches to the replica base. After some time, having made sure that the new master is stable, you can remove the old database. Replication is divided into physical and logical:  In the case of physical replication, data from master to replica is transferred in the same format in which it is stored on the drive;  In logical replication, data is transferred at a higher level, transferring objects and their changes rather than just physical data from the drive. Because of this property, logical replication is cross-versioned, i.e., it allows you to link databases from different major versions (in our case, 9.6 and 12.11). Unfortunately, logical replication in PostgreSQL was added only in version 11, so we started looking for third-party replication solutions. Initially, we chose Bucardo because it had been previously used on our projects to migrate a database from Heroku to AWS RDS. However, after some time studying Bucardo, we came across the pg_logical extension, which is very convenient for implementing logical replications and works on the versions we need. pg_logical works much faster than Bucardo, and it doesn't require any triggers or third-party programs. This is the solution we finally settled on. Setting up replication Let's look at how to set up replication using the pg_logical extension. First, you must create a new AWS RDS database as a replica. After that, you must configure the pg_logical extension for both the master and replica. To do this, you must configure the following parameters using Parameter groups in AWS RDS. Both in the master and in the replica: In the master: Note that applying a new group of parameters or changing the current one will require restarting the database. After that, we need to connect to the master and replica and configure replication. To mark an object as a subject to replication, it must be added to the replication set. By default, three replication sets are created when creating an extension: default. For tables in this set, all changes are replicated. default_insert_only. Only inserts are replicated for tables in this set, which may contain tables without primary keys (more about that later). ddl_sql. For tables in this set, only DDL changes are replicated, as specified by `pglogical.replicate_ddl_command`. Adding to the set is done using a function: Also, for convenience, there is a function that allows you to add all the tables in the scheme: However, after running this function, we discovered that the schema_migrations table that Ruby on Rails created does not contain a primary key. The point is that replication is based on primary key data in WAL. For tables that don't have a primary key, this is not possible, so for such tables, you need to change the writing mechanism in WAL using the following command: Since this table does not contain a primary key and does not change, it can be added to the default_insert_only set: You can use this script to check which tables do not have a primary key:   After that, you also need to add sequences to the replicated set: After the master is set up, you must do that with the replica. First, you must ensure that the master and the replica have the same scheme. This can be done by making a snapshot of it: After that, the pg_logical extension and replication must be configured in the replica: After that, the replication should be started. You can check this with the following command: This scenario worked without any problems during staging, but the replication eventually crushed in production: Still, we couldn’t find anything meaningful in the logs except for "Connection Timeout." We tried to change the order of operations: first, creating the replication and then adding tables to the replication set, but these manipulations did not help. After researching the forums and manuals, it was suggested that this problem occurs because there is too much data in the replication queue simultaneously. One of the recommendations is to remove all indexes from the replica scheme and add them again after most of the data is migrated. This will reduce the load on the replica because we won’t have to specify the index when writing into indexed columns. However, this technique by itself didn’t work. But then, accidentally, we discovered a working method. Previously, we used to add all tables to the replicated set at once but decided to try adding them one at a time within a specific time interval (5-10 minutes). This approach allowed us to replicate all tables successfully. After most of the data has been replicated, you only need to disable the application and switch the database. You can use different methods to check if all the data has been replicated. We have resorted to one of the simplest: simply counting all table rows and comparing the replica with the master. Since the data between the master and the replica is synchronized much faster than the database writes, synchronizing the master and the replica took almost no time at all. Result Despite some effort and complications, the pg_logical extension allowed us to upgrade a major version of PostgreSQL with minimal downtime (in our case, we had to stop the application twice; the total downtime was less than 5 minutes). This approach can be handy for legacy systems with large amounts of data. Did you miss our last article? Follow our blog and stay in the loop regarding updates! ### Mobile development: the future is here! How modern technologies are changing the usual approach to app development According to a Pew Research Center study, more than 81% of adult Americans own a smartphone, and the average time they spend on their phone is about 5.5 hours a day. This makes mobile development increasingly important for companies that want to stay competitive and attract more customers. However, creating applications that are beneficial for users and profitable for companies implies an understanding of mobile development trends. The purpose of this article is to review current trends in mobile development that will help developers create more user-friendly, functional and attractive mobile apps. Also, this overview will be useful to businesses and investors who want to learn how to navigate the changing demands of users and the mobile app market. The “Mobile-first” approach The mobile-first approach is a design and development strategy that prioritizes the creation of websites, applications, or digital experiences with the mobile user in mind as the primary target audience. It involves designing and building the user interface and overall functionality to optimize the user experience on mobile devices before expanding to larger screens such as desktops or tablets. Traditionally, web design and development began with designing for desktop screens and then adapting the layout and features for mobile devices. However, with the rapid growth of mobile usage and the increasing number of people accessing the internet primarily through smartphones, the mobile-first approach has gained prominence. The key principles of the mobile-first approach include: Responsive design. Creating websites or applications that can adapt and adjust their layout and content based on the screen size and device being used. Simplified user interface. Focusing on essential features and content to ensure optimal usability on smaller screens and touch-based interactions. Performance optimization. Prioritizing fast loading times and efficient use of resources to accommodate the constraints of mobile networks and devices. Progressive enhancement. Building websites or applications with a core set of features that are available to all devices and progressively enhancing the experience for more capable devices. By starting with the mobile experience, the mobile-first approach helps ensure that the design and functionality are optimized for the constraints and capabilities of mobile devices. It can lead to better user experiences, increased engagement, and improved accessibility for a larger and more diverse user base. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (MO)   Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) play an important role in mobile app development, providing opportunities for automation, improving the user experience, and enhancing functionality. Here are a few ways in which AI and MO are being applied in this area: Recommendation systems. AI and MO are used to create recommendation systems in mobile apps that analyze user preferences and behavior to offer personalized recommendations. This can include recommendations for content, products, locations, and other elements of the app. Natural Language Processing. AI and MO technologies can be used to develop Natural Language Processing (NLP) functionality in mobile applications. This allows the application to analyze and understand textual information, process voice commands, recognize speech, and generate natural language-based responses. Computer Vision. Using MO and AI techniques, mobile applications can process images and recognize objects, faces, gestures, and other visual data. This can be useful for functions such as automatic photo tagging, augmented reality, video surveillance systems, and more. Automation and optimization. MO can be used to automate routine tasks in mobile applications, helping to improve efficiency and reduce user workload. For example, MO can be used to automatically fill out forms, classify data, analyze usage patterns, and optimize app performance. Predictive analytics. With MO and AI, mobile apps can analyze data and predict user behavior, trends, and patterns. This can be useful for making decisions, providing recommendations, personalizing content, and optimizing app features. These are just a few examples of how AI and MOI are being applied to mobile app development. As technology advances and new innovations emerge, their role in this field is expected to continue to grow. Adaptive Design Adaptive design is an important trend in mobile development that focuses on creating websites and apps that can automatically adapt to different screen sizes and devices. The basic principles of adaptive design include: Layout flexibility. The layout of a website or app should be flexible and capable of adapting to different screen sizes.  Media queries. Media queries allow you to apply different CSS styles depending on device characteristics, such as screen width, resolution, and orientation. This allows you to optimize the display of a website or app for a particular device. Content prioritization. In adaptive design, the emphasis is on providing the most important and relevant content suitable for different screens. Less important elements can be hidden or presented in a smaller format on smaller screens to improve the user experience. Testing on different devices. When developing an adaptive design, you need to test it on real devices with different screen sizes and operating systems to ensure its effectiveness and consistency. The benefits of responsive design include improved accessibility, usability and user experience across devices. It also allows you to reach a wider audience and increase conversions because users can interact with the website or app from any device without losing functionality or information. AR/VR technology AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) are innovative developments that create unique virtual and augmented realities. They are used in mobile development to create new scenarios of user interaction with mobile applications. Augmented Reality (AR). AR allows you to blend virtual objects with your real-world environment, giving the impression that virtual objects exist in the real world. Mobile apps with AR functionality can use the device's camera and sensors to determine location and orientation, and then add virtual elements, such as 3D objects, information layers, or interactive elements, on top of the camera image. Virtual Reality (VR). With VR, users can fully immerse themselves in a virtual environment using a dedicated VR device or even just using a smartphone and VR glasses. Mobile apps with VR functionality allow users to interact with the virtual world, contributing to a unique and immersive user experience. AR/VR in mobile applications. AR/VR technologies provide new opportunities for various areas of mobile development. For example, in mobile games, AR can be used to create game scenarios where players interact with virtual objects in the real world. In e-commerce, AR can be used to create virtual fitting rooms where users can try on clothes or accessories before purchasing them. VR can be used in mobile applications for education, training, tourism, entertainment, and other areas where full immersion in a virtual environment is important. Examples of mobile apps that use AR/VR technologies include games such as Pokemon Go, homeschooling apps such as Anatomy Atlas, and augmented reality apps that allow users to interact with virtual objects in the real world. The use of AR/VR technologies in mobile development can lead to completely new scenarios of user interactions with mobile devices and change the way we look at mobile apps. In conclusion, mobile development continues to evolve, and new trends and technologies play a key role in this process. Some of the major trends we looked at include Mobile First approach, which makes mobile apps a priority, artificial intelligence and machine learning, which improves functionality and user experience, adaptive design, which ensures optimal display on different devices, and AR/VR technologies, which open up new possibilities for user interaction and immersion. The rapid pace of technological development and heightened user expectations make it important to follow and adapt to trends. Mobile app developers must constantly explore new opportunities, improve their skills, and integrate modern technology to create innovative and user-friendly apps. Ultimately, successful mobile development requires a balance between new trends and user needs to offer products that not only follow trends, but also solve real problems and create value for users. Read more about mobile development here. ### QA. How to manage product & project risks effectively In the context of Quality Assurance (QA), risk refers to the potential negative impact or uncertainty associated with the quality of a product or system. QA professionals assess and manage risks to achieve the desired quality levels. The term “risk” refers to: an event that has not yet occurred; a possibility of an event occurring; an event that can be prevented; an event of a negative or positive nature; an event with consequences that can be minimized, maximized, or accepted. We can distinguish two groups of risks – product risks and project risks. Product risks Product risk refers to the potential negative consequences or uncertainties associated with developing, releasing, and using a particular product or software system. It encompasses various aspects of the product's functionality, quality, usability, security, and overall success in meeting user or customer requirements. Identifying and managing product risks is crucial for organizations to ensure that their products meet the desired standards and deliver value to the users or customers. Product risks are related to specific characteristics of product quality. Therefore, they are also known as quality risks.  Such characteristics include: Functionality according to customer requirements; Reliability of the software; Performance; Usability; Security of the software; Compatibility; Ease of maintenance; Portability. Here are some examples of product risks that organizations may encounter: Feature Incompleteness. The risk is is that key features or functionalities planned for the product may not be fully implemented or meet the desired requirements. This can lead to dissatisfaction among users or customers and impact the product's market acceptance. Performance Issues. There is a risk that the product may not perform optimally under expected workloads or may have scalability limitations. Performance issues such as slow response times, high resource utilization, or system crashes can negatively impact user experience and customer satisfaction. Security Vulnerabilities. There is a risk that the product may have security vulnerabilities, making it susceptible to unauthorized access, data breaches, or malicious attacks. Security risks can lead to compromised user data, legal implications, and damage to the organization's reputation. Compatibility Problems. There is a risk that the product may not be compatible with various operating systems, browsers, or hardware configurations. Compatibility issues can result in limited usability, reduced accessibility, and potential customer dissatisfaction. Usability Challenges. The risk is that the product may have usability issues, making it difficult for users to understand, navigate, or accomplish tasks efficiently. Poor usability can lead to user frustration, increased support requests, and lower user adoption rates. Regulatory Compliance. The risk is that the product may not comply with industry regulations, standards, or legal requirements. Non-compliance can result in legal penalties, reputational damage, and market entry or expansion barriers. Data Loss or Corruption. The risk is that the product may experience data loss or corruption, potentially leading to the loss of critical information, user records, or transactional data. This can result in financial losses, customer distrust, and operational disruptions. Integration Challenges. The risk is that the product may struggle to integrate with other systems, platforms, or third-party applications. Integration issues can hinder interoperability, data exchange, and overall system efficiency. Poor Documentation. The risk is that the product may have inadequate or unclear documentation, making it challenging for users or developers to understand and utilize it effectively. Insufficient documentation can lead to increased support requests and decreased user satisfaction. Lack of Scalability. The risk is that the product may not scale effectively to accommodate growing user bases or increased workloads. Scalability issues can lead to performance degradation, system instability, and limited business growth opportunities. Project risks From a Quality Assurance (QA) perspective, here are some specific project risks that can impact the successful execution of QA activities and the overall quality of the project: Inadequate Test Coverage. There is a risk that the test coverage may be insufficient, resulting in critical functionalities, user scenarios, or system components not being adequately tested. Incomplete test coverage increases the likelihood of undiscovered defects and quality issues. Lack of Test Environment. The risk is that the project may not have a suitable test environment that accurately reflects the production environment or provides the necessary resources for testing. Inadequate test environments can hinder comprehensive testing and impede the detection of environment-specific issues. Time Constraints. There is a risk that insufficient time may be allocated for QA activities, such as test planning, test design, test execution, and defect management. Tight timelines can lead to rushed testing, limited test iterations, and inadequate defect triage, impacting the overall quality of the project. Unclear Requirements. There is a risk that project requirements may be ambiguous, incomplete, or prone to interpretation. Unclear requirements can result in misunderstandings during test planning and execution, leading to inadequate test coverage and deviations from the intended product behavior. Resource Limitations. The risk is that the QA team may face resource constraints regarding skilled testers, testing tools, or infrastructure. Insufficient resources can impact the thoroughness and efficiency of testing, potentially leading to delayed defect identification or reduced test coverage. Integration Challenges. The risk is that the project may involve complex integrations between different system components, interfaces, or third-party services. Integration challenges can result in difficulties in setting up test environments, coordinating testing efforts, and identifying defects related to the integration points. Communication and Collaboration Issues. The risk is that ineffective communication and collaboration between QA team members, developers, project managers, and stakeholders may hinder the flow of information, timely issue resolution, and alignment on quality expectations. Poor communication can lead to misunderstandings, delayed defect fixes, and reduced quality. Defect Management Challenges. There is a risk of inadequate processes, tools, or documentation for effectively managing defects. Defect management challenges can delay defect triage, resolution, and retesting, impacting the overall project schedule and quality. Regression Risks. Project changes or updates may introduce unintended defects or cause regression issues in previously working functionalities. Inadequate regression testing can result in defects escaping detection, leading to product instability and diminished user experience. Test Data Availability. There is a risk that sufficient and representative test data may not be available for testing. Incomplete or unrealistic test data can limit testing effectiveness, potentially missing scenarios or data-specific issues. How to manage product & project risks QA teams can employ various strategies and practices to manage product and project risks effectively. Here are some approaches that QA teams can adopt: Risk Assessment and Planning. QA teams should conduct a thorough risk assessment to identify potential product and project risks. This involves analyzing project requirements, assessing technical complexities, reviewing historical data, and consulting stakeholders. Based on the assessment, teams can create a risk management plan that outlines risk identification, mitigation, and monitoring strategies throughout the project lifecycle. Prioritize Risks. QA teams should prioritize identified risks based on their potential impact and likelihood of occurrence. This helps allocate resources and efforts effectively. High-priority risks that can significantly impact product quality or project success should receive immediate attention and proactive mitigation. Risk-Based Testing. QA teams can use a risk-based testing approach to focus testing efforts on areas of higher risk. By prioritizing test cases and scenarios based on identified risks, teams can ensure that critical functionalities and high-risk regions receive thorough testing. This helps optimize testing efforts and allocate resources based on risk exposure. Test Environment Management. QA teams should ensure that appropriate test environments are set up and maintained to replicate the production environment as closely as possible. This helps identify and mitigate environment-specific risks, compatibility issues, and integration challenges early in the testing process. Collaboration and Communication. Effective collaboration and communication among QA team members, developers, project managers, and stakeholders are crucial for risk management. Regular meetings, status updates, and transparent communication channels facilitate the early identification and resolution of risks. QA teams should actively participate in project meetings, share risk-related insights, and ensure that risks are adequately addressed in project planning and decision-making processes. Continuous Monitoring and Reporting. QA teams should continuously monitor identified risks throughout the project lifecycle. Regular risk tracking and reporting enable teams to assess the effectiveness of risk mitigation strategies, identify emerging risks, and adjust their approaches as needed. Transparent reporting on risk status and mitigation progress helps stakeholders understand the current risk landscape and make informed decisions. Quality Assurance Best Practices. QA teams should adhere to established quality assurance best practices, including thorough test planning, design, execution, and defect management processes. By following standardized QA processes, teams can minimize quality-related risks, ensure comprehensive test coverage, and enhance overall product quality. Agile and Iterative Approach. Adopting an agile and iterative development approach allows QA teams to address risks incrementally throughout the project. Short development cycles, frequent testing, and continuous feedback loops enable teams to identify and mitigate risks early on, reducing the likelihood of risks escalating into more significant issues. Continuous Improvement. QA teams should promote a culture of constant improvement and learning. Conducting retrospectives after project milestones or releases helps identify lessons learned, process gaps, and areas for improvement. By incorporating these insights into future projects, teams can enhance risk management practices and optimize quality assurance processes. By employing these strategies, QA teams can effectively identify, assess, mitigate, and monitor product and project risks, improving quality outcomes, reducing project risks, and increasing project success rates. Read more about QA here. Follow our blog to learn more helpful tips in terms of product development. ### Next.js. How we switched from Incremental Static Regeneration to On-Demand Revalidation for static pages Next.js is a popular open-source framework for building server-side rendered (SSR) and static websites with React. It is built on top of Node.js and provides a robust environment for developing modern web applications. Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) is used in web development to enhance the performance and scalability of static websites or pages generated by static site generators. It allows for selective regeneration of specific parts of a website instead of regenerating the entire site each time new content is added or updated. On-demand revalidation refers to the process of verifying and updating the credentials or qualifications of a professional or service provider on an as-needed basis. Instead of following a fixed schedule for revalidation, it allows revalidation to occur whenever necessary or requested. In this case study, we will explore why On-Demand Revalidation offers a more effective solution for our needs. By delving into a real-life project as an example, we aim to provide a clear understanding of its advantages.   Project Description The project is several online stores combined under a particular brand.  For the backend, we used Ruby on Rails (6.1.4) + Spree (4.4.0).  For the front, we used Next.js + Next.js Commerce (v1). The application architecture is built to have one instance for the backend and many front-end applications (different stores). Currently, the number of front-end applications with a standard backend varies from 10 to 20, depending on the store's brand. What problem we encountered with Next.js During the initial stages of development and before release, only a few products were in the stores, and the backend faced minimal issues with high load. However, as the project evolved and the stores became stocked with more products, we observed a significant increase in backend load, which remained elevated without user activity. After a careful study of the load sources, we concluded that it's all due to one of Next.js's features, Incremental Static Regeneration for static pages. Let's look at what it is and what it's for. Product pages are static pages rendered on the frontend server and stored in its cache. During the build, the front end requests information about each product and generates its own pages for the products. However, to keep product data up-to-date, it is necessary to revalidate it at regular intervals (in our case, 200 seconds). Thus, if the number of products in the store is small, the backend copes with this without problems. But if we have ten stores, and each store contains 1 million items, it means that every 200 seconds, all ten stores need to revalidate data about products: (10 stores) x (1 million items) = 10 million requests every 200 seconds.  Serious enough load, even without taking into account the load from users. Two typical Next.js functions that are responsible for ISR:   How we handled this problem To eliminate the constant revalidation of product pages, we decided to switch to On-Demand Revalidation. It is a feature of Next.js that allows you to revalidate specific pages only when needed. It is achieved by creating a unique endpoint on the Next.js server that initiates revalidation. This way, you can eliminate millions of unnecessary requests, and pages will be updated only if there are some changes in particular products. This way, we had to change the getStaticProps() function, add an endpoint on the front end, and add some extra logic to the back end. Specifically, we added callbacks when goods are updated, which will send a request to the front end that this product be revalidated. In getStaticProps(), we removed revalidate: We also added an endpoint to the frontend: Added a callback on the backend for products: And here’s an actual process of sending a request for revalidation:   Conclusion So here’s what we’ve got in the end: Frontend applications stopped sending millions of requests to update their data, and the extra workload disappeared. Data consistency remained at the same level; any product change on the backend instantly updated the static page for that product on the frontend. Read more about how we overcome technical challenges here. ### Building a Comprehensive Scrum Management Approach for Product Development Scrum is a popular Agile methodology used to manage product development projects. It emphasizes flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement, making it an ideal framework for teams looking to deliver high-quality products efficiently. This article provides in-depth guidance on implementing Scrum methodologies in your product development process, including sprint planning, backlog grooming, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives. We'll also discuss best practices for fostering collaboration, improving team efficiency, and ensuring successful product delivery using Scrum principles. Finally, we'll support our insights with real-world examples and practical tips to help teams adopt and leverage Scrum in their product development processes. Understanding Scrum Methodologies Scrum is an Agile methodology that is based on the principles of transparency, inspection, and adaptation. It is a framework that enables teams to complete complex projects by breaking them down into smaller, more manageable tasks. Scrum is based on sprints, which are time-boxed periods during which the team works on tasks. The Scrum process involves several key meetings and ceremonies, including sprint planning, backlog grooming, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives. Each meeting is critical in ensuring the team works towards the same goals and continually improves. Sprint Planning Sprint planning is a crucial step in the Scrum process. During this time, the team comes together to define the work that will be completed during the upcoming sprint. To ensure the sprint planning meeting is productive, there are a few best practices teams should follow: Set Goals and Priorities: Before the meeting begins, it's essential to clearly understand what goals and priorities the team is working towards. This helps ensure that the work selected for the sprint aligns with the larger objectives. Define Sprint Backlog Items: Identify the product backlog items the team will work on during the sprint. This includes breaking down large items into smaller, more manageable tasks. Estimate Tasks: Determine how long the team will take to complete each task. This helps ensure that the sprint is realistic and achievable. Backlog Grooming Backlog grooming involves reviewing the product backlog and ensuring it is up-to-date and prioritized correctly. This process is crucial to the success of the sprint planning meeting and helps ensure that the team is working on the right tasks during the sprint. Here are some best practices to follow during backlog grooming: Schedule Regular Sessions: Schedule regular backlog grooming sessions to ensure the product backlog is continually refined and updated. Prioritize Items: Ensure that the items in the backlog are prioritized based on their importance and value to the product. Define Acceptance Criteria: Define acceptance criteria for each item in the backlog. This helps ensure the team understands what must be accomplished to complete each item successfully. Define the Definition of Ready: Clearly defining the definition of ready helps your team understand what functional requirements should consist of. Daily Stand-Ups Daily stand-ups are brief meetings where the team comes together to discuss progress and any obstacles that must be addressed. These meetings help align the team and ensure everyone works towards the same goals. Here are some best practices to follow during daily stand-ups: Keep it Brief: Stand-ups should be short and focused, lasting no more than 15 minutes. Stick to the Agenda: The agenda for daily stand-ups should focus on progress, obstacles, and plans for the day. Avoid discussing unrelated topics. Encourage Collaboration: Stand-ups allow the team to collaborate and help each other overcome obstacles. Sprint Reviews Sprint reviews are meetings held at the end of each sprint to review the work completed and demonstrate the product to stakeholders. These meetings help ensure the product meets the stakeholders' requirements and expectations. Here are some best practices for conducting successful sprint reviews: Prepare for the Meeting: Ensure the team has prepared a demonstration of the work completed during the sprint. Invite Stakeholders: Invite stakeholders to attend the meeting and provide feedback on the product. Discuss Lessons Learned: Use the sprint review to discuss what worked well during the sprint and what could be improved. Retrospectives Retrospectives are meetings held at the end of each sprint to reflect on the work completed and identify areas for improvement. These meetings help ensure that the team is continually improving and growing. Here are some best practices for conducting successful retrospectives: Create a Safe Space: Ensure the team feels safe and comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas. Focus on Improvement: Use the retrospective as an opportunity to identify areas for improvement and discuss how to make changes in the future. Take Action: Create action items based on the discussions during the retrospective and follow up on them during the next sprint. Fostering Collaboration Collaboration is a critical component of Scrum and essential for ensuring the team works towards the same goals. Here are some best practices for fostering collaboration: Encourage Open Communication: Encourage team members to communicate openly and honestly with one another. Promote Teamwork: Encourage teamwork by creating opportunities for team members to work together. Celebrate Successes: Celebrate successes as a team to reinforce the importance of collaboration and teamwork. Improving Team Efficiency Scrum is designed to improve team efficiency by breaking down complex projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. Here are some best practices for improving team efficiency: Eliminate Distractions: Eliminate distractions by creating a quiet work environment. Reduce Meeting Time: Reduce meeting time by creating shorter, more focused meetings. Automate Processes: Automate processes wherever possible to reduce the time and effort required for repetitive tasks. Ensuring Successful Product Delivery Scrum is designed to help teams deliver high-quality products efficiently. Here are some best practices for ensuring successful product delivery: Set Realistic Goals: Set realistic goals for each sprint to ensure the team can accomplish the work within the allotted time. Continuously Improve: Improve the Scrum process by incorporating feedback and making changes as necessary. Focus on Quality: Focus on quality by incorporating testing and quality assurance into each sprint. Real-World Examples Many companies have successfully adopted Scrum methodologies in their product development process. For example, Spotify uses Scrum to manage its product development process. They use squads, tribes, chapters, and guilds to organize their teams and ensure everyone works towards the same goals. Another example is Zappos, which uses Scrum to manage its website development process. They have achieved significant improvements in efficiency and quality since adopting Scrum. Conclusion Scrum is a robust Agile methodology that can help teams deliver high-quality products efficiently. By following the best practices outlined in this article, teams can effectively adopt and leverage Scrum in their product development processes. By fostering collaboration, improving team efficiency, and ensuring successful product delivery, teams can achieve their goals and deliver products that meet the needs and expectations of their stakeholders. Did you find this article helpful? Click the button below to subscribe to our blog!   ### Employ the 8D Approach in Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a systematic problem-solving approach used to identify the underlying causes of an issue or problem rather than just addressing its symptoms. The primary goal of RCA is to determine why an undesirable event or failure occurred to prevent its recurrence. Root Cause Analysis is often applied in various industries, including engineering, manufacturing, healthcare, IT, and quality management. It helps organizations understand the factors contributing to a particular incident, such as equipment failure, product defects, accidents, errors, or customer complaints. Root Cause Analysis typically involves the following steps: Define the problem. Clearly articulate the issue or event that needs analysis and establish the scope of the investigation. Collect data. Gather relevant information and data related to the problem. This includes incident reports, documentation, interviews, observations, and other sources. Identify the immediate causes. Determine the factors or events that directly led to the problem. These are often referred to as the "symptoms" of the issue. Identify the root causes. Dig deeper to identify the underlying factors or systemic weaknesses contributing to the immediate causes. Root causes are the fundamental reasons why the problem occurred. Analyze causation. Use various techniques, such as the "5 Whys" method, fault-tree analysis, or fishbone diagrams, to explore the cause-and-effect relationships leading to the problem. This helps uncover multiple layers of causation. Develop corrective actions. Based on the identified root causes, generate practical solutions and preventive measures to address the problem and prevent its recurrence. These actions may involve process improvements, training, policy changes, or modifications to equipment or systems. Implement and monitor. Put the recommended corrective actions into practice and monitor their effectiveness. Follow up to ensure the solutions are successfully implemented and the problem does not reoccur. RCA Techniques Root Cause Analysis (RCA) employs various techniques to systematically identify and analyze a problem's underlying causes. These techniques help facilitate a comprehensive investigation and ensure a thorough understanding of the factors contributing to the issue. Here are some commonly used RCA techniques: 5 Whys. The 5 Whys technique is a simple yet effective approach to uncovering root causes. It involves repeatedly asking "why" to trace the cause-and-effect chain of events leading to the problem. By asking "why" at least five times, teams can delve deeper into the causal factors and reveal deeper layers of causation. Fishbone Diagram (Ishikawa Diagram). The Fishbone diagram, the Ishikawa diagram, or the Cause-and-Effect diagram visually represents various potential causes and their relationships to a problem. It organizes causes into categories such as people, process, equipment, materials, and environment, allowing for a structured analysis of possible root causes. Fault-Tree Analysis. Fault-Tree Analysis (FTA) is a deductive technique that visually represents events, probabilities, and logical relationships to analyze the causes of failures or accidents. It identifies the combinations of events that can lead to the occurrence of the problem and helps prioritize critical factors requiring attention. Pareto Analysis. Based on the Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule), Pareto Analysis involves identifying and prioritizing the most significant causes of a problem. It helps focus efforts on the vital few causes with the most significant impact, allowing for efficient resource allocation and problem resolution. Change Analysis. Change analysis involves examining recent changes or events before the problem emerged. It aims to identify any modifications in processes, systems, equipment, or personnel that may have triggered or contributed to the problem. This technique helps uncover causal relationships between changes and the resulting issues. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). FMEA is a systematic approach to identifying and evaluating potential failure modes and their effects on systems, processes, or products. It proactively assesses risks by analyzing potential failures' severity, likelihood, and detectability. By identifying critical failure modes and their causes, organizations can implement preventive measures to mitigate risks. Statistical Analysis. Statistical analysis techniques, such as regression analysis, hypothesis testing, and data mining, can be employed to identify data correlations, patterns, or trends. Organizations can gain insights into potential root causes and their relationships to the problem by analyzing relevant data sets. These techniques are not mutually exclusive, and often a combination of approaches is used to conduct a comprehensive RCA. The choice of method depends on the nature of the problem, available data, and the preferences of the RCA team. The ultimate goal is to uncover the root causes accurately and develop effective strategies to prevent similar issues. The 8D Approach to Root Cause Analysis The 8D (Eight Disciplines) is another popular problem-solving methodology incorporating Root Cause Analysis (RCA). It is commonly used in the automotive industry but has also found application in various other sectors. The 8D approach provides a structured framework to address problems, promote collaboration, and drive continuous improvement. Here is an overview of the 8D process: D1: Establish the Team. Assemble a cross-functional team with the necessary skills and expertise to address the problem effectively. Assign a team leader responsible for coordinating the process. D2: Describe the Problem. Clearly define the problem, its impact, and any relevant background information. Use objective data and facts to provide a comprehensive understanding of the issue. D3: Contain the Problem. Take immediate action to contain the problem and prevent it from escalating further. Implement temporary measures or workarounds to mitigate the direct impact. D4: Identify the Root Cause. Conduct a thorough Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to determine the underlying factors contributing to the problem. Use techniques like the 5 Whys, Fishbone diagrams, or other appropriate tools to identify the primary root cause. D5: Develop Corrective Actions. Based on the identified root cause, brainstorm and propose corrective actions that will eliminate or mitigate the root cause. These actions should be practical, feasible, and address the problem at its source. D6: Implement Corrective Actions. Put the proposed corrective actions into action. Develop an action plan, allocate resources, and define responsibilities and timelines. Ensure effective communication within the team and across relevant stakeholders. D7: Prevent Recurrence. Implement measures to prevent the problem from recurring. This may involve process changes, training, improved documentation, quality control checks, or other preventive measures. Consider incorporating mistake-proofing techniques to minimize the likelihood of future occurrences. D8: Recognize the Team and Closure. Acknowledge the efforts of the team members and celebrate their contributions to solving the problem. Evaluate the effectiveness of the 8D process and document lessons learned. Close the 8D report and ensure appropriate documentation for future reference. The 8D process encourages a systematic and disciplined approach to problem-solving, emphasizing collaboration, data-driven analysis, and preventive measures. It enables organizations to address issues comprehensively, minimize risks, and promote continuous improvement. RCA Software RCA software offers several advantages over manual or traditional methods of conducting Root Cause Analysis (RCA). Firstly, RCA software enhances efficiency and productivity. It automates various tasks, such as data collection, analysis, and reporting, saving time and reducing the likelihood of errors. The software streamlines the entire RCA process, allowing teams to focus on analyzing data and identifying root causes rather than getting caught up in administrative tasks. This efficiency accelerates the RCA process and enables organizations to implement corrective actions more promptly, reducing downtime and minimizing the impact of recurring issues. Secondly, RCA software promotes collaboration and communication among team members. It provides a centralized platform where stakeholders can easily share information, document findings, and collaborate on RCA investigations. Real-time access to shared data allows team members to work together seamlessly, regardless of their physical location. This collaborative aspect improves the quality of RCA by leveraging team members' diverse expertise and perspectives, leading to more comprehensive and accurate root cause identification. Finally, RCA software supports data-driven decision-making. By leveraging advanced analytical tools and visualizations, the software enables teams to analyze large volumes of data more effectively. It helps identify patterns, correlations, and trends that may not be readily apparent manually. This data-driven approach enhances the accuracy and precision of root cause identification, enabling organizations to make informed decisions and implement targeted corrective actions that address the underlying causes of problems. Conclusion Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a robust methodology for uncovering the underlying causes of organizational problems and failures. RCA empowers organizations to implement practical corrective actions, prevent a recurrence, and drive continuous improvement by going beyond surface-level symptoms and delving into the fundamental reasons. The systematic approach of RCA, coupled with the utilization of advanced tools such as RCA software, enhances efficiency, collaboration, and data-driven decision-making. Integrating RCA into organizational problem-solving processes fosters a proactive mindset, enabling companies to address issues at their root and pave the way for long-term success. With RCA as a guiding principle, organizations can transform setbacks into opportunities for improvement, ensuring a robust and resilient future. Found this article helpful? Follow the JetRuby blog, and don’t miss our new posts!   ### The Art of Mobile App Development: How to Build an App That Wows Users and Ensures the Success of Your Business Building a successful mobile app is not only about creating an aesthetically pleasing interface. It also takes much more than just implementing a bunch of different features hoping that users will actually use them. Development of any application needs individual research and a good understanding of core points, that we will discuss later in this article.  Finding the target audience Identifying the target audience is of paramount importance when developing an app. It serves as the foundation for creating a successful and user-centric product. By understanding the target audience, developers can tailor the app's features, design, and functionality to meet their specific needs and preferences. This leads to a more engaging and intuitive user experience, increasing the app's chances of adoption and success in the market. There are some crucial factors to consider when determining the target audience, as well as methods of understanding users’ needs. Demographics. Analyzing the demographic characteristics of the target audience is essential. This includes factors such as age, gender, location, income level, education level, and occupation. Psychographics. Psychographic factors delve into the target audience's lifestyle, attitudes, interests, and values. It includes understanding their hobbies, preferences, aspirations, and motivations. This information helps in crafting an app experience that resonates with their interests and aligns with their values. Technographic Profile. It's important to consider the target audience's familiarity and comfort with technology. Understanding their device preferences, operating systems they use, and their level of technological expertise helps in optimizing the app's compatibility, usability, and user interface design. Behavior and Usage Patterns. Analyzing how potential users interact with similar apps or technologies provides insights into their behavior and usage patterns. Understanding their needs, pain points, and expectations helps in designing features and functionalities that address these specific requirements. Market Research. Conducting market research and competitor analysis is vital. It helps in identifying gaps in the market, understanding the competitive landscape, and uncovering opportunities to differentiate the app. Market research also provides insights into trends, user feedback, and customer preferences. Feedback and User Testing. Collecting feedback and conducting user testing during the development process allows for real-time insights from the target audience. It helps in identifying areas for improvement, understanding user preferences, and refining the app to meet their expectations. By considering these factors, developers can gain a comprehensive understanding of the target audience's characteristics, needs, and preferences. This knowledge serves as a guiding force in shaping the app's features, design, and overall user experience to create a compelling and tailored product. The importance of determining customer’s needs Firstly, designing a mobile application with user needs in mind provides a greater chance of success in the market. You can't just build an application based on the developers’ guesses about its use. You need to have a good understanding of what users expect from the application. Considering their needs and preferences when designing, you can create a nice product that will be in demand. Secondly, planning and designing a mobile application from the client's point of view helps to work effectively on a project. If developers accurately consider the needs of the target audience during the creation of the application and think about the most effective ways to meet these needs in advance, then the project is most likely to be completed on time and with a minimal amount of bugs. Thirdly, planning and designing a mobile application from the customer's point of view helps to find the right balance between business goals and user needs. Well-designed apps not only help attract new users, but also keep the old ones around. This, in turn, increases customer loyalty and, as a result, increases the company's profits. UI/UX Design Designing the user interface is the main way users interact with the application. To create a user-friendly interface that allows users to easily find the features they need and not get confused in managing the application, several factors should be considered, such as: Simplicity. Keep the interface clean, intuitive, and uncluttered. Avoid overwhelming users with too much information or complex interactions. Use clear and concise language, minimalistic design elements, and straightforward navigation. Consistency. Maintain consistency in design elements, visual style, and interaction patterns throughout the app. Consistent placement of buttons, icons, and menus helps users develop a mental model of the app's structure, making it easier for them to navigate and use the interface. Visual Hierarchy. Use visual cues such as color, size, and typography to establish a clear hierarchy of information. Highlight important elements, prioritize content based on user needs, and guide users' attention to key actions or features. Readability. Ensure that text is legible and easy to read across different device sizes and screen resolutions. Use appropriate font sizes, contrast between text and background, and provide ample white space to enhance readability. Responsive Design. Design the interface to be responsive and adaptive to different screen sizes and orientations. Optimize the layout, interactions, and content presentation to provide a seamless experience on various devices, including smartphones and tablets. Feedback and Affordance. Provide clear and timely feedback to user actions. Use visual cues such as animations, progress indicators, or tooltips to indicate that an action has been performed or is in progress. Ensure interactive elements have clear affordance, indicating their purpose and how they can be interacted with. Accessibility. Consider accessibility guidelines to ensure that users with disabilities can effectively use the app. Provide options for adjustable text sizes, color contrast choices, and compatibility with screen readers. Adhering to accessibility standards enhances inclusivity and improves the overall user experience. Error Prevention and Recovery. Minimize the occurrence of errors through clear instructions, validation messages, and error prevention techniques. Provide helpful error messages and guide users on how to recover from mistakes to reduce frustration and support a positive user experience. By considering these factors, you can design a user-friendly interface that promotes ease of use, enhances user engagement, and delivers a positive and intuitive experience for your target audience. Prototype testing  Prototype testing is a development stage when the functionality of an application is being checked on compliance with user needs. The main purpose of such testing is to identify and fix errors and defects of the application before releasing it. Various methods can be used to test prototypes, including:  Manual testing. It refers to the process of testing applications by human testers without the use of automated tools or scripts. It involves executing test cases and procedures manually to identify defects, ensure software functionality, and validate its compliance with requirements. Manual testing is typically performed by skilled testers who follow predefined test cases, explore the software's various features, and simulate user actions to evaluate its behavior and performance. Automated testing. It refers to the use of software tools and scripts to execute tests and verify the behavior and performance of an application. It involves the creation and execution of test scripts, which are typically written by testers or developers and automated using specialized testing frameworks or tools. User testing. Also known as usability testing or user acceptance testing (UAT), it is a method of evaluating an application by observing real users interacting with it. The purpose of user testing is to assess the usability, intuitiveness, and overall user experience of the software. To ensure that an application works flawlessly and meets customer requirements before it is released, testing should be performed early in the process of development. Testing should be carried out in close cooperation with the customer, who will evaluate the conformity of the application to its requirements. Testing should also include the fullest possible set of application usage scenarios and the use of various hardware and operating systems to test the application's functionality as much as possible. The only way an application benefits any business is when it’s user-centric. Be ready to conduct a deep research of the target audience, competitors and an overall market, so that you know how to make your application actually useful and not just impressive. Anyways, it's still important to note that success can vary depending on the specific goals and objectives of the app and its creators. Different apps may prioritize different metrics or outcomes based on their unique purposes and target audiences. Read more about our mobile development processes here. ### Try 2 Appoaches to Quality Assurance and Benefit Your Digital Product This article is best to read before you launch your app, so its testing wouldn’t be overlooked. With errors being identified and fixed at the early stages of development with the help of quality assurance, you pave the way to building a sustainable and reliable app. Bugs and underperformance of digital products affect its reputation and scare potential customers off. After all, a good impression is necessary for brand trust. The good news is that proper quality assurance solves such problems and eradicates mistakes early on. What is adequate testing, and which approaches does it include? We can talk about regular testing, tests with the participation of users, and systematic testing. Let’s dive into each type of testing. Regular and Automatic Testing Regular testing implies systematically evaluating the application's features, performance, and usability. It helps to identify and resolve any issues before its release to end users. Developers test their applications regularly to discover bugs and check the app’s performance after each upgrade. Automatic testing is a fast and efficient way to check the app’s functionality and assist in quality assurance. Other benefits of test automation are: Improved accuracy reduces the chances of human errors during manual testing, resulting in more accurate test results. Increased test coverage: automation allows for extensive test coverage by executing many test cases, which may not be feasible manually. Regression testing: those tests can be easily repeated, making them ideal for regression testing. They help ensure that new changes or features added to an application do not break existing functionality. Cost savings: although there is an initial investment in setting up the process, it saves costs in the long run by reducing the need for manual testing and freeing up resources for other tasks. To implement test automation, you can use various tools and frameworks, depending on your application's programming language and technology stack. Some popular Quality Assurance automation frameworks include: Selenium: a widely used open-source framework for automating web browsers. It supports multiple programming languages such as Java, C#, Python, and more. Appium: an open-source tool for automating mobile applications. It supports both Android and iOS platforms. Robot Framework: an open-source, keyword-driven test automation framework that supports web, mobile, and desktop applications. Cypress: a JavaScript-based end-to-end testing framework that provides fast, reliable, and easy-to-write tests for web applications. TestComplete: a commercial test automation tool that supports various technologies, including web, desktop, mobile, and hybrid applications. Test with the Participation of Users Users’ feedback is valuable for developers because users’ perspective is unique and encompasses a wide range of user experiences. While developers possess the technical expertise to create functional apps, they may need to fully comprehend the diverse perspectives, preferences, and behaviors of end-users. Users’ participation in testing uncovers usability flaws, identify confusing elements, or highlights features that may not align with their expectations. It brings in individuals from the target audience who can provide fresh insights and real-world experiences. By involving users in testing, developers better understand how their intended audience will perceive and use their app. User testing assists developers in critical ways: Validating User Interface Design: User Interface (UI) design significantly impacts user engagement and satisfaction. Users' feedback on the aesthetics, layout, and ease of use of an app's interface can lead to valuable improvements. User testing allows developers to validate their UI design choices and understand if the app's visual elements align with user expectations. Developers assess whether color schemes, button placements, or menu structures resonate well with the target audience. User testing helps fine-tune the app's UI design to create a visually appealing, user-friendly interface that enhances the overall experience. Early detection of bugs and glitches: Users involved in app testing are a strong defense against bugs and glitches. While developers employ rigorous testing procedures, users often encounter unforeseen issues that may not have been detected internally. App users can need help with usability hiccups, performance bottlenecks, or compatibility problems across various devices and platforms. Developers collect valuable bug reports and error logs by actively involving them in testing, delivering a more stable and reliable app. Continuous improvement and iteration: User testing is not a one-time event but an iterative process allowing developers to improve their apps based on user feedback continuously. By embracing user-centered design principles, developers create a feedback loop with their target audience, incorporating their suggestions and addressing their pain points. This iterative approach ensures that the app evolves alongside user expectations, resulting in a product that resonates deeply with its intended users. Whatever testing methods you follow, your actions go best with a systematic approach. It means that the process starts with validating certain functions and components and ends with integration and performance tests. The Role of Quality Assurance Engineer QA (Quality Assurance) is a professional who tests a product or program at all stages of its development. As a rule, the tasks of QA specialists include the following: Test planning: QA professionals analyze the requirements for the application and create a test plan that describes what kinds of tests will be used, what resources are needed, what risks may arise, etc. Development of test cases describing the steps you take to test specific functions of applications. Test cases include the expected result and a criterion of erroneous results. Test execution: performing testing per the test plan and following test cases to validate each feature application for compliance. Analysis of test results: analysis of the test results and preparation of bug reports. At this stage, QA specialists determine which errors must be fixed and which can be ignored. They also take note of issues that may repeat in the future. QA specialists are constantly improving the testing process, looking for new methods and tools for test automation and reducing testing time. QA specialists use various testing methods (functional, regression, etc.) and techniques, including automated tools. They ensure the application is designed according to customer requirements, is stable and safe for users, and complies with software quality standards. How Developers Contribute to the Testing Process Developers can also take part in testing their software to detect bugs and problems before the QA department steps in. They perform several types of testing: Unit testing: testing individual code modules (for example, functions or classes) to ensure each module works correctly. Usually, these automated tests can run quickly and frequently. Integration testing: testing the interaction between different application modules or components to make sure they work right together and, for example, testing the interaction between the server and client side of the application. Snapshot testing ensures that updates in the code do not lead to unexpected changes in the user interface (UI). During Snapshot testing, the developer matches the screenshots interface before and after updating the code. Snapshot testing allows for fast feedback during development. Snapshots serve as living documentation, showcasing a component's expected output at a given time. They can be easily shared with team members, aiding collaboration and providing valuable context. UI test validates the work of the user interface. The developer ensures those user interface elements are correctly displayed on a screen so that the user can interact with interface elements. All functional elements, such as forms, buttons, dropdowns, etc., must work correctly. System tests: testing the entire application to ensure it works correctly and meets the customer's requirements. Developers can also use automated tools such as unit testing frameworks, simulation tools, user interaction, or utility to check the security of an application. It’s impossible to rely on a developer and expect them to replace the entire QA department and its testing processes. Developers’ contribution is a valuable supplement to the QA process that cuts the time required to find and eradicate bugs. How Big Projects Failed Because of Lack of Testing The failure to properly test the software before its launch by the National Healthcare System of Great Britain in 2011 is an illustrative example of insufficient testing. As a result, an abandoned IT system cost taxpayers nearly £10bn. This malfunction made patients' private data accessible by unauthorized users, with part of the data lost or transferred incorrectly. A nationwide digital initiative was finally abandoned, with bills exceeding £10bn. Another example is a failure in operating the U.S. web service VaccineFinder used for booking a vaccine appointment. In 2021 the service could not process many requests for vaccine appointments, massively preventing users from finding available reservations. Analysts pointed out that this trouble could have been avoided if quality assurance had been appropriately done during load tests before it was launched. Pros and Cons of Testing on a Project The test procedure on a project has apparent pros and cons. First, we’ll start with the pros:  Product quality improvement: detecting bugs and defects in the product allows developers to fix them before release. This process improves the overall product quality and reduces the number of user problems. Saving time and money: through testing, you find errors in the early stages of development, saving you additional costs for fixing problems in the future. Early testing reduces the time for testing in later stages and debugging in the future. Boosting confidence in the product: testing allows you to ensure that the product works as it should, increasing confidence in its quality and functionality. Improve communication: testing contributes to more effective communication between developers and testers, which helps reduce errors and debugging time. Facilitate adding new features: testing allows you to quickly validate the performance of new features in your system and provide an easier rollout of new features. Improving the company's reputation: products tested for quality improve the company's reputation in the eyes of customers and potential buyers. Security improvement: Security testing helps identify and fix vulnerabilities in the product, preventing potential security threats for users. Usability improvement: usability testing allows for identifying and fixing interface and user experience problems, improving the product's usability. Now that we’ve understood the advantages of having tests let’s think about the potential negative sides: 1. Additional costs: testing requires additional time, aids, and equipment. These requirements can be costly, especially for small projects. The need to update tests: testing requires constant updates to keep it relevant and effective. It also takes up time and resources. Training and support: Testing requires knowledge, experience, support, and training of teams involved in testing. If the documentation is outdated and does not meet the requirements and functionality of the product, testing can be ineffective or even detrimental to the quality of the product. Limitation of testing: testing cannot detect all possible problems in the product because it cannot entail every use case. Some problems can only be discovered during the actual use of the product. Risk to data privacy: If testing includes the use of real data, then there is a risk of confidentiality breach if that data is not processed correctly or protected. Conclusion Quality Assurance tests offer more advantages than downsides, and the latter usually relates to costs. When you see bugs in your product and eliminate them on time, you boost product quality and brand trust, saving time and money that would otherwise be needed to rectify bugs on the fly. Being a crucial part of the development process of any app, testing allows for revealing and fixing problems before the production release. That said, as a product owner, you should be aware of potential risks and costs associated with testing and be able to balance them with the value generated by testing. It’s also important to realize that testing cannot be the final stage of development but should accompany development from its earliest stages. Being integrated into the development process, tests run at every step to comply with high-quality standards. The product release doesn’t mean that testing is over. It’s crucial to keep testing your app after release so you can discover and eliminate troubles arising during the app use. Continuous testing improves product quality, ensures high user satisfaction, cares about the users’ safety, and contributes to having more positive feedback.   Click the "Subscribe" button below to subscribe to our blog and receive the latest articles about IT, case studies, and industry trends!    ### Sidekiq Batches with Sub-Batches. A Simple Way to Organize Code Sidekiq Batches is a powerful feature in the Sidekiq job processing framework that allows you to process jobs in groups. This means you can bundle a set of jobs together and execute them as a single unit, managing dependencies and making batch processing more efficient. In this article, I’ll share our journey of using this tool in a real project and how we developed a wrapper to optimize performance and reliability. The Challenge We had a project that required seamless synchronization between multiple systems. This is a common scenario where you need to sync a list of resources across different services, and naturally, we turned to Sidekiq for handling this background process. Our process was straightforward: Retrieve a list of resources. Initiate synchronization for each resource. This could also be done individually if only one resource needed synchronization. Our Resources Included: UniversitySync #University class FacultySync #Faculties class DepartmentsSync → DepartmentSync #Departments CoursesSync → CourseSync #Courses ProfessorsSync → ProfessorSync #Professors StudentsSync → StudentSync #Students EnrollmentsSync → EnrollmentSync #Enrollments While these granular classes made it easy to scale the synchronization process across various resource types, we couldn’t synchronize all resources in parallel due to dependencies. For instance, Students needed to be synchronized before Enrollments, and both University and Faculties needed synchronization before any other resources. Addressing Synchronization Challenges with Vanilla Sidekiq Initially, we tried introducing delays between synchronizations. However, this method came with significant challenges: Unpredictability: Managing and maintaining delays was difficult, leading to potential inconsistencies when dependent resources synchronized before their parent resources. Inefficiency: Fixed delays often cause resources to wait idly, wasting processing time and resources. Unclear Completion: Defining the overall synchronization process's completion point was challenging. Leveraging Sidekiq Batches When we discovered the Batches mechanism of the Sidekiq Pro and Enterprise versions, it seemed like a perfect fit for managing our dependencies. By combining work in a batch with sub-batches, we hoped to close the gaps described earlier. Cons of Sidekiq Batches Code Organization Despite its benefits, the default code organization in Sidekiq Batches had its downsides: Callbacks in One Class: While this theoretically simplified things, in practice, having a massive list of batches and sub-batches in one class created a mess. Separate steps in each class would have been better for testing. API Handling: Developers had to manage the batches' API, initializing the parent batch and correctly wrapping sub-batches. It looks like this: def step2_done(status, options)   oid = options['oid']   overall = Sidekiq::Batch.new(status.parent_bid)   overall.jobs do     step3 = Sidekiq::Batch.new # <- Sub-batch     step3.on(:success, 'FulfillmentCallbacks#step3_done', 'oid' => oid)     step3.jobs do       G.perform_async(oid)     end   end end Implementing a Simple Wrapper To tackle these cons, our engineers developed a wrapper solution. This wrapper allows defining batches and sub-batches in one class, with callbacks close to the batch class, simplifying the process and enhancing performance and reliability. Wrapper Requirements: Define batches and sub-batches in one class. Have callbacks for the batch near the batch class. Here’s a basic example of the wrapper: # @example basic batch with callback: # # module DoSomeWork #   class Batch #     def enqueue #       current_batch.description = "Doing some work" #       current_batch.on(:complete, Callback) # #       jobs do #         SomeWorker.perform_async #         SomeWorker.perform_async #       end #     end # #     class Callback #       def on_complete(status, options) #         logger.info "Success" #       end #     end #   end # end # # Usage -> DoSomeWork::Batch.enqueue module Batches   class Base     include Testing if Rails.env.test?     attr_reader :parent_batch, :current_batch     def initialize(parent_bid = nil)       @parent_batch = if parent_bid.present?                         ::Sidekiq::Batch.new(parent_bid)                       else                         NullBatch.new                       end       @current_batch = ::Sidekiq::Batch.new     end     delegate :description=, :description, :bid, to: :current_batch     # @note Simple batch initialization when you don't want to define callbacks.     # @param [String] sync_run_id     # @param [String] parent_bid - should be passed if it's a sub-batch     # @return [Batches::Base]     def self.enqueue(sync_run_id:, parent_bid: nil)       batch = new(parent_bid)       batch.enqueue(sync_run_id)       batch     end     def enqueue(sync_run_id)       raise NotImplementedError     end     def on(*args)       current_batch.on(*args)       self     end     private     def jobs(&block)       parent_batch.jobs { current_batch.jobs(&block) }     end   end end Using the Wrapper for Batches and Sub-batches module UniversityAndFaculty   class Batch < ::Base     def enqueue(run_id)       current_batch.description = "University/Faculty sync for #{run_id}"       current_batch.on(:complete, Callback, run_id: run_id)       jobs do         ::Syncs::UniversitySyncWorker.perform_async(run_id)         ::Syncs::FacultySyncWorker.perform_async(run_id)       end     end   end   class Callback     def on_complete(status, options)       # enqueue sub-batch       DepartmentsAndCourses::Batch.enqueue(         run_id: options['run_id'],         parent_bid: status.parent_bid       )     end   end end With this wrapper, our batches and sub-batch classes looked almost identical because the complexity of the Sidekiq Batch API was hidden in the Base class. This organization made our code cleaner, faster, and more reliable. Summing up Our journey to streamline the synchronization process led us to Sidekiq's Batches feature, which provided a solid foundation but also came with its own set of challenges. Instead of letting these issues slow us down, our engineering team developed a wrapper that simplified batch and sub-batch definitions, making the code easier to manage and more reliable. We hope our experience and solution inspire other Ruby developers facing similar issues. Our wrapper isn't just a tool; it's a testament to our commitment to writing efficient, effective code. Stay tuned to our blog for more stories and solutions from our engineering team. ### How to Build an Efficient AI-backed Team Industrial and technological challenges of the present day require the knowledge of AI and ML to stay competitive. As Artificial Intelligence gains an increasing role in IT projects, building a solid team with AI expertise is becoming an intensive need for many. The ins and outs of this process are deeply familiar to us as a software development company.  How to Pack an AI-backed Team? For clarity of terms, an AI-backed team works on an IT project that massively involves AI and ML technologies.       Building an in-house team of AI talents goes together with integrating data analysis and AI culture into the organization’s culture. From our experience, the creation of the AI-backed team must be preceded by AI-driven automation of internal processes and best development practices. The AI-focused environment implies the work with specific data sources, AI pipelines, and frameworks. This technical background shapes the mindset of developers and focuses them on finding data-based solutions. They also learn to combine AI tech-savviness with understanding the business challenges of AI-powered projects. Altogether it proves the critical role of the elevated in-house AI culture in building a professional AI team.  Now that we established the importance of existing AI practices that determine the successful building of the AI-backed team. The next step will be to examine how this team is staffed, managed and how we measure its efficiency.  Assembling teams with Artificial Intelligence expertise relies not only on specific roles but also on skills, practices, and qualifications. It’s expected that an AI-backed team will have prowess with the following set of skills: Linear algebra, probability, and statistics Programming Algorithms and frameworks Big data technologies. Data-specific AI expertise.  Technical product management Problem-solving and communication skills.   It’s a sheer challenge to staff an AI team from the ground up, so by developing AI practices in the company, you ensure the right talents will be hired with the help of current employees trained in AI and ML. By engaging AI and ML talents at the MVP building stages, you lay the foundation for further scaling of AI projects. It could be a strategy for start-ups to raise funds and hire more talent as the product grows.  Profiles in the AI-backed team Teams with an AI focus resemble a pool with various skills and expertise rather than an established structural unit of the company with a standard set of roles. Roles are constantly evolving to match the needs of existing AI projects and technological challenges.  Further, we’ll describe specific roles in such a team and help you understand the team structure.   Managing the AI-back team and measuring its performance  The team coordination framework for AI projects must ensure the work is agile. So the Data-Driven Scrum framework is practical as it streamlines the processes with a focus on agility. Short iterations are followed by brainstorming related to the next steps and plans. The results of each iteration must be clear to all team members. Another principle of the AI-backed team’s management is the gradual scaling of the solution. It is incrementally scaled instead of being deployed as a full-scale product. Data and ML engineers should closely interact with the DevOps team and ensure the code is delivered step-by-step.  The team’s performance is assessed through analysis of its technological processes, code and documentation quality, and the quality of interaction between the team members. Other important operational KPIs entail cycle time, deployment frequency, code review metrics, developer productivity, and customer satisfaction. Some examples of operational metrics followed by us: - Velocity/month or sprint means the volume of work produced per a specific period. In development terms, this is the number of story points. An AI-backed team exhibits 3 - 5 times greater agility than a regular team of developers.  - Bug time to fix indicates the number of days it takes for the team to fix 50% of the bugs. Similar indicators find the time required to fix high-priority bugs during a month or the average time a team takes to fix those bugs.    Infrastructure AI technology is data-intensive and resource-consuming. You will work with tremendous volumes of unstructured data. Before you staff your project or agency with relevant specialists, ensure data-processing resources are available. It also includes managing a database. Most importantly, the hardware capacities must be enough to cover the intense needs of AI projects.    Approach to staff training  JetRuby runs extensive training programs and career enhancement within its Academy. We create learning activities through mentoring, coaching programs, and team-building activities. Upskilling existing employees and training junior staff have always been distinctive features of our approach. Retention of specialists has been another critical factor in our team management strategy. Exciting projects and challenges prove to be an engaging and competitive process. It’s also through the diversity of projects to work on specialists are encouraged to contribute their skills and knowledge.   Bottom Line: Cost-efficiency of an AI-backed Team The teams of developers focusing on AI tools are more successful in achieving cost-efficiency than regular teams. It happens due to the extensive use of automation tools that frees developers from repetitive tasks and enables them to dedicate their effort to more creative parts of work. The main advantage of this approach is the lower price of development.  We hope our article has provided insight into how an AI-backed team builds and operates. Our following review will introduce you to the unique combination of AI-powered technologies used by our team to speed up the development process without sacrificing its high quality.    ### Leveraging Copilot, ChatGPT to Solve Technical Challenges: Case Study Artificial intelligence (AI) tools have revolutionized how we approach technical challenges. Whether improving customer experience, optimizing business operations, or enhancing product design, AI has become a valuable tool for solving complex problems in the tech industry. Copilot is one of these tools, and this article will cover Copilot use cases from our practice that helped us to write more efficient and faster code.   What is Copilot? Copilot is an AI-powered code editor that uses Machine Learning to suggest code snippets based on the context of what the developer is working on. By analyzing the code in real-time, Copilot provides suggestions for autocompleting lines of code or even entire functions, significantly reducing the time developers need to spend searching for solutions. One of the critical benefits of Copilot is that it can help developers work more efficiently, enabling them to focus on the big picture of their project rather than getting bogged down in individual lines of code. This benefit can be especially helpful when dealing with complex technical tasks.  When a developer types what they need from a function, GitHub Copilot will generate the code to execute that function with comments explaining how it works. This function saves the time and effort of developers while they work on routine tasks. GitHub Copilot also learns from the codebase. As developers use it, the program gets more familiar with their coding style and develops more relevant and accurate suggestions. GitHub Copilot requires your supervision and constant review, as it may not always generate accurate code.  Copilot was introduced by GitHub and OpenAI to power code completion. ChatGPT is a separate AI tool that works as a template for a specific code task or summarizing complex code. ChatGPT is also a product of OpenAI. These tools are paired to achieve better results and generate high-quality code. Copilot can suggest code snippets for specific tasks, while ChatGPT can provide more detailed explanations of tasks or technologies We actively integrate Copilot and ChatGPT into our development practices and internal processes. Further, we’ll describe the use cases of those tools in our practice and tell you about the results of their application.  Use Case I: Enhancing code quality with Copilot, ChatGPT Summary: Introducing Copilot, ChatGPT allowed us to save time for writing a boilerplate code and improve overall code quality. Focusing on the four primary directions brought us to these results. 1. Reducing errors One of the main benefits of using Copilot is that its correct application helps to reduce errors in your code. By suggesting contextually relevant code snippets, Copilot ensures your code is syntactically correct and free from common mistakes. This can be especially helpful when working with complex or unfamiliar codebases, where making mistakes is easy. 2. Improving consistency Consistency is vital when it comes to code quality. Code that is consistent and follows established patterns is easier to read and maintain, saving time and reducing the risk of bugs. Copilot improved the consistency of our code by suggesting code snippets that follow established patterns and conventions, such as naming conventions, formatting, and coding style. 3. Encouraging best practices Copilot also encourages using best practices in your code. For example, it can suggest code snippets that use secure coding practices, such as input validation and sanitization. It can also suggest code snippets that follow performance best practices, such as using caching or optimizing database queries. 4. Saving time By suggesting code snippets, Copilot helped us to automate repetitive coding tasks and reduce the time required to write and debug code. This benefit allowed us to free up developers’ time, cut off the volume of tasks related to creating repetitive code lines, and let them focus on more critical tasks, such as architecture and design. Copilot saved the time we took to write repetitive code and let us search for code syntax faster.  Use Case II: Improved estimating accuracy Summary: We speeded up a time to market by 30% by providing more competitive pricing to our clients while maintaining profitability. Project estimates are essential to project management. They help stakeholders understand the scope of a project, its expected timeline, and the resources needed to complete it. But doing accurate project estimates is a complex and time-consuming task.  When approaching a complex web development project, we found our estimates consistently over budget. A solution was needed to develop this web application more efficiently and accurately. One of the significant challenges was the time required to build analytical tools and data processors to analyze data. Regular methods implied tons of manual work, were prone to errors, and counterproductive. We decided that utilizing Artificial Intelligence would allow us to analyze data faster and make more informed decisions. Thus, our team turned to the power of GitHub Copilot + GPT to help us speed up our time to market. In the context of project estimates, Copilot assisted us with understanding the exact volume of resources and time span needed to complete the web development project. In particular, Copilot suggested code snippets for setting up a login page, creating a user database, and handling user authentication.  ChatGPT is another AI-powered tool we used to develop more detailed project estimates. Since ChatGPT is a language model that can generate text based on user input, it can answer questions, explain, and generate entire paragraphs or articles. Therefore, ChatGPT was leveraged by us to elaborate on more detailed explanations of specific tasks. Understanding the scope of tasks with the help of ChatGPT suggestions helped us to shape a more accurate roadmap and present it to stakeholders. In conclusion, using GitHub Copilot + GPT became the solution we looked for to build a cost-efficient and competitive project estimation plan. We could provide more competitive pricing to our client and move on with implementing the proposed roadmap. At the same time, this plan mitigated the risk of budget overruns. Use case III: Automating tests with Copilot Summary: Unit testing with the help of Copilot significantly saved developers’ time and reduced the number of errors made during tests. As a software development company, we know that writing tests can be time-consuming, and it's easy to make mistakes that lead to incomplete or ineffective test suites. GitHub Copilot analyzes the code and suggests test cases based on the code's behavior. For example, when we created a function that calculates the square of a number, Copilot generated test cases to verify that the function returns the correct value for different inputs. Receiving Copilot’s suggestions on using different testing frameworks and libraries based on the written code was helpful. When our developer was writing tests for a Python application, Copilot prompted using the PyTest library for testing. To start a test automation project, we installed the tool in our development environment. Copilot works with Visual Studio Code, so we installed that program next. We created a new test case in Visual Studio Code. Following that, we asked Copilot to generate the corresponding code. Copilot analyzed the test case and generated the code. This code defines a new test suite called "Adding two numbers" and creates a new test case that checks whether the function addNumbers() correctly adds two numbers together. The test case sets up two variables, x, and y, with values of 5 and 10, respectively, and then calls the addNumbers() function with those values. It then checks whether the result is equal to 15, which is the expected sum of 5 and 10. Once the code was generated, we could run tests like any other tests and monitor their progress. In general, our test automation project wasn’t processed by Copilot alone. It’s fair to conclude that the program rather helped us to move forward with the project much quicker.   In addition to generating code for test cases, Copilot can also help you write other parts of your test suite, such as setup and teardown code or more complex test cases. Conclusion As we can see, Copilot and ChatGPT offer undeniable advantages as assisting tools: Copilot greatly assists with writing boilerplate code. This code can be reused in multiple cases, which saves overall development time. Copilot gives your project a good start as its suggestion mechanism shows directions.  The tool is built in a way that it doesn’t overwhelm you with auto-suggestions every step of the way. We can safely say it is easy to use. At the same time, developers must carefully review Copilot's suggestions and make sure they make sense in the context of the application being tested. ### GitHub Copilot. More Effective Coding with AI In summer 2021, Microsoft and its subsidiary GitHub announced the launch of Copilot – a neural network capable of writing code correctly for developers. What’s Copilot? GitHub CEO Nat Friedman simply says that Copilot – is “Your AI pair programmer”. Built on the GPT-3 language model, GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered code generator that can help developers write code faster and more efficiently than ever before.  When a developer uses GitHub Copilot, the tool analyzes the code they are working on and generates suggestions for how to complete it. These suggestions can take the form of autocompletion suggestions, where GitHub Copilot suggests code as you type, or code snippets generated from natural language descriptions. Read more about CoPilot here. Core functionality For example, if a developer types "create a function that sorts an array of numbers," GitHub Copilot will generate the code for that function, including comments explaining how it works. This can save developers a lot of time and effort, especially when working on large, complex projects. GitHub Copilot also has the ability to learn from the codebase it is trained on. This means that as developers use it, the tool becomes more familiar with their coding style and can make more accurate and relevant suggestions. To use GitHub Copilot, developers need to install the tool as an extension in their IDE (integrated development environment). Once installed, they can start using it. It's important to note that GitHub Copilot is not perfect and may not always generate accurate or optimized code. Developers should always review and test the code generated by GitHub Copilot to ensure it meets their requirements. Why Copilot is a game changer for developers GitHub Copilot is a tool that offers many advantages for developers. Here are some of the main pros of using GitHub Copilot: Faster coding. GitHub Copilot helps developers write code faster by offering autocompletion suggestions and generating code snippets based on natural language descriptions. Improved accuracy. With GitHub Copilot, developers can be more confident in the accuracy of their code. Since the tool is powered by an AI language model, it has the ability to catch common syntax errors and suggest corrections. Increased productivity. By automating repetitive coding tasks, GitHub Copilot frees up more time for developers to focus on more important aspects of their work. Better collaboration. GitHub Copilot can help team members collaborate more effectively by providing them with pre-written code snippets that they can share and modify as needed. Access to a vast knowledge base. GitHub Copilot has access to a vast repository of code from the GitHub community, which it can use to generate suggestions and code snippets for developers. Reduced cognitive load. By providing developers with suggested code snippets and autocompletion suggestions, GitHub Copilot reduces the cognitive load involved in writing complex code. Easy to use. GitHub Copilot is easy to install and use, with an intuitive interface that allows developers to get started quickly. Potential Downside of using Copilot While GitHub Copilot is a powerful tool that can help developers be more productive and efficient, there are some potential drawbacks of using it.  Dependency on the AI model. GitHub Copilot's accuracy and usefulness are highly dependent on the quality of the underlying AI language model. If the model is not trained properly, or if it is not able to handle certain types of code, the suggestions generated by GitHub Copilot may be inaccurate or unhelpful. Security concerns. GitHub Copilot works by analyzing and processing the code that developers are working on. This raises some potential security concerns, as it could allow sensitive code or data to be inadvertently shared or accessed by third parties. Risk of code plagiarism. Since GitHub Copilot is designed to generate code snippets based on natural language descriptions, there is a risk that it could generate code that is very similar to already existing code, possibly leading to unintentional code plagiarism. Limited flexibility. While GitHub Copilot is designed to automate repetitive coding tasks and suggest code snippets based on natural language descriptions, it may not be able to handle more complex or unconventional coding tasks. Potential bias in AI model. Like all AI models, there is a risk of bias in GitHub Copilot's language model, which could impact the quality and accuracy of the code suggestions it generates. Limitations on open-source usage. Although GitHub Copilot is free for individual developers and for use in open-source projects, there are licensing restrictions that apply to commercial usage. How our developers mitigate the risks Of course, some of the drawbacks are beyond our control. But still, there are also steps our developers can take to mitigate the risks and overcome the challenges. Practicing good security habits. To minimize the risk of sensitive code or data being inadvertently shared or accessed, our developers practice good security habits, such as using secure coding practices, keeping their IDE and GitHub Copilot extensions up to date, and using access controls to limit who can access their code. Code plagiarism verification. To ensure that the code generated by GitHub Copilot is original and not plagiarized, our developers use plagiarism detection tools, such as Copyscape and Turnitin, to verify the originality of the code. Using GitHub Copilot as an assistance, not a replacement. While GitHub Copilot can be a helpful tool for generating code suggestions and automating repetitive tasks, we don’t use it as a replacement for careful manual coding and testing. Our developers always review and test the code generated by GitHub Copilot to ensure it meets their requirements. Overall, GitHub Copilot is a powerful tool that can help developers be more productive and efficient in their coding work. By automating repetitive coding tasks and generating accurate code suggestions, it can save developers time and effort, allowing them to focus on more important aspects of their work. ### Performance Testing with WebPageTest Web page speed is essential for user experience and SEO. One tool for testing web page performance is WebPageTest. In this article, we will discuss WebPageTest, how to use it, and how to interpret the test results. What is WebPageTest WebPageTest is a tool for testing web page performance. It allows you to measure page loading time, data transfer speed, network usage, and browser resources and detect possible problems in the page code that may slow down loading. How does loading time affect user behavior? Marketing specialists of the analytical platform KISSmetrics conducted a study on the distribution of user attention and came to the following conclusions: If the user cannot interact with a site or application within 6-10 seconds, he will leave. The conversion rate decreases with every second of delay. 10% of people wait until two seconds. How does loading speed affect sales and conversion? A one-second delay reduces conversion by 7%. If the site earns $ 100.000 per month, increasing the page loading speed by one second can bring up to $ 7.000 monthly. Mozilla noted 60 million more downloads after speeding up its web page by 2.2 seconds. Amazon has estimated that slowing down loading speed by just one second could cost $1.6 billion annually.  You may consider testing performance to avoid losses or, conversely, to increase profits from the site or application. How to use WebPageTest? To use WebPageTest, you need to go to the official website of the tool: https://www.webpagetest.org/  On the main page, you will see a field for entering the URL of the page you want to test. You can select the server's location where you'd like to run the test. After entering the URL and selecting the server, click the "Start Test" button. The test will take a few minutes, and you will receive detailed information about the page's performance. Interpretation of test results WebPageTest provides a lot of data about the page's performance. Some of the most critical metrics that need to be analyzed are: Page Loading Time is the time it takes to load the entire page. The shorter the time, the better. First Byte: The time it takes for the server to send the first byte of data. The optimal time is less than 200 ms. First Paint: The time it takes to display the first image on the page. The shorter the time, the better. Fully Loaded Time: Loading all the resources on the page entirely takes time. The optimal time is less than 5 seconds. Requests: The number of requests sent to the server to load the page. The smaller this number, the faster the page will load. Bytes In: Page size in bytes. The smaller the pages are, the faster they will load. The optimal page size is less than 1 MB. In addition to these metrics, WebPageTest provides information about how the page loads in the user's browser using tools such as Waterfall Chart and Filmstrip View. The Waterfall Chart displays the loading time of each element on the page, including images, CSS files, JavaScript files, etc. Filmstrip View shows how the page is displayed to the user as it loads. WebPageTest can also compare the performance of two or more pages. This can be helpful when comparing the performance of pages from different site versions or your site's performance with competitor sites.  In conclusion, WebPageTest is a powerful tool for testing web page performance. It allows you to get detailed information about page loading time, network usage, and browser resources and detect possible problems in the page code that may slow down its loading. Using WebPageTest can help optimize your website and improve the user experience. More on testing tools here. Are you eager to learn more about web development? Follow our blog and look forward to the next article. ### Android Accessibility Testing The JetRuby team prioritizes the experience of our product users, placing significant emphasis on the Android accessibility of our interfaces. This article explores the tools we employ to guarantee a user-friendly experience while developing Android applications. Android Accessibility Scanner Google has developed a tool to improve Android accessibility for users with disabilities. It’s called Android Accessibility Scanner, and it scans the graphical user interface and describes the accessibility issues found. It also gives recommendations for fixing them. For instance, it could make controls bigger or add text labels, increase image contrast, change a font, etc. All of that will improve the usability and accessibility of the interface. For that matter, the following components are being tested: Content shortcut; Touch targets; Clickable elements; Text and image contrast. You can use Accessibility Scanner on smartphones and tablets running Android 6.0 or higher. It’s also available for download on Google Play.  How it works The Accessibility Scanner application does not require special technical skills. It is recommended for ordinary people who can file a report on the problematic interface and send it to the developer. Our developers, though, usually use this tool themselves since the results of its tests may look unintelligible to someone unfamiliar with the app-developing process. From a technical point of view, the Android Accessibility Scanner is a so-called accessibility service or an application that runs in the background and interacts with the Android OS accessibility API to provide additional functionality for users with disabilities.  After opening the interface that needs to be tested, the scanner will sequentially describe all the issues found and offer options for fixing them. It’s also possible to display all the problems found in a single list and send it as a report by email. The Android Accessibility Scanner is an excellent tool for basic testing, but it has a significant drawback. The scanner only detects apparent issues, like text size, touch target size, missing image shortcuts, etc. In more complex cases, it’s not that effective, which is why it can’t compete with real manual testing.  TalkBack TalkBack is Android's built-in screen reader. When TalkBack is on, users can interact with their Android-powered device without seeing the screen. Users with visual impairments might rely on TalkBack when using our applications, so it’s essential to ensure there aren’t any issues.  How it works People with vision impairments use their fingers to "explore" the interface, and when they come across any element that can be acted on or any block of text, TalkBack helps. For text (including time and notifications), the screen reader service tells precisely what’s written on the screen. What concerns clickable elements? TalkBack explains what button it is and lets people act with a double tap or move to the next element without triggering anything. It's pretty well thought out, making it possible for people with visual impairments to use audible prompts and do anything on their smartphone. What we test for Are all the elements adequately labeled, allowing TalkBack to read them to the user? Are notifications or popup windows being read to the user? Can users swipe through a page to navigate and explore every element? Can users use the double-tap feature to explore the application or pick specific elements to explore randomly? Testing Android accessibility explains how easy it is to navigate, access, and comprehend its content.  Keeping Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) in mind, we perform manual and automated Accessibility testing. Thus, to avoid pitfalls, we usually incorporate Accessibility testing in the early stages of the Software Development Life Cycle. Read more about accessibility here. Interested to learn more development tips? Follow our blog, and don’t miss our new article!  ### Accessibility in Design According to the WHO, there are 1.3 billion people with disabilities worldwide. Knowing that, we can assume that every 8th person on the planet suffers from a condition that affects their life in a way. When developing applications and websites, accessibility in design should be kept in mind.  There are different types of disabilities. The most common ones are: People with visual impairments This category includes blind people, people with limited vision, color blindness, astigmatism, and other visual pathologies. According to the World Health Organization, 285 million people worldwide are visually impaired: 39 million are blind, and 246 have low vision. People with hearing impairments This category includes deaf people and those hard of hearing. According to the WHO’s fact sheet on Deafness and Hearing Loss, 360 million people worldwide have disabling hearing loss. People with reduced mobility (PRM) This category includes people whose mobility is limited due to some physical or mental disabilities, age, or other causes requiring special attention and adaptation to their needs. This type of disability affects 1 in 7 adults.  People with cognitive impairments  This category includes the broadest range of disabilities: mental illnesses, learning, understanding, or concentration difficulties (such as ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder, etc. Cognitive impairments affect 1 in 9 adults.  How accessibility in design helps people with disabilities The lives of people with disabilities have become much easier with the adoption of modern technologies. Nowadays, among all of the breakthrough inventions, you can find:  Advanced communication aids that help those unable to communicate verbally;  Robotic limbs that wholly restore the mobility of amputated arms and legs;  Seizure monitoring devices aimed at preventing injuries from happening; Smart wheelchairs able to navigate stairs and other obstacles on the way etc.  Some of those inventions are incredibly expensive, and obviously, not everyone can afford such devices. But still, there are free things from the tech world that can help people with disabilities—the internet, for instance. Adapting apps and websites for disabled people is a top priority for most developers, putting accessibility in design at the front of modern software development. Regulations for Accessibility in Design Digital accessibility is widely regulated around the world. Even smaller companies should make their products accessible and comfortable for everyone. Here’s a list of acts from different countries concerning people with disabilities: Australia’s Disability Discrimination Act of 1992  European Union’s European Accessibility Act (EAA) Ireland’s Equal Status Acts 2000 to 2004 Israel’s Equal Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act South Korea’s Act on Welfare of Persons with Disabilities United Kingdom’s Equality Act of 2010 Ontario, Canada’s Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) Title III of the United States Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)  Companies whose interfaces do not meet international standards pay huge fines, increasing with each claim. For example, in 2022, the average fine for a first claim was $43,000 in America. JetRuby’s experience in developing accessible interfaces We can divide our experience in this area into several cases. The first case is us working on a new product and creating an interface. Thus, we created a UI Kit that considered the requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. To do this, we check the contrast of colors, font sizes, the distance between words and letters, etc. Checking how colorblind people would see.  The second case is us conducting an audit on someone’s interface for accessibility. Here, we analyze the current interface and, depending on the rules of the country a customer lives in, describe the critical points, after which we iteratively adapt applications.  An example of such work: A customer requested that we audit their interface. As a result, we revealed some flaws related to the design and front end. Then, we filed a report on the work done, sent it to the customer, and implemented the changes iteratively. The first thing we did was select colors that meet the requirements of accessibility: All interface layouts have been redone using new colors. The result showed that the interface with new colors suits the AAA contrast level, making it comfortable to interact with. Revising colors for people with color blindness showed that there will be deviations in colors, but this is normal. The key is that these colors shouldn’t merge; users can see highlights. As you can see, the colors are significantly different in each segment. An example of a page adapted for different types of color blindness and a contrast check. The next step was to write the headers for the interfaces so that the developers could add them to the code. We have increased the minimum font size from 12pt to 16pt. We conducted card sorting for people with cognitive disabilities. Based on that, we changed the menu, transition logic, and other minor things on the development side. The third condition is that we work with a company for a long time and monitor its relevance to layouts, global requirements, and the market. In this case, we put the requirements for changes in the Roadmap, considering accessibility. One of the latest examples of such work is an application that contains a video player. We have added the feature of enabling subtitles in this player, which is essential for people with hearing problems. In the future, we plan to add a description of the entire text as a separate interface element. Read more about our design practices. The JetRuby team understands and always considers accessibility in design for people with various conditions. In our work, we always seek a positive user experience and encourage others to achieve that.  Follow our blog to learn more about our professional approach, and don’t miss our next article!  ### Functional Competitive Research It doesn’t matter what kind of product you’re planning to create. Chances are, someone has already done the exact thing. Creating a new product means entering a competitive race, and to win, you need to know who your competitors are. What is competitive research, and why is it needed? By analyzing competitors, you can assess your position in the market and develop an efficient marketing strategy. It also allows you to conduct deep functional research, which is needed to discover your own advantages and evaluate the competitors', collect references, find mistakes, etc. Competitive analysis is a powerful marketing tool that, if conducted correctly, can positively affect a product and its creators. But how do you find your competitors and analyze their products? Let’s find out.  Where to begin Before diving into competitor analysis, it's essential to define your objective. Whether you're brainstorming a new product and determining the scope of its MVP, seeking fresh ideas for an established product, or focusing on developing a specific feature and exploring the best implementation methods, your analysis goal will dictate which competitors to examine and what parameters to consider.   How to choose competitors Two factors distinguish competition between projects: the targeted audience and the problem a product solves. If both factors coincide, the competition between products is direct. If the audience is the same, but the problem isn’t, the competition is indirect. Among direct competitors, the key ones are those that can directly affect the success of your product. For example, when your targeted audience finds the competitor’s product helpful and uses it, the competition is direct.  If your research objective is identifying MVPs or searching for new ideas for a product, then direct competitors, or better, the key ones, are suitable for analysis. By researching the functionality of products built for the same targeted audience and solving the same problem as yours, you can determine which features are most popular, which are better supported, and which are unnecessary. Suppose your research aims to collect references for implementing a specific feature; direct and indirect competitors will do. In this case, the purpose of the product is not as essential as the audience is.  Not only other products can be considered competitors. Different ways to solve the problem can also serve as ones. For example, to satisfy hunger, you can order some food online or cook something yourself. Discovering different ways to solve a problem can lead to interesting thoughts and suggest a competitive advantage. Where to find competitors The easiest way is to search the Internet. Just look through a compilation of top solutions from your field. It is best to formulate the request from the point of view of your potential user and then focus on the problem that you and your competitors are trying to solve. Also, you can read professional forums and attend meetups. Even if you don’t have time to participate in such meetups, just check out the lists of participants. Not all of them will serve as competitors, but you’ll figure that out.  What parameters to consider when conducting the research Competitor research parameters are individual features or scenarios that will be analyzed. If the study's goal is to identify MVP, it would be helpful to analyze different features. For example, suppose we are making an application for product delivery. In that case, we’ll look at the following parameters (features): product catalog, shopping cart, checkout, payment methods, delivery progress, repeated orders, etc. After analyzing how often these parameters are implemented by competitors, we will understand which of the features are mandatory for an MVP and which are not. Eventually, all that information can help you realize your competitive advantage.  If we are to analyze a specific feature, then more detailed scenarios would serve as parameters. A scenario is a list of steps a user or a system takes to get value from a feature. Let’s take authorization features as an example. The scenarios here will be logging in or signing up, choosing a method, entering data, verifying data, recovering a password, etc. After analyzing these parameters, you’ll find the best way to implement them in your project or even learn from someone’s experience. The list of parameters can be defined in advance, but it is usually updated during the research. How do you document the research? The best way to visualize the comparison is by drawing a table. It’s easy to make and convenient to use.  The comparative table is compiled during the competitor analysis itself. Competitors are arranged in columns and parameters – in rows. For clarity, you can highlight the cells in different colors: if a competitor has a feature/scenario that is well implemented, highlight the box in green. If the performance is mediocre or even evil – use a red color. The feature/scenario is implemented but not supported – yellow is the color.  Collection of references and why it’s important Reference is an example of implementing something in different projects. With the help of references, you can explain to stakeholders, designers, and the development team what exactly you have in mind. Analyzing competitors can also collect many useful materials for further work. You can create a visual board and place your references there so everything is gathered together in the same place and forms a whole picture. You can sort them as a diagram or a user flow by parameters.  Competitor analysis helps you identify the minimum viable product (MVP) for a new offering, uncover your competitive edge, and determine the optimal way to implement features. However, it's crucial not to depend on mimicking competitors solely. Blocking various research techniques with your creativity and expertise is essential for crafting something truly unique and valuable. JetRuby Blog offers valuable insights and tips for developers and technology enthusiasts. Follow us to stay updated on new articles! ### How Farm Boosted Its Profitability with the Scouting App We Developed Our blog often reviews innovative farming architecture and tools in the context of their business practicality. Today, we’ll tell you how we created the farm scouting app, which helps increase crop yield by gauging extra farming land. The project app description: a mobile farm scouting app used for field and crop examination App users: field scouts working as employees of the agricultural company The app’s goal: visualize field examination results and assist field scouts with their daily tasks What field scouting does Field scouting is the detailed examination of crop performance and pest pressure aimed at preventing pest risks and the resulting increase in crop yield. Field examination takes a long time, from the crop emergence to the harvesting time. Scouts control the entire plant development process, observing the presence of weeds and pests. The information collected from fields and Meteo stations is analyzed to plan for herbicide spraying, plant treatment, and application of pesticides and fertilizers. Field scouting is a part of complex work that determines the quality and volume of crop yield. A farm scouting app is a great way to perform all examination tasks. How modern technologies help with field scouting Present-day agricultural technologies are booming, and scouting techniques are not an exception. To facilitate rapid and efficient field scouting, farmers can use different types of apps. Based on the approach to the collection of data, we can conditionally divide them into two types of apps: 1) Centralized. This is a complex digital farm scouting app with a centralized database and additional role-specific applications. Usually, a chief agronomist tracks central data collected with the help of various soil sensors, drones, Meteor stations, farm scouts and workers, agronomists, etc. 2) Autonomous. Modern digital tools can distribute functions and delegate duties according to the pre-defined roles and zones of users’ responsibility.  There are also so-called point applications that do not have a centralized data flow. Every employee will use their part of the app to control a specific work area, collect data, and generate reports. Both digital methods have pros and cons; the farmer’s goals and requirements determine their use. We want to tell you more about a farm scouting app we created, as it can be used as both an autonomous and centralized app.  Main stages of the farm scouting app development Research and discovery Analysis of the information: mapping out the user journey Prototyping the farm scouting app Evaluation of the first results and progress of the app Research and discovery First, improving a farm scouting app took us to analyze the activity of the ordering company carefully. To perform the requirements analysis, we scrutinized public sources, observed the work of farm scouts in action, and interviewed them to validate our initial hypothesis. Analysis of public sources It was necessary to have a clear and complete understanding of the field scout’s scope of work. The Internet articles and research aside, we checked the job sites. We scanned more than 50 crop scout job descriptions to collect the information about the duties and responsibilities of field scouts that are represented in the below summary: Going to fields to monitor the cultivation of agricultural plants Requesting for and obtaining expendable materials from the warehouse Communicating with a farm machinery operator about the volume of plant protection agents and fertilizers Making sure that tractor and machinery operators are duly protected from the impact of pesticides and providing them with the means of individual protection and field scout clothing Accompanying the transfer of agricultural machinery within field zones The next stage of our research was on-site monitoring of the scout work in the fields. Visiting fields Three representatives of our team went to the fields and accompanied a group of field scouts working in the partnering company. We monitored their actions, found meaningful details to reflect them in the farm scouting app development, and learned about their challenges and needs. As a result, we came up with a summary of the agro-scouting routine and the check-list of their actions: Examine the field route to understand the tasks required to be done along the route Getting the necessary tools ready Get to the destination Taking necessary action Recording the data Processing the results Making plans according to the results Reporting the data Making the next day’s schedule Interview Next to it, our team prepared the survey to validate our hypothesis and understand which app functions must be developed first. We chose employees with different backgrounds, work experiences, and scopes of duties to be interviewed and talked to the eight field scouts. It was found that data recording is a priority in scouts' work. It was also critical for them to process the data rapidly and obtain tips for various scenarios generated by the app. Information analysis Once we’ve compiled the information, we set it to data analysis. For this purpose, our team has shaped a User Map, Job Story, and Customer Journey Map. Let’s review the findings of each diagram. User Map of the Farm Scouting App All user requirements were united into the following groups and logically connected as the User Map. User Story Map Job Story The Job Story helps to navigate users following their needs in certain situations and understand these needs from the viewpoint of motivations. Job Story CJM Building Customer Journey Maps helps to see how the user will move along the way and which difficulties are possible throughout the journey. This approach allowed for highlighting the essential functionality of the first iteration, which was supposed to be intuitive and smooth. The resulting CJM described the working day of a field scout, prioritized their tasks, and enabled the planning of the following iterations. The arguable positions in the plan were redefined based on the results of the Kano survey, which helps to prioritize the product features. This way, we could break the app development plan into iterations. Prototyping Prototyping of a farm scouting app was done to draft the representation of the final product and take the possibility of receiving feedback from users during the first iteration. The deliverables of this stage were Wireframe/Wireflow layouts and Low/High Fidelity design, which we’ll focus on below. Wireframe/Wireflow Interviews and surveys guided our vision of the layouts, later reflected in the Wireframe and Wireflow maps. Users’ actions and pathways were detailed with the help of Wireframe/Wireflow layouts. These maps visualized the interaction between the app and future users. It also shows how the offered exchange will solve their challenges or simplify the fulfillment of their tasks. Wireflow Low/High Fidelity Our designers also prepared low- and high-fidelity layouts step-by-step according to the UI Kit guidelines. Layouts were evaluated by the customer company and reviewed by developers. The first design version was created within two weeks and tested with the help of the focus group. The main idea of the first design version was to create a convenient app that assists field Scouters with their daily routine. To enable more rapid and smooth application development, we limited the first product version to the minimum set of features listed below: The everyday check-list; Creation of fast voice and text notes The map with the field route E-mail export of the scout results Then, we proceeded with implementing the functions planned by the road map, which were needed according to the app users' feedback. The last version of a farm scouting app has expanded functions, including tips on improving crop yield, automatic report generation, the option to submit reports to the chief agronomist’s virtual reception, and many other features. Evaluation of the app’s efficiency A target focus group used the app’s beta version within three months. According to the results of this test, the gauge of the scouted area was increased by 18%, and the time required to process results was 1,5 hours less than before. These results encouraged us to release this functionality as a full version for all the customer company's field scouts. The test results for a larger representation group were similar. Every iteration of the app brings positive changes in the goal indicators. Below, you’ll find significant results of the app use reflected within a year: Surveyed land area increased by 21%; The average time for the report generation is only 13 minutes now; The crop yield in problem areas spotlighted by the program increased by 1.2; These changes led to positive improvements in crop quality and volume. Enjoyed the article? Follow our blog and press the button below to subscribe. ### Core ML as a Technological Solution for Fitness Apps Summary: This review continues the series of articles covering the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. It’s been one of our company's essential technological priorities, and we’re glad to share our findings with you. Our article will tell you about Core ML, a modern-day framework powered by machine learning algorithms developed by Apple. Core ML is easily integrated into an existing application. Context of development Doing exercise in a proper physical form is critical to achieving maximum results in sports. Mistakes in exercise techniques can lead to injuries, decrease training productivity, and delay achieving athletic goals. It’s common for sports coaches to use their experience and knowledge to help people improve their technique. However, the evolution of machine learning is bringing new tools that allow for automatic analysis of the exercising method and provide a trainee with feedback. These days, sports increasingly use Machine Learning to help people improve their shape and achieve more impressive results. Core ML became one of the most promising ML-enhanced developments for sports. What is Core ML Core ML is the foundational ML framework developed by Apple for iOS and macOS. It allows developers to create ML-powered applications across Apple devices such as iPhones and iPads. With its help, you can create Machine Learning models that recognize objects, classify data, process text, and do other functions associated with Machine Learning. Once developers have created a model, they can seamlessly integrate it into an application. After the model is deployed on the user’s device, it can be tuned with the user’s data. We want to shed some light on how Apple implemented an ML model framework. An ML model is pre-trained in the cloud using deep learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, Keras, Caffe, etc. So, Core ML supports convolutional, the most common deep and recurrent neural networks.  Core ML supports the vision for image analysis (object classification), the foundation API used for natural language processing (speech recognition), and gameplay kit frameworks (organizing game logic). Advantages of using Core ML for developers Availability offline Low latency and near real-time results Privacy as the data doesn’t leave the device Easy integration of train ML models Fast performance Low cost of integration How Core ML works for sports solutions In sports applications, Core ML can be employed to analyze exercise techniques and provide feedback to trainees based on the analysis results. For example, a workout app can apply Machine Learning models built with Core ML to recognize body position and motions. The user can then obtain recommendations on how to improve their techniques. Core ML also analyzes other parameters that impact sports performance, such as heart rate, respiration, speed, and acceleration. Sports coaches and medical professionals can use this data to assess athletes' fitness levels and health more accurately. This data also helps them develop individual training and rehabilitation programs. In addition, Core ML is applied to create virtual self-trainers. Tracking body position through the front camera can be particularly useful. Using this tool, you can accurately determine the body position and movements and match them with the correct form of exercise. Body position tracking through the front camera facilitates various sports, such as fitness, yoga, dancing, gymnastics, etc. For example, the yoga application can employ Core ML to recognize motions and then correct the technique of performing exercises, for instance, on asana positions.   Let’s summarize the basic features of Core ML in fitness & sports applications: analysis of exercise techniques and generating recommendations to improve a method; assessing the quality of the exercises, such as push-ups, squats, pull-ups, and others; analysis of the execution technique in more complex sports such as figure skating or acrobatics; recognition of body position and motion Yoga app development as an example of using Core ML Implementing Core ML in a yoga app takes several steps. First, a Machine Learning model must be trained to recognize yoga-specific body movements and positions to develop an application. Model training can be done with the help of Machine Learning libraries such as TensorFlow or Keras. After the model has been trained, it has to be integrated into the application through CoreML. To do this, developers must define how the application will interact with the machine learning model. A common way to do it is via the Core ML API.  To ensure body position tracking, developers must integrate the front camera with the application. It could be done with the help of various libraries and computer vision tools, such as OpenCV. The Ready app lets users track their body positions and motions while doing yoga exercises. The application uses machine learning models to analyze the images taken with the front camera and determines the user’s current position and movements. Next to it, the application generates recommendations for improving the technique exercises or correcting mistakes. The recognition model for yoga poses and movements is usually trained with machine learning methods such as supervised and unsupervised learning. To create a model for supervised learning, it is necessary to prepare a dataset with images of trainees in various positions and movements and put the corresponding class labels on them. This data can be obtained by recording and analyzing videos and using 3D models. Once the dataset has been prepared, it can be used to train a machine learning model using algorithms such as convolutional neural networks or recurrent neural networks. The learning process will allow the machine learning algorithms to determine the optimal weights and parameters so the model can recognize yoga poses and movements correctly. The model used for unsupervised learning requires the use of unlabeled data. This can be done with the help of clustering methods since they let us find the similarity between images of body positions and movements. This method is helpful for massive datasets and when the class labeling is missing. As a final recommendation, obtaining a solid data set is insufficient for efficient model training to recognize yoga poses and movements. Another critical factor is the optimal selection of machine learning algorithms and model design and adaptation for devices with limited resources, such as smartphones or tablets. Bottom Line: Core ML as a mobile-adapted gateway to make a nifty personal workout app As the machine learning solution for sports & fitness, CoreML has diverse applications due to its self-training mechanism and easy implementation. To benefit from this mobile-first technology, developers should consider preparing a solid data set, selecting optimal machine learning algorithms, and adjusting the training model for work on devices with limited resources. The use of CoreML in sports greatly facilitates personal workout plans and leverages the possibility of improvement based on continuous feedback. You may want to read about the Shanghai fitness app. ### Definition of Ready & Definition of Done Establishing quality checks before delivering your end products to a client is essential to ensuring their high quality. Any product must be checked for bugs and other issues beforehand. But for those checks to be productive, there must be some structure and a complete understanding of what a product should look like. That’s where you can implement the Definition of Ready (DoR) and the Definition of Done (DoD). What is DoR and DoD Basically, DoR and DoD are criteria that are agreed upon with a team and a client concerning user stories (software features written from the user perspective). Those criteria are necessary for the team to proceed confidently to the next step of development. User story requirements that haven’t passed DoR can’t be included in Sprint and implemented user stories cannot be deployed on production until they pass DoD. Discussing DoR and DoD with a team helps to avoid confusion and blockers during work. As soon as everybody understands when exactly a product is 100% finished, you don’t risk creating buggy and vague features that eventually lead to many unexpected expenses.  Definition of Ready DoR is the first gate that a user story must pass. In simple terms, it’s a set of standards meeting which indicates that a team can start a Sprint.  Typically, such a set includes : Written acceptance criteria – a set of conditions that a product must meet to be accepted; Documented requirements; User story presented to the team; User story estimated; UX/UI design ready and attached to the task; UAT and test cases prepared by the QA team. The main goal of DoR is to establish clear development requirements. Well-documented requirements help conduct proper evaluation and prioritize features so that the team's backlog is planned precisely.  DoR Utility While the primary goal of DoR is clear, it’s also important to highlight the practical use of this phenomenon. It can help your team: Avoid starting work on features that don't have a clear definition of completion criteria. The team will understand when the User Story is considered finished, and what needs to be done for this. Do not waste a lot of time on lengthy discussions of poorly thought-out tasks. A pre-processed task will save the time of the entire team. Calculate how much time it takes to discuss a "bad" task for one person. Then multiply by the number of people in the team. Then—by the number of such tasks. Focus on things that are as "safe" as possible. One of the strongest demotivators is the functionality thrown into the trash. Involve everyone in the discussion of tasks. Firstly, it motivates the team. Secondly, it helps to reveal each team member as a specialist. Thirdly, the developers will offer their vision of the problem. During the discussion, other solutions that will radically differ from the original idea may arise. Definition of Done DoD is the second gate that a user story must pass through. It is a set of standards indicating that a project is finished and ready to be released.  Such set usually includes: Completed code review; Tests successfully passed;  Product owner’s approval of work; Ready user documentation. The main goals are well-documented functionality, minimal bugs, and approval from the product owner. Definition of Done VS Acceptance Criteria In this article, we’ve already mentioned the term ‘Acceptance Criteria (AC)’ and provided its meaning. It looks similar to DoD’s, and some may find it confusing.  Done is defined as a proper building process, while AC is about the feature itself. For example, a user story of adding a payment system has an acceptance criteria such as "Users can save a credit card in their profiles" or "Users can select PayPal as a payment method". DoD includes a corresponding criteria such as "User tests are passed successfully". Final thoughts Look at the picture below to better understand how DoD and DoR work in the iteration cycle. As you can see, DoR and DoD serve as gates that a feature must pass through before it’s deployed. Of course, DoR and DoD are different for each project and team. Developing good criteria requires discussion with the team and a product owner, so developing them takes some time and effort.  It may seem like having the Definition of Ready, Definition of Done, and Acceptance Criteria all in one place is too much. However, having a transparent working process on each user story can actually increase team speed and improve the overall quality of the end product. This leads to a better user experience and results in more satisfied customers and increased revenue. The clients' engagement and satisfaction with the team's work directly impact the satisfaction of the end users. ### Understanding the MVP concept Dozens of entrepreneurs lose their time and money daily, refusing to launch a project until it is packed with different features and overall “better than the competitor’s.” It’s okay to want your project to be outstanding, especially when you pay some serious money. But the path of project development is thorny – this process requires much testing. That’s where MVPs come in handy. What is MVP? A minimum viable product (MVP) is a beta version of an application with limited features, just enough to satisfy early customers. The goal of a minimum viable product is to ensure that the product enters the market early and to get the first audience and their feedback. This term was first coined and defined in 2001 by Frank Robinson, CEO of SyncDev Inc. It immediately went viral and was, therefore, referenced in Steve Blank’s and Eric Riece’s works.  The concept of MVP exists so that its creators can analyze the product's value from top to bottom. It requires: Minimum effort Minimum time Minimum investment. In essence, MVP is a learning experiment that gives confidence in the viability of a business idea. In prospect, you should have a product ready to enter the market and already has customers. Pros Overall, the main goals of MVPs are lowering risks, upgrading a project's concept, and, of course, reducing development costs. However, there’s even more to it.  Focus on primary features. Some product owners cram their projects with various (read: not so important) features. They are overly anxious about their project's competitiveness. As we’ve already mentioned above, everybody wants to have a unique, one-of-a-kind product with various attributes. But the MVP approach is all about user experience. It requires a real focus on the most important and robust features in order to satisfy early adopters. In this case, less is more. Finding early customers. Even with all the advertising means available, word of mouth is still a powerful marketing tool. MVPs help attract first customers and get their honest feedback. Moreover, they can spread the word about a project and potentially bring more customers in. However, this only works when your product is customer-oriented.  Quicker release. This benefit sums up everything mentioned above. Focusing on core functionality, finding early adopters, and getting their feedback eventually leads to a faster launch of a quality product that is 100% user-friendly and able to serve customers' needs. All that saves time and money on developing useless features or fixing bugs.  Your time, costs, and resources are precious. Don’t spend them unreasonably.  Cons Although all that may sound perfect, there’s still a downside to the MVP concept. At the first stages of development, particular questions may occur: which features are core? How many features is too much? How do you find early customers? etc.  Challenge. The primary con of developing an MVP is facing the challenge. Knowing what to prioritize in a project or understanding the pains and needs of a potential customer is excellent in the long run, but obtaining this information takes time and testing.  Violation of intellectual property rights. Sometimes, when a project idea is innovative and easy to implement, an MVP can do worse. People may steal your concept and recreate it their own way. So, if protecting intellectual property is something you really care about, MVPs are probably not for you.  The next point is not a disadvantage per se but explains why additional resources are needed with an MVP. The team behind the project should be focused on scalability. They should always be ready to maintain a project by adding or removing some features, editing the design, fixing bugs, etc. The project requires time and dedication, so choosing the right technical stack may also be a challenge.  Misconceptions MVP is a sample product, a test version with a minimum set of quality functions. Testing the hypothesis might be a simple demonstration, but it is still a product! It is not a wrong UX simplified product. It should be made as a product that can be used, that solves users' needs, and that they are willing to pay for. Focusing on “minimal” instead of “viable” in the minimum viable product is a mistake. If you provide customers with a low-quality MVP, you’ll lose.  Due to the misconception associated with the MVP term, Melissa Perri (Escaping the Build Trap) suggests using the term ‘solution experimentation.’ “These experiments are designed to help companies learn faster. Here, we are experimenting to learn, not building to earn. We are not creating stable, robust, and scalable products. Often, we don’t know what the best solution would be even when we begin experimenting.” That is the point of doing this work.  Summing up To gain market share, your product doesn't have to be impressive with its functionality: it can perform only 1-2 tasks, but better than the competitors. And to come to this, you need to research the market and analyze them:  Test all the products on the market that you can reach Read all available reviews about them Look for pain points and what people are excited about to do better and adopt what already works well. The best is the enemy of the good; remember this when you want to create something new. ### Business Requirements Analysis: 8 Powerful Steps Business Requirements Analysis is a systematic approach used to identify, analyze, and document the needs and objectives of a business or organization. It involves gathering information, understanding business processes, and defining the desired outcomes to develop a comprehensive set of requirements for a project or initiative. Many business owners believe they have a clear vision of their future projects. However, an in-depth description of what it takes to implement their ideas often puts this vision under question. Real-life analysis shows that things can work differently than you hoped them to. This story will answer why it is so. Most importantly, you’ll see how to avoid the pitfalls and match your product vision to reality. Why Domain-Based Analytical Expertise Goes Together with the Project Success The domain is an industry of development specialization. For example, financial technology, agricultural software development, transport and logistics, telecommunication, insurance, healthcare, e-commerce development, etc. Creating or improving a product that will work for a particular industry cannot rely on development experience alone. Analysts help develop precise specifications for your project by gathering and eliciting domain-specific requirements. The role of a business analyst is to consult a customer from the perspective of domain specifics or the market. It’s essential to align project goals with business needs before the start of development. That’s why this evaluation is a part of the discovery phase. Delving into your business needs, the analyst outlines the optimal solution for your application or platform. Their mission is to see the pitfalls and interconnections that aren’t obvious at first glance. Business requirements analysis plays a critical role at this point. Whether you have a startup or an established business, your ideas must be validated before investing your time, money, and energy into the development process. JetRuby's insight on business analysis Why Should We Elicit Business Requirements through the Analysis? A short answer to the question in the title is to make the final product viable and keep it up to the stakeholders’ expectations. However, sometimes these expectations are vague, and understanding of the market is yet to be improved. The significant benefits of eliciting requirements could be summarized below: 1) Eliminating confusion at the development stage Once the team has an established workflow defined by business needs, you save time that would be otherwise spent scheduling and conducting meetups. 2) Defining timeline and budget The team can build more precise time and budget estimations by eliciting and gathering all requirements. 3) Clarifying hidden business requirements and adding them to the analysis Stakeholders often have some expectations that seem to be obvious, but this perspective can be elusive from the technological viewpoint. This clarification, therefore, allows for avoiding the situation when assumed requirements aren’t met. 4) The most relevant features will come first and start bringing income The team focuses on the most efficient functionality when business needs are prioritized. The rest features are being developed as far as it is reasonably practicable. 5) Keep things under control as a customer Well-developed business requirements analysis and a transparent workflow schedule let customers control the development process. Here are the critical steps involved in business requirements analysis: Identify stakeholders: Determine who the key stakeholders are, including business owners, users, customers, and subject matter experts. Engage them in the analysis process to gather their perspectives and requirements. Gather information: Conduct interviews, workshops, surveys, and other data collection methods to gather information about the business processes, existing systems, pain points, and desired outcomes. This can involve both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Define scope: Clearly define the boundaries of the project or initiative by identifying what is included and what is excluded. This helps set realistic expectations and ensures focus on the most critical requirements. Analyze and prioritize business requirements in your analysis: Review the gathered information and identify common themes, patterns, and dependencies. Prioritize requirements based on their business value, impact, feasibility, and urgency. This helps in allocating resources effectively. Document requirements: Document the requirements in a structured manner using techniques such as use cases, user stories, process flows, and functional specifications. The documentation should be clear, concise, and unambiguous to facilitate effective communication and understanding. Validate business requirements after the analysis: Review the documented requirements with stakeholders to ensure accuracy, completeness, and alignment with their needs. This step helps identify any gaps or conflicts that must be addressed before proceeding further. Manage changes: As the project progresses, there may be changes in business needs or external factors. Establish a change management process to handle modifications to the requirements and ensure they are properly evaluated, approved, and implemented. Communicate requirements: Communicate the finalized requirements to the project, development teams, and other relevant stakeholders. Effective communication ensures a shared understanding and helps in the successful execution of the project. Throughout the process, it is crucial to maintain open lines of communication, collaborate with stakeholders, and involve them in decision-making. Business requirements analysis is an iterative process, and feedback from stakeholders should be incorporated to refine and validate the requirements as needed. By following these steps, organizations can ensure that their projects and initiatives are aligned with the business goals, maximize value, and meet the needs of the stakeholders. To sum it up, a carefully mapped and documented set of requirements is a critical contribution to the product's success. With the help of skilled Business Analysis, developers obtain clear guidelines and specifications, delivering the features that can drive up the product’s business value. ### How to Patent an App Idea in 4 Steps How to patent an app idea? It’s always exciting to create new things, like a new app, and bring your ideas to life. However, knowing your app idea may be exploited can hinder your dream. Don’t let this feeling take over you, and check out this guide on protecting and patenting your app idea.  If you are looking for answers to the question “How to patent an app idea” and wonder about the steps to get an app idea patented, you will find helpful tips in the article below. Before we go any further, you may wonder if the app idea can be patented. It’s possible, and below, we’ll discuss all the whys, how-tos, and steps to get an app idea patented. What does an app idea patent mean? An app idea patent represents a right exercised by an individual or company to have their ideas protected against stealing in the form of copycats. In other words, it protects your intellectual property rights as an app owner. The World Intellectual Property Organization has a special provision regarding a mobile app patent but doesn't instruct how to patent an app idea. This patent is an innovation that solves a specific problem. If any other individual or company uses your original idea, they need your consent. This way, you can patent the solution or a process for an app purposed to complete a particular action. Having a patent for your app idea allows you to block the app's operation, striving to copycat your original concept and elements of your app. Protection of an app idea is relatively standard nowadays. App development can take months, which might keep you in the dark for the time being and make you wonder if the same concept will be put into action by your rivals. To prevent your idea and the fruits of your labor from stealing, you must ensure it’s genuinely original and doesn’t repeat previously invented ideas. As app developers, we are familiar with the patent process's nuances and pitfalls. Patenting the trademark of your app is a common strategy to protect the intellectual property related to your app. Often, unscrupulous competitors would use a similar or confusingly similar trademark for their apps to mislead potential customers and let them download the app they didn’t intend to. You can prevent it by protecting your trademark, including the app’s name, logo, mascot, slogan, color combination, and even sound. What rights can you enjoy with an app idea patent? First, the app copyright verifies your idea as unique and original. More people will be involved in the work during the development process to bring your concept to life. This way, you stand up to your business idea in the beginning. Then, any copycat attempt will result in paying a penalty charge and compensation paid to you as an app idea owner. You also safeguard your work in case an opposite situation occurs, in which it is claimed that your idea is not original and follows someone else’s invention. Finally, you’re no longer worried that someone else will release the same or similar concept to the market. What is an app patent, exactly? An app cannot be patented as a whole; you can’t point to its icon on Google Play or the AppStore market and claim it entirely falls under your patent. The app idea is an invention. It is also a solution to an existing issue. In this case, the patent is intellectual property that will stop others from non-consensual use of your invention. While you cannot patent software, you can protect its elements and functionality. Essentially, issuing a patent for your app means protecting an app's trademark and functionality. The app code copyright is a separate process. Patents are usually exercised based on national law. In other words, there is a territorial limit to patents. There is no global patent as such. Of course, it is possible to maintain your intellectual property rights in multiple countries. Another limitation of patents is their expiration time. To keep your protection valid, you must pay a regular fee, which is usually charged annually by the respective authority. What are the eligibility criteria? Steps on how to patent an app idea 1) Make sure your idea is indeed unique Check if a similar app idea is already present on the list. Use a national patent database or a global search system like Espacenet. Next, you should look up the federal register. For example, in the Netherlands, it will be the Dutch patent register. In the United States, the Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is the agency in charge. Make sure to search the Cooperative Patent Classification system. This database contains both existing and pending patents. Also, check out the Catchword Index of the World Intellectual Property Organizations. Patentscope and Espacenet are universal global sources for checking for existing patents. The patent legislation in India stipulates that your invention should not be obvious. It means that the solution offered by the app’s functionality should not be a minor adjustment of a similar solution and undertake a genuinely new approach. CNIPA (The China National Intellectual Property Administration) deals with patents and coordinates issues related to intellectual property. If you haven’t found anything close to your idea, feel free to continue with the registration of your intellectual property. 2) Your app idea is patent-eligible In short, this qualification entails several requirements for your app idea: being genuinely new and unique (described above) and being an innovation. 3) This idea was not published before This idea should not be published on the web before, especially on publicly available resources, such as YouTube, the register of patent applications, and other sources. 4) The app idea must be useful Your content must be considered valuable. It’s also valid for entertainment content. First of all, it means that your app must work. Then, your application must explain why you must protect it as intellectual property. The app elements that you can patent as an app idea: - User interface and its graphic parts; - Interaction between devices and server; - Programming code; - The authentication system and identity management; - Music; - Database creation and management; - The mechanism ensuring data privacy; - Architecture; - Transactions and mobile payments; - The way content is displayed to users; - Algorithms; This list is not exhaustive. The more objects you can protect with a patent, the more reliable it will be. What are the steps to patent your app? The procedure varies depending on where you run your app business. The UK, Canada, Australia, India, and the USA have their own systems for patenting mobile apps. 1) You are advised to submit a provisional application in the USA. Before discussing things with investors, seek consultation with the patent attorney.  The patent is issued to someone who applies first rather than someone who invented the idea first. That is why filing a provisional application before proceeding with a formal patent claim makes sense. Below you will find the list of items that you need to submit as part of your provisional application: the name and residence details of all inventors; the invention’s title; registration details and name of an attorney in charge; name and registration number of attorney or agent and docket number (if applicable); mention of the U.S. agency that has a property interest in this app idea; description of the invention, as well as the description of your app’s functionality drawings of your app; Entity Status Form; explanation of why your app is a novelty. After receiving the approval, it will be valid for one year and grant you a patent-pending status. You can develop your app as an MPV  (Minimum Viable Product) during this period. While your application is being reviewed, you can also file for patents abroad. The provisional patent application fee varies according to the type of your entity. 2) To apply for a full-scale patent in the USPTO, you must prepare documents and be ready to pay patent fees. As a rule, the following collection of documents is expected from applicants: Specification: explaining your app’s specifics. It consists of the background, summary, and description; Claims - the essential part of your application. List the aspects of your app (functionality, algorithms) that you would like to patent; Drawings to support your claims. Usually, these are visual representations of the interface or other elements. Declaration; The information disclosure statement; Next to this, the patent commission will review if the processes in your app produce a specific and tangible result and whether similar functions have been previously patented. The cost of a non-provisional application varies depending on the period of the patent’s validity. Alternatives to mobile app patent Considering the relatively high cost of the patent and the long time required for the review process, you may turn to alternative solutions. - Apply for the trademark registration. It will protect your brand logo and advertising slogan against copycatting them. Generally, reviewing your application and issuing a license takes a few months. - Signing an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) with contractors and employees. This way, you ensure that information about your product will not leak. Otherwise, a lawsuit for breach of the NDA will be initiated. - Signing a Non-Compete Agreement with employees will not allow sharing information about your development with your competitors. Tips to consider before obtaining an app patent: 1. Don’t be in a rush to share screenshots of your app interface or pieces of code before a patent license is issued. This way, you’ll be able to protect yourself against stealing your groundwork 2. Protect yourself against litigation with the team members who contributed to the app's creation. Contractual agreements must contain relevant provisions. Remember to record their authorship in the agreements and settle royalties to avoid a lawsuit being filed against you. 3. When you order development from external contractors, make sure to conclude a commissioning agreement, as well as Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs). This way, you can avoid the disclosure of the development results. Bottom Line Now that you know the app idea patent procedure, it’s up to you to acquire the patent for your innovation. While legal consultation is not an area of our competence, app development is. Feel free to ask us any questions about building your dream software product! ### AI in Farming: Great 11 Practical Applications and Benefits AI in farming; The roles of AI in agriculture production; Practical applications of AI in agriculture; AI tools in farming; Challenges faced by farmers in AI adoption; Farm Management System by JetRuby Conclusion When you finish reading this practical guide to the AI and ML trends in agriculture, your awareness of AI-enhanced farming solutions will hit fresh highs. You already know that the mechanisms inspired by self-learning are taking the lead across all industries. This AI advancement significantly impacts agriculture and the farming industry in general. By delegating the job to artificial intelligence, we make hard and high-volume work less labor-intensive. With more than 40 essential processes to be handled in the field, the robotization offered by AI and ML farming technologies has become increasingly important. How exactly can farmers benefit from AI and ML advancement in agriculture? Getting straight to the top benefits of using artificial intelligence in agriculture, we can see them from the perspective shaped by their effect. AI in farming: Prevent Detecting infectious diseases among plants and animals based on machine learning has become one of the best practices in the industry. By matching historical data with satellite imagery of objects, the system will deliver detailed reports on the health conditions of on-farm livestock and plants to let you prevent the spread of infections early on. It prevents yield loss and farm animals and generates recommendations for better results. For example, an AI-based soil analysis goes beyond the standard PH test and spots soil deficiencies in seconds. Farmers run this analysis on a small device. They will adjust soil texture and maximize their production by taking it one step further. Predict Using historical data, farmers can decide the best time for plowing, irrigation, and harvesting. These production decisions, for example, can initiate delayed or early irrigation of specific fields. When moving to the harvesting season, the program informs you which fields will be ready to harvest first based on the field’s biomass. That’s how a crop management process benefits from the AI-enabled solution at all stages. Producing more accurate weather forecasts is another important direction of AI-based predictive analysis. Optimize Agriculture consumes more than 70% of the earth's water. Finding and implementing solutions to this problem heavily relies on the potential opened up by using artificial intelligence in agriculture. Overapplication of water will be significantly reduced if the data-driven mechanism is equipped with a water-holding capacity. With linear programming, an optimal amount of water can be calculated for a given field to prompt necessary adjustments. Moreover, reducing the wastage of ag resources and chemicals is one of the favored goals of AI applications.   Practical applications of AI in agriculture There are countless AI-inspired opportunities for farming, bringing tangible results to all farming enterprises. It’s a common perception that cutting-edge technologies are among the perks of big corporations. However, the format and accessibility of many AI devices make them a perfect fit for small family-run farms. If you are looking for more advanced ways to achieve sustainable crop production, improve harvesting and sowing, map and monitor your fields, and identify diseases or pests on farms, consider exploring AI technologies. Use Case of AI in Farming - Example I One of Microsoft’s projects in India has launched an AI sowing app to recommend farmers on sowing dates, land preparation, soil test-based fertilization, farmyard manure application, seed treatment, optimum sowing depth, etc. This work has resulted in a 30% increase in average crop yield per hectare. Use Case of AI in Farming - Example II A seed production company in the United States. For some crops, cross-pollination is a huge issue. An AI-based module was used to ensure the genetic isolation of crop types and prevent cross-pollination. The potential sources of threats where volunteer crops grow were identified thanks to satellite imagery and assessment of the previous maps. This information became the clue for further crop isolation and rotation. As a result, seed production quality was improved with less time and effort than traditional methods. Use Case of AI in Farming - Example III A farmer cooperative in the United States. An email report generated by the cloud-based analytics platform brought the soil stress alert to the attention of the company’s agronomists. The platform analyzes satellite-provided soil and weather data to provide scenarios for best crop performance practices. So, the highlighted stress area was examined, and the outbreak of rootworm was found. The issue received immediate treatment, and the company saved crops. AI tools in farming Robots Autonomous robots can be set to perform farming tasks around the clock. Instead of spending the whole day in the field in demanding conditions, farmers can dedicate their time and effort to achieving sustainability in their production. What robots can do: Robots spot weeds and treat these spots with herbicides. After drones have captured the photo records of weed locations, a self-driven robot filled with herbicides will check on them and start the treatment. Going through the field, the robot finds pests. The next step will be to spray chemicals where needed without wasting them on the entire area. Among robotic assistants, there’ll be another machine that sows and harvests wheat that a tractor cannot pass. The list of tasks for farm robots can’t be exhaustive, so it is to be continued. Use case example: Unlike traditional soil sampling, robotic sampling ensures three times more accurate data. Finally, it leads to a 10% increase in fertilizer effectiveness. At the same time, poor sampling is worse than having no sample analysis, so reliance on accurate metrics is vital. With inch-level precision, an automated system captures the whole core sample of soil. The analysis results allow for saving the input of nutrients in areas that need less, thereby achieving better profitability per acre. Universality Delivering a customizable and adaptable robot that can be set for a particular task is among the latest agriculture trends. Fill it with necessary implements and release it for various goals: seeding, spraying, weeding, etc. The production standard for this type of robot implies advanced safety (leaving it on the field and monitoring its performance with the help of surveillance cameras), low weight, and RTK/GPS guidance. AI-powered mobile and web apps By all accounts, smartphone and web applications are the primary sources of first-hand AI experience for farmers of all types. Apps’ assistance is indispensable in many routines, such as weather tracking and predictions, keeping up with market prices, treating sick plants and animals, field mapping, searching, and adjusting crop performance. Apps alert growers on the outbreak of diseases and supply them with recommendations relevant to the present moment. Use case example: The irrigation tool is in your hands. Crop growers can remotely monitor irrigation equipment by monitoring sensors and pumps. Starting, pausing, or stopping irrigation with your smartphone will reshape your irrigation experience. Drones AI-based drones have proven their mastery in agriculture by assisting with pollination, cultivation, examination of plants, and various other tasks. It’s been a while since drones became a standard part of the daily on-farm routine for all scales of ag enterprises. Drones can be customized with farm software and used in numerous ways: See pasture weeds, count cattle, measure fields, and track changes in cattle weight by following a preprogramming route. Check the hay feeder to know whether it should be filled or not Take aerial videos of fields and ranches Check on livestock, ponds, and feeders. Drones encourage an inventive approach: a farmer blows a whistle on the drone to make cows think it is their flying herd dog. Use case examples: Apple-picking: Every harvester knows that fruit can remain unpicked. On a global scale, this waste amounts to 10% every year. But there is an easy solution. One of the latest developments, the apple-picking AI-enhanced system, is as helpful in finding which apples can be picked as in picking them. Removing clogs from pipes: your pair of eyes inside the tile is the underground device equipped with front and rear cameras. Putting a lightweight and waterproof drone underground to the tile will make the clog location known to you and let you decide on the tile repair. Intelligent spraying The unmanned spraying process saves operator costs and cuts downtime. One of the most illustrative applications of this system is the irrigation of vineyards, orchards, and berries. All steps are powered by a laptop, and the program prompts spraying the specific tree and spending the exact amount of material needed. Spraying a preset amount of herbicides and pesticides is another popular application of this method in agriculture. Self-driving technology The auto-guidance mechanisms for field tractors and harvesters are among the cutting-edge and truly disruptive AI technologies, boosting the farmers' productivity. Equipped with the GNSS and RTK navigation, they would move along working paths on fields that can be flat or have slopes. Precision agriculture cannot be imagined without auto-guidance kits for agriculture machinery. The relevant software can be integrated into carriers, such as agriculture trucks and tractors. Reduce fatigue with driverless tractors With self-driving vehicles, machine operators do not suffer from fatigue as much as when paving paths on paddocks and have to stick to them. In other words, most of the time, the drivers had to concentrate on navigation, which increased the probability and cost of mistakes. While the auto-guidance takes care of the path and navigation, a farmer can look around and sow seeds. Use case example: Soil compaction has long been a problem in agriculture. It heavily affects plant health due to the deterioration of biological activity. Self-driving tractors optimize routes and maintain soil quality by not letting soil compaction go too far. Additionally, tractors work out the routes to make them more passable for machinery during wet weather. Modules and programs backed by AI Combining several AI-enhanced methodologies can map a workflow for the entire project. The possibilities of complex solutions can be illustrated by how the monitoring was once arranged for crop performance on distance. A group of fields and paddocks was spanned across different countries. The monitoring methods included crop modeling, advising on data-based decisions, and using remote sensor data. The module started with mapping fields, using satellite imagery data and machine learning to understand it. The farmers could navigate through the growth stages of a crop. Throughout a growing season, they were notified if any areas needed more attention as problematic — the early assessment of field data by soil samples detected stress areas. If the decisions made for more minor spots turned out to be efficient, they were extrapolated to wider areas. These decisions resulted in increased productivity of crops across several fields. Challenges Faced by Farmers on the Way to AI Adoption 1) Government policies and adoption of smallholders to new technologies In many countries, the agriculture market is dominated by smallholders, who face many financial, educational, and infrastructure obstacles on their way to AI. Modernization requires upskilling and investments in switching to new technologies. Creating affordable financial and subsidy schemes for farmers must be on the agenda of state and world community policies. 2) Agriculture offers no universal methodology or simple solution based on AI The peculiarity mentioned above is instead a characteristic rather than a problem by itself, but it may affect the choice of AI as a working method compared to others. Learning from success stories and staying up-to-date with industry reports is essential. 3) Improving the precision of machine learning techniques Machine learning is intrinsically connected to the evolution principle. However, almost every ML task sets its own goals, so each time, it is about training the system and walking through all steps of the training process. It means that the precision level is always achieved for a particular goal. For example, the image recognition level must be above 90% to qualify for commercial success. 4) Cost of mistakes Like the previous challenge, this hindrance deals with the impossibility of a 100% accuracy level for some predictions, engaging the AI methodology. A wrong recommendation can destroy business results. That’s why it became a common practice to try those recommendations on a smaller scale first. Farm Management System by JetRuby Among the opportunities and challenges of the AI world in agriculture, expert guidance is the backbone of a sustainable project. With more than 250 successful app releases in its portfolio and proven agritech expertise, JetRuby embraces a wide range of industry needs, including but not limited to grain cultivation, aquaculture, viticulture, husbandry, and farming. The Farm Management System (FMS) is a professional response to the current AI challenges caused by the lack of centralized data sources and universal methodology. FMS harnesses the power of AI and ML to help businesses generate accurate forecasts and planning, care for farm animals and plants, and increase crop yield by optimizing water, fertilizer, and soil management. FMS is a customizable platform with expanded possibilities for designing the system to cater to your particular needs as a farmer. Osram, a global high-tech corporation, is one of the companies using JetRuby’s development—an urban farming solution based on IoT technology. A universal dashboard was designed to let farmers digitally control the parameters of their plant growth and increase their crop yield by 32%. Bottom line According to estimates, U.S. farms alone can add up to $65 billion to the national economy by implementing AI-driven solutions. These predictions demonstrate that farmers are willing to explore the opportunities of AI & ML and find these goals viable. Therefore, the agricultural sector is doubling down on its AI approach, looking forward to its automation potential and cost-efficiency. The overview you’ve just read outlines major applications, practical benefits, and challenges of AI adoption in agriculture. Without a doubt, you share our conviction that artificial intelligence is all about giving you resourceful, innovative, and often affordable tools for driving the business value of farming. ### Use 9 Stages of Load Testing to Know Your App The article explains the purposes and benefits of load testing. It also provides helpful tips for app owners and walks you through the main stages of the process. Some reasons why your web service or mobile application needs load testing: Losing your new business in seconds because of slow system response time is undesirable. Unfortunately, this outcome is natural in the highly competitive web services space. Imagine there is a newly launched pizza-ordering website. It’s been working without failures during regular business hours. Soon, a pizza day comes — seemingly, just at the right time and as a promo chance for the new pizzeria. A new order comes every few seconds, and suddenly, everything stops. The website's response time slows while some orders freeze midway in the cart. The users who logged in to the website ran into the page error, were puzzled, and associated this new pizza brand with this service denial. The loss is direct. It’s caused by the lack of understanding of why a load test may be needed for a web service like this. In short, the reasons why you need load tests as a business owner can be summarized as the following: You want to keep your online product up and running no matter what You plan to scale up your website or app You want to identify bottlenecks for your product (find out what stops its performance when loading increases) You are making sure your online business stands for massive traffic volume. Load tests should be conducted at the right time to prevent bad scenarios. Now, what exactly is a load test? Load tests put software under load and measure its response to this load. This load level must be preset and known, making this test different from other testing strategies. Usually, this test implies multiple (quite a significant number) users entering the software simultaneously. It won’t only allow fixing the identified weaknesses of the tested software but will also prompt the creation of scripts for subsequent load tests and keep the system under control. This way, the tested system’s behavior is understood and will be more predictable in regular and irregular circumstances. Its bottlenecks will be identified, allowing for taking the necessary steps to stabilize the app's overall performance. What will the results of the load test tell you? You’ll learn the following information: - How many users can access your software simultaneously; - How scalable your software is, i.e., how many more users will be allowed to use it; - Response of your software to the peak log; - Evaluate your infrastructure and understand if it’s sufficient to maintain your software; In other words, with load testing, you’ll have the bottlenecks of your product clearly defined. What does load testing give me as the product owner? Building a stable and reliable infrastructure. Nobody wants to keep repeating unsuccessful login attempts. Understanding the limits of your products before they go live and the reasons behind these constraints will help you identify which components are necessary to achieve the speedy and sustainable performance of your app or web service. Understanding the product’s Capacity, Load, Volume, Stress, and other parameters. Receiving the information on the system's response time and transmitted data volume. Can your system serve end-users during promo campaigns on traffic volume peaks? Identify non-functional requirements for your project if you don’t have them now. By all accounts, it’s much easier and cheaper to face the problem in your app early on than to fix it during the inactive phase at the expense of your customer base. When should I run the load test? One of the famous time strategies for load tests is to run them early on and based on a more manageable configuration at the pre-release stage. This approach also lets you discover important information about your system's behavior even though a specific number of users won’t be obtained. When the test is over, you’ll know whether your app is behind your targets and which bottlenecks it has. This is the case when a series of easy tests at various stages of deployment will be appropriate. An advantage of this test is the possibility of fixing errors earlier and saving on costs. Another approach is emulating real-life conditions. This approach requires a more careful configuration to simulate reality as realistically as possible. It also takes an extended time to deploy this environment. Since such a configuration takes more time and effort than the previous strategy, its timeline may be delayed. Stages of load tests Let’s move on to the stages of the load test: 1. Analysis of non-functional requirements Unlike functional testing, verifying the performance of specific functions (like “place an order” in the delivery app or “call a driver” in a taxi app), non-functional testing evaluates the performance of a system in part of its capacity, load, volume, and stress. 2. Collection of the information about business processes that should be tested regarding load. 3. Determine success criteria for a load test. 4. Preparing the software test stand to enable the load script corresponding to the product load. The cost of this software stand is approximately equal to one copy of the app’s infrastructure, summed with the load test infrastructure depending on traffic. 5. Preparing the infrastructure for the tool that launches load-scripts. 6. Preparing the infrastructure to assemble both hardware and system metrics. 7. Preparing the load scripts. 8. Load testing itself. It may last from 1-2 hours to 6-9 hours. In critical cases, for example, at risk of release failure, it may take extended time and have the testing mode on 24/7. 9. Obtaining and interpreting test results. What other aspects of load tests should I pay attention to? ➜ Load testing is not performance testing, although it encompasses the part of performance tests. The latter examines software for overall performance and launches a broad scope of testing. As we discussed above, load testing is interested in the behavior of software provided there is a user load on a system. Other performance test types include endurance, stress, scalability, volume, capacity, and spike tests. ➜ Load testing renders the information in the quality and quantitative dimensions. Having the productivity metrics on your table, you can match them with the non-functional requirements set in your plan. If you aren’t happy with the results, the team will be able to fix critical indicators very shortly and manage similar tests in the future according to the test script. The series of tests is a way to control app development dynamically. ➜ Through tests, we identify the limits of app scaling or the components that block this scaling. These blocks are, for example, memory leaking or limitations on the number of connection queues. This way, the tested app can return technical errors, such as the absence of available connections, the timeout error reflecting the disconnection between services, and processing errors from intermediate services that perform without issues, given there is no load. In the worst-case scenario, it can lead to downtime in the system’s work during brief periods. ➜ This recommendation is especially relevant for newly launched services that start their commercial journey. When the tested software experiences peak traffic (holidays or marketing campaigns), staying in touch with the engineers is advisable. ➜ Tests with higher loads are recommended for the established products demonstrating sustainable performance under regular loads. ➜ In an already started load test, where the first steps have been completed, the remaining procedures can be automated and used for repeated examination of the following releases. ➜ When the system is under high load, it’s advisable to monitor the hardware metrics and the network of test infrastructure. Connections may expire, and the traffic volume and user actions may affect the processor’s/memory capacity. ➜ When preparing load scripts, handling the data selection within a wide range is necessary. The script can retrieve data from an already known data file or generate random values within a range available with a test stand. It’s essential because repeated requests during the load test can rely only on the cache, whereas turning to a wide range of data can guarantee that the database will cover most requests. ➜ The data volume on a test stand must correspond to the production environment. This aspect should be considered by an engineer, among others. With less data volume, requests are likely to be completed quicker than under natural conditions. ➜ Charts can show that the system is sustainable. However, the practice won’t prove that. In this case, software analysis is additionally required. How do we interpret test results and act on this interpretation? Interpretation of test results takes place in two stages: 1. Analysis and matching received metrics against the requirements or respective metrics of the previous tests. At this stage, we pay attention to the throughput capacity, response time, traffic volume, and degree of errors. If the response time is long and mistakes are revealed, it doesn’t mean the test has failed. When analyzing load metrics, the percentile score is applied. What makes this measurement important in test analysis? As an app owner, you’ll be able to grasp how many users will enjoy the given response time and if this matches your goal. Percentile means the percentage of values not exceeded by a particular value. For example, the 50 percentile with a response time of 5 seconds means that half of the transactions (or 50% of them) are not slower than 5 seconds or even faster. When these metrics are ready, engineers set a threshold for the next test(s), and all values beyond this range will not pass. 2. Analysis of system metrics of the services and hardware integrated into the app. This stage mainly focuses on metrics already put into Elasticsearch or InfluxDB for further visualization. Load tests can spotlight primary metrics and information when approaching bottlenecks or indicating a complete system degradation. It will allow engineers to set up alerts in the production environment based on relevant ranges and promptly react to incoming problems. How bottlenecks affect the productivity of your project Just like the neck of a bottle slows down the water flow, a single component can be a notable hindrance in the whole workflow of your system. That’s why it’s common to refer to these elements as bottlenecks. If you anticipate constant growth of visitors and users, the unexpected failure to handle app traffic during one or a few releases can cause financial and reputational loss. So, bottlenecks restrain an app's scaling and prevent its evolution into a more prosperous business enterprise or a popular online tool. Which components can impede further growth? Any software system consists of three levels: remote hardware systems, software frameworks, or network systems. Cloud-based hardware includes databases and storage of web pages; software frameworks are responsible for rendering web pages and maintaining data transfer. Working together, these three levels ensure smooth web application work. If one of the abovementioned components demonstrates the lowest capacity, speed, or throughput, it will be a bottleneck. If this were not the case, the tested system would function smoothly and perform without delays. Bottlenecks can be represented by Central Processing Unit (CPU) utilization, memory usage, disk usage, network delays, etc. They are identified during tests. How our company conducted the load test for an educational app The client intended to learn if the service could handle 80,000 users concurrently. The next question was how many users could use the system simultaneously. The tested system is an educational web application. Using this app, you can find the correct name and prompt the correct pronunciation of this name, which is crucial in a multicultural university environment. Therefore, the return of search results and rendering the name is critical for this app. Our goal was to examine the authentication system and its potential limits. Users log in to the app with their credentials, and it sends signals to an API. Our goal was to have precise information on the load capacity rather than doing an approximate evaluation of the system’s capability to endure the load. Further tests and monitoring will be based on these findings. Tools We deployed the stack on the K6 tool, which supports JavaScript (JS) as the universal framework and programming language, which means engagement of all team members in the process of evaluation and attunement. K6 puts the system under a significant load while consuming fewer resources to maintain its work. These advantages make K6 a cost-efficient solution and are why we chose this option among others. An open-source database, Influx DB, powered data storage. We applied Graphana for visualization. Metrics for the app’s infrastructure were processed with the help of Kubernetes, New Relic, and Sumo logic (the latter is used for storing and collecting data). Stages of tests 1. The technical aspects were agreed upon with the customer: the use of a machine for the test. It was deployed on the customer’s end and was represented by EC2. The test time - night time was chosen to test the production environment. 2. Coming up with script and goals: Preparing the load test scenarios Preparing tools and test environment Sorting out goals and milestones with the customer Identifying non-functional requirements Matching the retrieved data with the application metrics 3. Testing stage We could see how well the system handles the load by checking visualization charts. If indicators are close to the “ceiling,” it signifies a potential bottleneck. If hardware capacity doesn’t approach its limits while the load grows, it proves sustainable and can handle significant throughput. Pods are the minor units of execution in Kubernetes. When adding more pods, we observed that the response time increased. Finally, the system's parameters were received: 50 responses per second were the maximum capacity. Before the testing, our understanding of how the system reacts to the integration of the third-party system was not the same. So, the test supplied us with new information to act on. When we increased the number of the tested app copies for a browser extension, we could identify the bottleneck - it was a browser extension. The answers to the main questions were after that documented: 1. The service won’t be able to handle 80,000 users at once. 2. Almost 200,000 users can be handled by the system, but it will take an hour for the system to process that. 3. It also became possible to identify at which stage and under which conditions the system can start degradation. 4. Working out recommendations for the tested service The conducted test worked as the basis for subsequent examinations. Thanks to the received metrics, we could navigate through SLA and agree on what can be considered good or bad for the system’s capacity. Bottom Line The picture provided by a load test can not be limited. It works as one of the analytical stages, allowing you to grasp your system's internal capacity better. It supplies you with critical data and lays the foundation for your constant awareness of your system's capacity and potential weak spots. There is no perfect and universal blueprint for a load test — that’s why initiating this process with seasoned Developers ensures a successful outcome! ### HR Tech Investments Remain Bullish Despite Recession Talk… Writing in Techcrunch, Kyle Wiggers says the “The market for HR tech, which runs the gamut from workforce management to applicant recruitment and tracking systems, has proven remarkably resilient in the face of both pandemic and economic headwinds.” She suggests that it’s “precisely because of these headwinds that HR tech has attracted, and continues to attract, investors’ attention. The pandemic spurred companies to invest in digital infrastructure as their staff moved remote, while macroeconomic fears upped the pressure on HR teams — some of which had to contend with layoffs among their ranks — to vet candidates carefully.” According to her report, venture investors put more than into $12.3 billin in HR tech startups, nearly 4X the amount the year before, as reported in Pitchbook. She writes that more than $1.4 billion was invested in the sector in the first two months of 2022 alone. https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/19/what-downturn-investors-remain-bullish-on-hr-tech-as-the-great-resignation-slows/ ### Smartphones Will Help Drive Ag Output… Smartphone technology not only provides real-time weather and radar information and all forms of entertainment, it is increasingly seen as a productivity tool. According to this LAMEA market study, smartphones can be used in conjunction with sensors, high-resolution cameras, and GPS receivers, to aid in sample collection, aerial photography, and record-keeping. Smartphones, this report says, can also address the “growing need for climate information services, which helps farmers manage climate change and unpredictability by allowing them to make better agricultural decisions. In addition, the increased demand for cloud platforms for climate services is driving the precision farming market.”   #agtech #agritech #farming ### Align Learning Systems to Your Business Purpose… This is among the terrific insights from Divyesh Sindhwaad, Regional Vice President at Skillsoft India… Here’s a summary of key insights in this useful article in PeopleMatters…. Define the business purpose: Understand whether the learning technology is aligned with the defined business outcome. Communication, collaboration, virtual leadership, problem-solving, and decision-making are the skills now necessary to succeed. The learning philosophy has evolved from online and talent-driven digital learning to 'learn in the flow of work' and 'capability academies.' The future tech ecosystem will build an entirely new learning ecosystem, which will be the foundation of the learning strategy of the future. HR and L&D professionals must understand and evaluate this ecosystem to effectively utilize it. Identify the learning outcomes of each technological tool and prioritize which business and talent problems need to be solved. Understand the tech architecture: Develop a thorough understanding of the various layers that make up an effective learning strategy, including management and analysis of learning data; a Learning Management System will need to help schedule, administer, track, and manage all your curricula, programs, courses, and learning materials; a program layer that helps employees find, search for, and discover training programs….   #learning #LMS  #training #learningmanagement #knowledgemanagement https://www.peoplematters.in/article/talent-management/assessing-learning-technology-for-new-workplace-priorities-34554 ### The Great Tech Divide: Why Employers and Employees Are Split This article sponsored by Paycomm makes a point we at JetRuby regularly reinforce with our clients. When designing any application, start with the employees. Chances are, if your technology project fails, it will be because employees or the regular users were not involved in its design. In one study, the report states, “4 in 5 employees say tech helps them get more done faster. And just as many business executives agreed tech improves efficiency in a follow-up survey." But, “If everyone’s on the same page, enhancing workplaces should be easy, right? Not quite. Only 19% of leaders believe the tech they’ve purchased is being used to the fullest. Likewise, a staggering 77% of employees say they’re frustrated with outdated tech at work.” The report correctly observes, “From the pace of digital transformation to the value of a better experience, employers and their workforces aren’t seeing eye to eye. And just introducing new tech without understanding what employees really need can lead to even more headaches. This tech misstep can harm satisfaction, engagement and even retention.” https://interactive.blr.com/the-great-tech-divide ### Global Agriculture Robot Market Expected to Total $16 Billion By 2026 Timeframe, Growing 19% a Year… According to this report from Research Dive, the global agriculture robot market is predicted to grow rapidly due towards increased focus on vertical farming, soil testing and harvesting, and drone aerial analysis. The Asia-Pacific region is predicted to grow at the fastest rate by 2026. “Various functions performed by UAV agriculture robots such as increasing crop production, optimizing agriculture operations, and monitoring the growth of crops has led to an increase in demand for these robots. This growth in demand is anticipated to help in the growth of this sub-segment.”  https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/07/12/2478201/0/en/Global-Agriculture-Robot-Market-Expected-to-Accumulate-a-Revenue-of-16-640-4-Million-in-the-2018-2026-Timeframe-Growing-at-a-Healthy-CAGR-of-19-2-210-Pages-Research-Dive.html ### Great Insight on Need to Gain Organizational Buy-in for Digital Transformation Chelsea Barnes of The Enterprisers’ Project emphasizes that “successful digital transformation requires adoption across your organization. She says that three-quarters of digital transformation initiatives are stuck in “pilot purgatory.” She agrees with our view that “while technical boxes may be checked, organizational adoption – if and how employees welcome the change – is often ignored. Achieving genuine buy-in from people is a much more complex challenge than installing hardware or software. Go figure.” She recommends you ask these questions: How are you making it easier for your employees to visualize a new “day-to-day” and make them comfortable with those changes without fear of job insecurity? In what ways are you reinforcing and reskilling your existing talent so that data competency is pervasive across your organization? Where can you revise your organizational structure to encourage collaboration rather than competing priorities that slow down the project? What processes can you institute (or improve) that will enable a faster pace of change so that your company can learn continuously and organically? JetRuby is a big believer in Chelsea’s advice. Click here for our recent blog post on this critical subject. https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2022/6/digital-transformation-how-foster-organizational-adoption ### “Business People Need to Understand Technology More Than Technologists Need to Understand Business…” This is great advice from Joe McKendrick writing for Forbes. He tracks “how technology innovations move markets and careers.” He sees the need for a “hybrid business leader, who has advanced technology understanding, as well as strong business-building skills. They may come from technical ranks, but also may come from the business side, with a need to develop more advanced technology skills.” He quotes Thomas Erl, author of numerous business technology books, and CEO of Arcitura Education, which provides technology skills training to thousands of professionals across the globe: “Leaders and managers need to understand technology, and how it not only relates to automating their systems, but how it relates to their global digital presence. Also, they need a firm grasp of how their competitors and others in their markets are utilizing technology.” Erl says it’s “probably more urgent for business professionals to up their technology game than it is for technology professionals to learn to lead their businesses. For tech people “to understand the business is usually easier and perhaps less critical than for the executives to understand the technology. It’s harder, and it's more critical for the business side to understand technology, so they don’t get caught off guard.” Our JetRuby blog is full of useful information for business leaders on technology. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2022/06/05/businesspeople-need-to-understand-technology-more-than-technologists-need-to-understand-business/ ### Kentucky Joins US States Support AGtech Startups Tom Latek of Kentucky Today writes that the Bluegrass Ag Tech Development Corp. will “cultivate an innovation ecosystem for entrepreneurs and startups in the agri-food sector, in hopes of making the state the ag tech capital of the country. The board of directors includes representatives of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, City of Lexington, University of Kentucky, and Alltech. Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture Ryan Quarles stated, “We believe that Kentucky can step up to the challenges facing our agriculture communities and become the agriculture hub of technology and innovation in the United States.” Goals are to enhance the state’s world dominance in the horse industry, expanding bourbon production, genetic progress in poultry, and sustainability advancements in no-till farming as selling points for attracting agribusinesses. Kentucky offers traditional business incentives from the state, along with agriculture resources such as funding, networking, and marketing support for startups.” https://www.kentuckytoday.com/news/new-entity-formed-to-push-agri-food-startups-in-kentucky/article_b3d208ac-e370-11ec-9a4e-cbee0d9542fe.html ### What ServiceNow’s Acquisition Strategy Tells Us About HR Priorities HR Executive writer Phil Albinus believes the acquisition by ServiceNow of skills solution provider Hitch Works indicates that HR technology companies are betting that upskilling and the internal marketplace will remain vital to HR leaders—even as economists express concerns about a looming economic recession. He reports that “HCM solution provider ServiceNow bought Hitch for an undisclosed sum for its AI-powered, skills-mapping and intelligence offerings, which ServiceNow has not previously provided in its Now platform,” according to Gretchen Alarcon, Vice President and General Manager of HR Service Delivery for ServiceNow, whom he quotes. “Everybody needs to care about talent development and retention, and the key to that is being able to understand how an employee’s skills can impact the business,” she is quoted as saying. Hitch reportedly will “help customers address talent gaps by tying employee learning and development to workforce planning.”   https://hrexecutive.com/what-servicenows-latest-acquisition-reveals-about-hrs-priorities/ ### University 'Farm of the Future' Tests Precision Tech for Corn, Soybeans The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is funding a new collaboration between two institutes and a research center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that will create an integrated farm of the future in the US Midwest. This is just more evidence of a revolution underway in AGtech. Titled “I-FARM: Illinois Farming and Regenerative Management,” the $3.9 million, three-year project will develop an 80-acre agricultural testbed where corn, soybean, and livestock are farmed using synergistic and sustainable practices. “We will accelerate creation, maturation and adoption of new management technologies that are fundamentally more sustainable, profitable, affordable and scale-neutral. The new practices will be enabled by maturing digital agriculture technologies developed in wide-ranging research efforts at the University of Illinois,” says Primary Investigator Girish Chowdhary, Associate Professor of Agricultural & Biological Engineering and Computer Science, at the University of Illinois. Over three years, the I-FARM will test “improved precision farming with remote sensing; new under-canopy autonomous robotic solutions for cover-crop planting, variable-rate input applications, and mechanical weeding; and artificial intelligence-enabled remote sensing for animal health prediction, nutrient quantification, and soil health.”  https://www.precisionfarmingdealer.com/articles/5106-u-of-i-farm-of-the-future-to-test-precision-tech-for-corn-soybeans ### Application Deployment Part 7: User Engagement One of the most frequent failures with any deployment is a lack of focus on the people element. Just as it’s essential to involve the users in the user-interface and reporting processes, it’s essential to engage employees in the deployment. Below is a link to an article that addresses in detail the elements necessary for success.  Here's a quick summary of what’s essential in a deployment plan to overcome the common resistance to anything new. Create a sense of meaning. Help users understand the why—how will this platform help organizations. This is best communicated over time in quick messages rather than in lengthy training meetings. Make sure there is someone in charge with a clear deployment plan that includes qualitative and quantitative goals and have a support team well trained, confident, and able to train to the level of the standard trainee. Build the process into your current communications processes, be they e-newsletters, workplace technology, videos from the CEO, etc. Focus on how the technology will help employees by starting with the tasks most critical to the organization and therefore their jobs. Assessment and feedback. Provide opportunities for real-time feedback or questions related to the technology and respond and act appropriately. Make it fun. Hold contests or sweepstakes or friendly competitions when appropriate with tangible gifts commensurate to the accomplishment to express appreciation and create a buzz across the organization. Measure success based on the goals. https://www.enterpriseengagement.org/articles/content/8633260/enterprise-technology-engagement/ ### How High-Tech Urban Farming Can Transform Cities This profile of Gordan Tam, by Zinnia Lee and John Kang in Forbes, shows that “agriculture—combined with technology—has a promising future in cities, deserts and even in outer space.” Not only can it make cities more self-reliant on food, it creates jobs more suitable for urban residents. According to the article, the need for urban farming in Hong Kong became apparent in “early February when residents of Hong Kong faced a shortage of fresh food. Shelves stocking vegetables and the like were empty across supermarkets in the city as strict Covid-19 controls across the border in mainland China badly disrupted fresh food supplies.”  Almost all the city’s food is imported. Tam estimates that only about 1.5% of vegetables in the city are locally produced and that he “believes vertical farms like Farm66, with the help of modern technologies, such as IoT (Internet of Things) sensors, LED lights and robots, can bolster Hong Kong’s local food production—and export its know-how to other cities. ‘Vertical farming is a good solution because vegetables can be planted in cities,...We can grow vegetables ourselves so that we don't have to rely on imports.’” The company is learning not only how to use different types of LED lights for maximum growth but also “uses IoT sensors and robots for quality control and to help manage the 20,000-square-foot indoor farm in a way which helps companies recruit and retain workers. The writers quote Tam as explaining how urban farming can also affect talent recruitment. “A big problem for traditional farming is the lack of talent,” says Tam. “It’s because the children of many remaining farmers don’t want to take over the farms. They think it’s a very tedious job. But by using technology, we can improve the working environment so that young people will be willing to farm,” he says. Farm66 currently employs 15 full-time employees, including data analysts, food scientists and mechanical engineers, producing up to seven tons of vegetables a month.     ### United Nations Africa Dialog Session Focuses on Food Systems and Human Capital This recent international webinar program focuses on enhancing agriculture productivity and food systems, merging two subjects close to our hearts at JetRuby—agtech and human capital management. The program focuses on the use of modern irrigation systems, mechanization of farming and reduction of post-harvest losses as high priorities for Africa. (Those objectives are similar throughout the world.) Prescriptions at the meeting call for “policy formulation to integrate clean energy technology in agricultural development” as a “key priority for a sound food system, and resilience development in Africa.” We at JetRuby see a direct link between ag tech and human capital development. According to the program, countries need to: Strengthen policies and institutions Enhance agricultural skills and the education of the agricultural community and expand research and development Disseminate and adopt of technologies and innovations, including indigenous knowledge Promote investment in cost-effective and quality agricultural inputs Apply post-harvest loss management technologies Promote natural resource management and practices appropriate for African agricultural Adopt disaster risk mitigation programs. ### AI and Mobile Applications Will Help Enhance Water Use Efficiency This excellent article by Michael Gilbert in an Entrepreneur column focuses on the emerging area of “precision agriculture - the use of technology like networked sensors and artificial intelligence - is helping farmers get by without the water they once had.” Precision agriculture, he explains, uses technology such as “networked sensors and artificial intelligence” to help farmers get by with less water. The writer says he has “seen up close how precision agriculture is making a difference for farms facing extreme drought. But embracing this technology isn't always easy. In fact, it requires fundamentally revisiting our relationship with water in agriculture.” The key, he suggests, is to focus on data to understand how water is begin used and how to deliver it in the most efficient way possible. Data will rewrite irrigation practices that up until now are “still an art form.” Technology, he says, can take irrigation management from a “general” feeling toward a higher level of precision. JetRuby has specialists in agriculture technology to help organizations affordably take ideas and opportunities to a minimally viable solution for launch and ready to scale as needed. ### ISO Human Capital Report Presented Before Leading US Business Organization Our CHRO, Svetlana Goryushkina, was asked to explain the reasoning behind our developing a formal human capital report in conformance with ISO30414 standards before an audience of business leaders belonging to the prestigious The Conference Board in the US. The program follows Chatham House rules so we are not able to share the conversation, but we can share our presentation. We made this commitment to human capital reporting not for compliance purposes but to demonstrate to all our stakeholders through our actions and metrics that we have a strategic and systematic approach to people management and are willing to have those practices audited by an independent third party. ### Digital Transformation Among Top Health Care Priorities, Survey Finds Digital transformation was among the key priorities identified in a survey of 130 health system CEOs conducted University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver) and Guidehouse.Other priorities include workforce resiliency, talent acquisition, and new partnerships.The study finds that many plan to “grow their business lines to provide approximately 20% more services than in 2021 outside of the hospital and/or in the home (i.e., outpatient, non-surgical, preventive/wellness, lab/pharmacy, home health).”However, the study finds that hospitals continue to face major labor shortage challenges.Jiban Khuntia, PhD, associate professor of Information Systems and director of the Health Administration Research Consortium at the Business School at CU Denver, who led the study, elaborates on the study’s findings:"There are three clear actions for health system leaders based on this analysis. First, engaging consumers is vital—whole-person care requires a people-focused mentality. Second, treat your workforce like you treat your patients—have a plan to achieve a diverse workplace through proactive recruitment strategies and employee relationships. Finally, use innovative digital strategies across the organization—from serving consumers to managing talent." ### McKinsey Report Sees New Operating Model for HR With Focus on Digitalization This report on key HR trends by Laura Blumenfeld, Neel Gandhi, Asmus Komm, and Florian Pollner puts elevating HR through digitalization at the top of the list. This includes “automating processes, especially traditional administrative tasks; by gathering, analyzing, and acting on employee data to make more informed decisions; and by implementing mobile self-services to elevate the quality of delivery.” Other key trends: *Enabling agility and fluidity. *Refocusing HR to become true business partners. *Organizing around employee experiences as we do customer experiences. *Virtualizing CoEs and centers of competence (CoCs) by giving HR business partners a dual role: supporting specific areas of the business and creating a functional specialization spanning HR and the organization (such as compensation and benefits or organizational development). *Putting the business in the driver’s seat by shifting responsibility for traditional HR tasks to line managers. Mobile applications will make it possible for organizations of all sizes to benefit from the new HR operating model.   ### Big Increase Seen in Animal Monitoring Writing in Aginfo’s “Farm of the Future report”, Tim Hammerich quotes Merck Animal Health Ventures team lead Stephen Murray on the shift toward digital monitoring. “In each species we see clear value around monitoring. And that's our sort of core proposition. But that's going to be in partnership. You're going to be in an ecosystem. You're not on your own. And the ecosystem is what we're seeing as a lot of interest by it might be retailers wanting to utilize or tap into your monitoring as something that adds value to their brand.” He continues, “These monitoring systems provide a base layer of data that will be helpful for future innovation. Similar to crops, carbon is also a hot topic.” Mobile applications make it possible to create networks gathering data from multiple sources. ### Useful Summary Article on Human Resources Management Systems This practical guide by Erik van Vulpen of the Academy to Innovate HR outlines the benefits of digital Human Resources Management Systems: Record-keeping—including all key employee milestones. Compliance—documenting critical information required for disclosures. Efficiency—having all key features on one platform. HR strategy –tracking the data required to advance the HR and business strategy. Self-Service HR. Ability to provide self-service HR to employees and managers. The low cost of application development today makes it possible for even smaller to medium size business to create and maintain their own HR management systems. ### JetRuby Clutch Review Highlights How We Help Clients Create Great Applications We recently received a client rating of 5.0 and this review on Clutch for our development of a mobile application for a fitness subscription company in the US.• We were hired because our client’s CTO was transitioning so they needed outside support to create new features, document the code, and enhance and update existing code. The team worked in React Native and Ruby and Rails to build new features and update existing code.• We had five people on the team - a full-stack developer, project manager, mobile developer, QA manager, and business development / account manager.• The client explains: “We have very complex code and they got up to speed very quickly, had a high level of expertise and identified areas for improvement. We were very happy with the results provided and most importantly, they were a pleasure to work with. The team was highly responsive, professional, and prompt in communicating updates and issues. We were impressed with how clearly they communicated, how quickly they got up to speed and their ability to meet tight deadlines. ### Looking Forward to Seeing Our Fintech Friends and Meeting New Ones in Dubai at Seamless, May 31 to June 1 Message me on LinkedIn or email me if you’d like to talk about Fintech application development and trends while you’re at the show. If you follow me on LinkedIn, you know we’re always interested in sharing ideas with other innovators. The big trend not too many people are talking about yet is the ability now for almost any size company to develop its own applications. Ever more efficient technologies are making it possible to take a concept from a minimally viable to scalable solution at costs that would have been unheard of even five years ago. Our team is excited to visit the Seamless Middle East 2022 conference from May 31 - to Jun 1 at Dubai World Trade Centre. It’s two magnificent days of fintech, payments, retail, and e-commerce innovations. Get in touch with me if you are going to be there too and wish to brainstorm solutions. Ivan Linko CEO & Founder of JetRuby ### Smart Agriculture Market Expected to Reach $36.2 Billion by 2030 This adds up to significant growth over the current estimated market of $12.1 billion. The report, available for purchase, attributes the growth to artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), and increasing pressure on the food supply. Smart agriculture is a concept that aims to make it easier for farmers to use modern technologies. “Connected technologies such as Wi-Fi, Zigbee, additional wireless sensors, and low-power wide area network technology are some of the various technologies that assist farmers in efficiently carrying out various agricultural operations such as harvesting, purchasing, planting, and inventory control. Farmers are increasingly using IoT and artificial intelligence to monitor agricultural fields and automate irrigation processes. Furthermore, modern technology has increased the productivity of organic farming, including greenhouse and vertical farming. Drivers include precision farming/smart agriculture to help farmers resist the negative effects of nature on crops by capturing geospatial data on soil, animals, and plants, as well as other inter- and intra-field information. This approach “saves resources by using the right amount of irrigation water, liquid fertilizers, nutrients, herbicides, and pesticides. Farm automation, animal farming technology, yield mapping systems, precision agriculture, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and data management solutions are examples of modern technological solutions implemented in agriculture. This aids in increasing land fertility and profitability and facilitating sustainable agriculture, increasing productivity, and lowering farming costs.” The report concludes: “Precision agricultural technology is expected to make agribusiness more profitable than ever before. As a result, business-minded farmers have begun to employ a variety of precision farming/smart agriculture tools to increase crop yields and profit margins.” Jetruby is an expert in helping organizations create scalable, minimally viable solutions to cost effectively solve problems and enhance solutions through smart application technology. Download the sample PDF.   ### 4 Reasons HR Tech Projects Fail and How to Succeed This useful article by Phil Albinus in HR Executive provides the following insights: “HR technology solutions often promise the moon, but the reality is that many HR tech projects are likely to crash to Earth. The numbers don’t lie: An estimated 42% of HR tech projects fail after two years, according to industry experts.” He reports what Steve Brink, President and CEO of digital rewards solution provider uFlexReward, told his audience on why platforms fail and how to avoid the problems. The overall digitization strategy often lacks a comprehensive or holistic view of the problems to be addressed, meaning the process can become reactive instead of forward-thinking. “A goal without a plan is just a dream,” he says. The vendors demonstrating the HR technology highlight what makes their solution different from their competitors’ tech when they need to focus instead on the organization’s goals and expectations. “This leaves out the details that HR really needs,” says Brink. “We need a more detailed vendor process.” Tradeoffs are made during implementation after HR and IT discover what the vendor’s solution cannot accomplish. Although portions of the project can still succeed, Brink said that at this point HR and IT leaders need to focus on the project’s high-priority goals. “With the tradeoffs, you still want to reach your ultimate objective,” he says. Vendors may not be ready yet with their technology and competing priorities among HR and IT and the vendor could hurt on the project. We at Jetruby have learned another key failure: the lack of focus on engaging the employees whose involvement is needed for the platform to succeed. ### Agtech Can Help Make the Planet Greener In this World Economic Forum article, Philip Meissner, Professor at the ESCP Business School, Founder & Director European Center for Digital Competitiveness, asserts that new green tech, from vertical farming to 3D printing and plant-based meat, can reduce our environmental footprint while enabling sustainable growth. “Imagine growing crops with 95% less water or producing meat through methods that free up 80% of the world’s agricultural land. And how about eliminating the CO2 of global supply chains by simply moving production facilities closer to customers and cutting the parts used in the final product a hundredfold? What might sound like crazy ideas are solutions available today through green technologies.” Applications supporting the Internet of Things and powered by AI will help farmers far more precisely apply pesticides, fertilizers, and water based on actual real-time conditions not only on their farms but on surrounding lands. ### Part 5: Application Development Management This is a continuation in our series in developing scalable minimally viable applications at the least possible cost and with the fewest headaches. Assuming you are successful in finding a trusted solution provider, project management is critical and cannot be left entirely to the development firm. You must have someone internally with a firm grasp of the goals, budget, timeline, and the stakeholders whose interests need to be addressed. However, the better the company you have selected, the less involvement your organization will need to ensure the program is on track in terms of budget and timeline. Here are quick tips on how to ensure your project runs smoothly: 1. Determine Your Development Approach: Agile or Formal Agile essentially means that you develop on the fly based on written general requirements and wire-frames, aka mockups, that are approved before actual programming. This approach saves time and leaves more room for developers to solve along the way. This process is obviously faster and less costly but can result in surprises that can add unexpected costs. Formal means that the general requirements are spelled out in complete detail in advance, so that any problems are essentially worked out in advance and programmers work with a completely specified instructions. This approach is more costly upfront but reduces the chances of surprises. We at Jetruby can work either way, based on the budget. 2. Get to Know the Assigned Project Manager in Advance Make sure it’s the vendor’s policy to have a dedicated project manager who knows your program inside/out. This person should be involved at the very start. Find out how long the person has been on the job and have a face-to-face video conversation at least to find out about their approach to project management and communication. Look for project managers who are transparent; budget, detail- and deadline-oriented; calm, and customer-focused in their dedication to minimizing surprises. 3. Establish Clear Milestones in a Written Project Plan Even with the agile approach, make sure that the solution provider delivers a clear plan with specified deliverables and easily verifiable milestones, as well as any contingencies—i.e., circumstances that could affect the project plan. Keep to a strict timetable of review meetings guided by a clear review agenda against the written requirements or wire frames and record the meetings when appropriate with full disclosure to the solution provider. Make sure to involve any key stakeholders at every critical stage. Communicate directly and clearly with the project manager if you sense an issue and try to have a face-to-face video meeting before escalating concerns. Do not ignore nagging instincts about something going wrong. Depending on your contract, make sure that you have a secure copy of all code and required documentation uploaded on a regular basis on a platform you control and to which only you have access. Click here for Jetruby’s complete guide to selecting an application development partner. ### No-Till Benchmark Study Reveals Agtech Technology Trends As reported by Michaela Paukner in Precision Farming Dealer, more than half of farmers who responded to the 2022 No-Till Benchmark Study plan to use the technologies below. In 2022, usage of all these technologies increased compared to 2021. Here are the major findings: • Auto-steer is the most used precision technology, with 68.5% of no-tillers planning to use it in their operations in 2022. • The second and third most popular technologies are field mapping (56% in 2022) and yield monitor data analysis (54.4% in 2022). • Usage of implement guidance increased to 12.5% after usage dropped from a high of 12.1% in 2019. • While planned usage of lightbar GPS guidance is up in 2022 (29% compared to 25.4% in 2021), this category has been on the decline from the 40.1% reported in 2016. JetRuby can help companies create applications to solve challenging problems for a surprisingly low cost. Read more. ### Virtual Reality Takes Hold in Corporate Training: Josh Bersin HR visionary Josh Bersin reports recently that virtual reality is becoming a reality in corporate training. And by the way, he writes, “VR is also a recruiting tool. Now that every retailer, healthcare company, and distribution business is struggling to find people, why not use ‘VR Training Featured Here’ to attract people to your company? @Walmart’s experience with VR proved it was one of the most fun and engaging parts of work for many of its employees.” He cites some some compelling statistics from STRIVR: • Over 1.5M individual learner sessions conducted in VR to date, • Over 1M employees (individual learners) trained in VR to date, • STRIVR now has more than 125 employees (and hiring!), • Bank of America bringing VR training to 50,000 employees across nearly 4,300 financial centers nationwide. • MGM Resorts initially trained 450 employees across Las Vegas, Michigan, and New Jersey resort locations as they “bring back the workforce”. Read more ### Tim Hammerich of AgInfo Sees Growing Focus on Animal Digital Monitoring Tim Hammerich of Aginfo Sees Growing Focus on Animal Digital Monitoring...In his “Farm of the Future Report,” Hammerich writes that “there are actually some very interesting animal related technologies developing as well. Merck Animal Health Ventures team lead Stephen Murray is seeing a shift toward digital monitoring. Hammerich quotes Murray: “In each species we see clear value around monitoring. And that's our sort of core proposition. But that's going to be in partnership. You're going to be in an ecosystem. You're not on your own. And the ecosystem is what we're seeing as a lot of interest by it might be retailers wanting to utilize or tap into your monitoring as something that adds value to their brand.” These monitoring systems provide a base layer of data that will be helpful for future innovation. Similar to crops, carbon is also a hot topic. Murray thinks we’re still in the very early innings of innovation for animal agriculture. So do we at JetRuby Agency. We’re here to show how to create viable, testable solutions with a clear return-on-investment. Read more ### Why “Stakeholder Capitalism Will Boost Shareholder Value” People ask me why our company JetRuby Agency developed a formal human capital management plan with metrics, and published it on our website, requiring an ongoing investment that requires strategic and tactical thinking and clear methodologies and metrics aligned with our purpose and goals. This article, which is available for free if you register, explains why focusing on the needs of our customers, employees, and communities is good for all our stakeholders and therefore our business. We did not publish our human capital report because of any compliance requirements; we publish this because we want our stakeholders to see our purpose, goals, methodologies and metrics, and we have verified the reporting by an independent, certified business advisor, not a lawyer. Check out our report here. Nice to see we’re not the only ones talking about the new economics of taking care of stakeholders. ### Tapping the Power of Agritech to Bring Positive Change Start with challenges that aren’t changing, not the latest innovation, advises Rhishi Pethe, head of product at Mineral at X. X is Alphabet’s moonshot factory, “with the mission of inventing and launching breakthrough technologies to help tackle some of the world’s hardest problems, including agriculture.” His insight was published in Agweb:  “Most agronomic decisions in farming are local and contextual at the farm level. Additional sensors, data, and models will continue to enrich the contextual understanding on a given farm.”  “The availability of better remote sensing data combined with on the ground sensors, including on equipment, will power better machine learning and artificial intelligence models. It will provide a richer context to agronomists, advisors, and farmers to make better decisions.”  “There is always something more than the farmer, or an agronomist who has worked with the farmer knows, which a model or data cannot capture. Technology and tools will complement the farmer and/or agronomist’s context and intuition, with rigor and scientific method to create the most value.” “Our desire for simple, intuitive experiences and quick time to value will NOT change.”  “One of the main barriers to adoption of AgTech is poor user experience and time to value.” “Future solutions will have to significantly reduce the barriers to engaging. Technology and solutions will have to provide new modes of interaction and engagement, including voice, text, and other mechanisms, to reduce the effort onboard, and time to find value.” ### Technologies That Will Change the Human Race Writing in Forbes, Bernard Marr, a tech visionary, sees five tech trends that can change our way of life, of which two caught our eye because they involve software applications.  1. Human-Computer Interfaces. By this he means “wearable devices and technology that help to improve the physical and potentially mental performance of humans and help us lead healthier and better lives.” Of course, fitness tracker bands and smartwatches are already prevalent, but he sees the technology expanding to “smart clothing such as running shoes that can measure your gait and performance, advances like robotic prosthetics, and robotic wearable technology used in industrial settings,” or even smart contact lenses or even eye implants. This, he says, could lead to “truly augmented humans, trans-humans, or humans 2.0, where the human body is souped up like a sports car to achieve enhanced physical and mental performance.”  2. Extended Reality (XR). “Extended reality, or XR for short, encompasses virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality and refers to the use of technology to create more immersive digital experiences.” In practice, the technology could “let customers try before they buy, enhance customer service, make workplace learning more effective, and improve other organizational processes.” He predicts the technology will affect “the digital world of gaming, meeting up, going to events, etc.” He sees bulky XR headsets moving from pricey, bulky, and clunky to becoming “more common, affordable, and comfortable to use, which will only increase the chance of widespread use. The biggest challenges will include privacy and the potential mental and physical impacts of highly immersive technologies.” Read more ### Paypal CTO Sri Shivananda Outlines the Future of Interactive, Immersive Commerce Paypal CTO Sri Shivananda Outlines the Future of Interactive, Immersive Commerce…. Writing in Ventureburn, Shivananda sees the need to meet the ever-increasing demand for personalized experiences.  “The next phase of internet-connected devices will make commerce even more contextual. Anything you can interact with can be a platform for commerce. Imagine being able to point your phone at your best friend’s shoes, and they will almost instantly appear in your shopping cart, ready to be delivered to your home?” Merchants will need to avoid “homogenous experiences to shoppers who demand personalized interactions across all contexts.”  They will have to find a balance between personalizing their offerings and ensuring consumers don’t feel their privacy is being invaded. Shoppers want to feel like a brand understands them, but isn’t stalking them, particularly in the wake of several high-profile data breaches.” The need to close “the consumer fulfillment gap to deliver seamless experiences.” He explains: “With new advancements in technology comes the ability to create seamless customer experiences that narrow the gap between customer desire and fulfilment.” Merchants need to “keep pace with innovations that enable them to close the gap between desire and purchase in a delightful way.” Managing customer reactions to technology disruption. Merchants, he says, need to focus on being customer champions, recognizing “that customers need to adapt to new technologies in their own time. To do this, businesses must leverage technology to build the right features that aren’t intrusive, but geared towards helping people, and respect the customer’s choice to turn technology on or off.” ### SHRM Report: Artificial Intelligence will Help HR in Content Development This article by Lin Grensing-Pophal highlights ways that companies can use AI to automate key processes in HR including:• Creation of job descriptions based on specific skill requirements.• Employee engagement—sending out automated questionnaires asking employees to rate work experiences.• Safety—automating the dissemination of critical safety information to people in multiple locations.• Employee reviews—using AI to compile and analyze data and send reminders to managers based on the information gathered in the reviews.• Benefits—sending out automatic reminders to employees to fill out their benefits enrollment forms and other documents. Key concerns include the potential to “dehumanize the employee experience.” At JetRuby Agency, our view is that AI can help automate many routine tasks, including reviewing documents to identify key themes or issues in far less time than is possible when managed by humans. But AI can only get you 80% there—your HR leaders should be carefully reviewing everything produced by AI to look for quirks in automation that can lead to unintended consequences since AI still lacks the emotional intelligence to translate data-based conclusions into appropriate conversations and actions. ### JetRuby’s CHRO Featured in Enterprise Engagement Alliance YouTube Show on Human Capital Reporting As one of the first four companies in the world publishing a human capital report in conformity with ISO30414 Human Capital standards and verified by an auditor, our CHRO Svetlana Goryushkina was featured on a recent EEA YouTube show to explain why our company has invested in a strategic human capital management and reporting strategy. As Svetlana explains in the show, our reasons for this commitment are based on demonstrating to all our stakeholders the specific ways that we address their needs in terms of actions and metrics.First and foremost, she says, our reasons for publishing this report are for business and marketing purposes and are not related to any government compliance requirements. Svetlana was featured on the show with marketing experts Allan Steinmetz and Ralf Specht and by human capital management and reporting experts Dr. Solange Charas and Dr. Heiko Mauterer. ### The New Focus on the Human-Centric Organization Requires Enhanced Approach to HR Tech Interviewed in a recent article in Fortune by Aman Kidwai, HR Visionary Josh Bersin says “The big reset during the pandemic is this movement towards human-centered leadership, human-centered management, and valuing employees as assets, not just labor and expense…and that means empowerment, development and investment.” In a report co-authored by HR management from Ford Motor Company, Uber, AstraZeneca, and Yum! Brands, Bersin says that “employee-first, or human-centered leadership represents a paradigm shift from the business-centered approach, which prioritized operational measures such as revenue, efficiency, and customer data.” The authors also wrote that this approach allows companies to adapt and innovate better. The report’s four authors and eleven collaborators—including reportedly researchers, HR leaders and other executives from companies like—assert that “change management needs to be part of the business strategy itself” and that “employees have the answers to most problems” across a wide range of topics including diversity, equity and inclusion, remote work, wellbeing, and organizational design. The report notes that technology will play “a critical role in HR transformation as board leaders consider the future of their company’s talent agenda. This includes better data and analytic capabilities as well as tools and software to enable feedback, collaboration, rewards programs, smarter recruiting, and learning and development.” ### Department of Agriculture to Spend $1 Billion in Grants to Support Climate Friendly Agriculture Writing for Reuters, journalist Karl Plume reports that US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced plans to invest $1 billion in projects that promote farming, ranching and forestry practices that cut greenhouse gas emissions or capture and store climate-warming carbon. According to the report, “Qualified projects could include initiatives that cut or capture methane emissions on dairy farms or programs which expand the use of farming practices that soak up more climate-warming carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil.” Software applications can play a leading role in this effort by helping to identify the best time to apply specific types of fertilizer to minimize their use and to help locate sources of methane or other carbon emissions that contribute to global warming. ### Key HR Trends From Employee Benefit News This article by Amando Schiavo identifies key trends in HR technology. HR leaders will have a hard time filling roles that don’t allow for remote working arrangements. “Organizations are going to be hard-pressed to find potential employees who are willing to spend five days a week in an office — and for offices that can’t always be remote, that’s a big problem.” This will require technology that helps align engagement practices across the enterprise through digital platforms.Employers who fail to embrace the modernization of tech and benefits are setting themselves up to fail. Companies will require modern human resources platforms that enable employees to easily manage their relationships with the company.Employers will experience higher turnover if they don’t offer benefits that meet employees’ individual needs. Digital engagement platforms will need to make it easy for employees to evaluate and select appropriate benefits. ### FinTech Magazine Sees 7 Key Technology Trends In a recent article, Rebecca Avram, a Mortgage Advisor at Seniors Lending Center, sees the following trends driving fintech technology investments in 2022: • Data-driven decision making: "The more detailed of a background you have of a prospective client seeking a loan, the more suitable of a decision you can make. Thanks to AI and automated machine learning, lenders don’t need to manually sift through documents and histories to make well-informed choices regarding an application. • A more streamlined road to approvals and subsequent payouts. ”With internal process refinements comes a luxury for lenders: the ability to allocate manpower and resources more effectively. This potentially enables the ability to better serve more customers in a more time-efficient manner without rushing.” "Alternative lending solutions. ”Innovations like peer-to-peer lending have paved the way for continued lender process refinement, again reducing the delay between loan application, approval, and the provisioning of funds…The more traditional approach of accepting deposits before offering loans isn’t a necessity. The turnaround time via alternative lending methods like these is therefore typically much shorter.” • Reduced process bloat…With that time saved, without sacrificing service efficiency but rather improving it, comes the ability to better allocate resources and manage overhead.” • More cost-effective lending operations. “Saving on overhead costs can make a tremendous impact on your own finances and available resources as a lender. From everyday office expenses to long-planned cloud migration projects, security improvements, increased hiring, and worker training, there are many ways you can make use of having more cost-effective lending operations.” These savings can be passed on to clients. • Improved security and compliance…Adopting modern technologies better positions companies to maintain modern security standards, including data privacy, cybersecurity, fraud detection, cloud governance, and otherwise. Systems like Blockchain, predictive analytics, AI, automated machine learning, and other elements will help lenders look after their customers and finances. • Not being stuck in the past. ”The only way to truly improve the lending process is to be open to change, and many organizations struggle to do so by clinging to outdated, woefully inefficient legacy hardware and software.” ### Analyst Says AI Will Reshape Healthcare, Reach $120 billion by 2028  In a report on health care trends by Eric Johnson, CEO of membersy in MedCity News, a cadre of tech startups is changing how healthcare providers price their products and services, using subscription-based payment options to connect price transparency and consumer preferences in a novel way. He says subscription-based payment options “present an opportunity to develop reliable recurring revenue streams while boosting patient loyalty.” They cater “to a growing group of uninsured gig workers and millennials who frequently operate outside of the existing insurance framework.” Telehealth offerings, he believes are pointed for further growth because up to 60% of healthcare consumers want expanded telehealth options in the future. Expanding these opportunities positions healthcare providers to expand their patient base by reaching a greater cohort of healthcare consumers, especially rural patients who often lack easy access to healthcare solutions. Mobile connectivity. “Investing in mobile can accelerate personalization while tapping into patient preferences.” These apps enable “healthcare providers to easily deliver push notifications that reduce strain on patients. At the same time, healthcare providers can leverage this technology to provide 24/7 chat capability, subscription benefits management, and other patient-driven initiatives” Connected health technology is “creating new and better connections across providers, channels, care settings, and other relevant patient care facilities. This is great news for patients as connected health technologies improve patient engagement and health outcomes across a variety of metrics. “When patients are more engaged, providers are informed, and payment methods are accessible, everyone stands to benefit… Technology’s proliferation in the next year can make this system even more effective, helping patients and providers thrive in 2022.” ### Healthcare Technology Needs From the Front Lines Here’s what healthcare technology practitioners are saying about the areas of growth and emphasis in an article in Becker's Healthcare: Aaron Martin, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer at Providence (Renton) sees “Access optimization in healthcare. Aggregating patient demand, navigating patients to the right care venue (physician, retail, urgent care, telehealth, emergency department, etc.) and then load balancing the supply of clinician time to increase patient access and satisfaction while lowering clinician burnout. In 2022, it will be patient engagement — creating opportunities for delivering health services, education, and products to patients between episodes of clinical care to truly build a long-term relationship with the patient.” Karen Murphy, PhD, RN. Chief Innovation Officer at Geisinger feels “the most impactful health tech innovation in 2021 was the evolving use of remote patient monitoring” and believes that when, used correctly, “it will lower total cost of care by avoiding emergency department visits and potentially, readmissions to the hospital.” This she says will require technology integration that enables patient self-management. Thomas Graham, MD. Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer at Kettering Health believes that the “biggest needle-mover of 2021 was the transition of virtual care from a peripheral technology to an essential tool…The most impact was seen when we were finally forced to flip the switch and adopt what was a novelty as a vital instrument in our day-to-day care.” He sees paradigm change in healing, giving “rise to myriad derivative technologies and even change the regulatory/legislative landscape.” He says “Telemedicine 2.0 is here to stay and will provide a strong foundation on which to build tomorrow's advancements.” Jeffrey Sturman. Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at Memorial Healthcare System sees virtual health as the game-changer: “Virtual health broadly includes telehealth, e-consults, e-visits, e-ICU, remote patient monitoring in inpatient and outpatient settings, and many other areas where we have helped our providers engage consumers effectively.” In addition, he sees artificial intelligence and robotic process automation helping with staffing shortages. Mark Kandrysawtz, MBA. Chief Innovation Officer at WellSpan Health says the big opportunity is the “increasing focus on application of AI in healthcare — both for enterprise business functions and care delivery. At WellSpan Health, we've made investments in clinical and consumer AI and are experimenting with using AI to transform our enterprise to make care more affordable, more effective and easier to use. ### Gig Worker Applications Blossom Worldwide Stockholm-based Quinyx has raised $50 million to join the likes of Stint, InstaWorks Belgium and Gigpro, which are serving the fast-growing gig worker marketplace, according to this report in People Matters Magazine in India. These apps match employers with contract work and people seeking gig work and specialize in different marketplaces. Instaworks was recently featured on CBS News in the US. This marketplace remains early stage and can support many niche marketplaces. Perhaps yours? ### Don’t Assume You’re Not a Potential Victim of Cyberattacks A lot of smaller businesses believe they are below the radar screen of cyber attackers. This recent article by Kara Oosterhuis provides some good advice for farmers from David Masson, Director of Enterprise Security at Darktrace: ·      Divide the home and business Internet and segment any machinery connections.·      Never use default passwords and always change password defaults immediately.·      Other advice is to use passwords with up to 10 letters, numbers, and characters.·      Regularly remind people to never let anyone open any attachment or click to any link that is not verified.·      Watch out for requests for you to fill out a form for a proposal or service from people whose names may seem familiar.·      Ignore any unsolicited communications from so-called government agencies, as they will not contact you via email. We at JetRuby Agency look for every way possible to protect your applications and train your staff on how to avoid intruders. Read article in RealAgriculture > ### MUO: The 8 Biggest Tech Trends for 2022 Here are useful insights from writer Anina O.: Augmented Reality in Online ShoppingVendors can now create realistic 3D models of products, allowing potential buyers to see the item as if they had it in their hands before purchasing it.Sustainability in TechModern gadgets have proven themselves a permanent part of our daily lives, people want them to be more sustainable, both environmentally and economically.Low-Code and No-Code Software“As the name suggests, low-code and no-code are software-developing techniques that rely on visual elements to build software, such as dragging and dropping. While you shouldn't expect code-based software to go away anytime soon, low-code and no-code alternatives can drastically cut the time needed to develop an app or software.”5G Becoming MainstreamShe notes that “the number of global 5G connections tripled to 670 million in 2021 and will reach a wider market within the next 12 months. In fact, you can expect full 5G coverage all over the US, with many more countries joining in the following years.”AI EverywhereShe says we can now expect an explosion of AI-powered gadgets, apps, websites, and tools in 2022. “It'll become harder to differentiate chatbots from human customer support agents. Also, future content recommendations on social media and streaming websites are likely to come from an AI rather than traditional data analysis.”Passwordless AuthenticationShe sees a gradual shift towards passwordless authentication using mobile devices, tokens, and even biometrics almost everywhere because passwords are increasingly vulnerable.Virtual FashionAs AR technology improves and social media use increases, more people will invest in their posts, especially on Instagram and other social media platforms. So now, instead of spending thousands on the latest designer piece of clothing, companies are starting to sell luxury clothes that can only be seen in photographs.Virtual Reality for EveryoneShe believes that with more affordable technology, AI, and faster internet with 5G, Virtual Reality (VR) will become more widely available and more realistic than ever.” She says we’ll see “VR implemented in areas outside of entertainment. For example, researchers, students, and medical professionals can use VR to learn more about abstract and complex topics. Similarly, remote workers can use VR to partake in virtual meetings and participate in the work culture.” Jetruby helps clients apply the latest trends to their applications. Read more > ### VentureSouq Establishes $50 Million Fintech Fund in MENA Region… This new fund reflects the investor group’s focus on fintech technology in the Middle East and North Africa. The group was an early investor in companies such as Jeeves, Khatabook, Belvo, FamPay, Vouch, Point, Atomic and Fondeadora. “In 2020 we started to reflect on what fintech adoption in the MENA region was going to look like and we dove right in. Based on what we have seen in other emerging markets that we have invested in, we believe it is still early days in terms of the fintech ecosystem in the MENA region, and we are really excited about the overall opportunity set,” says General Partner Suneel Gokhale. The Fund says it has been actively deploying capital into startups across MENA and Pakistan, including regional ‘buy now pay later’ Tabby, Saudi-based B2B marketplace Sary, and Prop Tech platform Huspy. UAE-based investments include baraka (YC S21), FlexxPay, fintech infrastructure company NymCard and digital bank Verity and in Pakistan, digital ledger platform CreditBook, e-commerce financing platform PostEx and salary advance startup Abhi (YC S21) Finance. The fund also invested into Egypt-based transportation platform Trella, gig economy financial platform Dayra and North Africa-based super-app YASSIR, along with a number of other promising companies, which will be announced in the coming months. ### Special Report: 5G to Drive Innovation in Healthcare Tech In this report by Victor Camlek available here, the expansion of 5G in the US is expected to create significant investment in healthcare technology. The “game-changing” benefits include “dramatically increased bandwidth, higher speeds, reduced latency, and network slicing that will enable expanded use of remote monitors and sensors to track the condition of patients wherever they are.” According to the report, this new level of patient-generated healthcare data will permit enhanced analysis of various conditions and diseases, which will support personalized medicine and improved outcomes. 5G technology will create “numerous opportunities for healthcare enterprises to gather and transmit huge data files, such as tele-radiology images, quickly and securely. Also benefiting from 5G private networks will be the virtual care market, which includes companies that supply platforms, software, devices, services, advisory services, and analytics.” 5G will help companies re-imagine what they can do with technology, which is the mission of Jet Ruby. ### What Matters Most Will be Matter in Consumer Tech 2022: Stewart Wolpin It’s the time of year when the experts look ahead. So here are some of the top consumer trends businesses should be looking at as potential opportunities for innovation or disruption.  Tech expert Stewart Wolpin belies smart health, food, 5G, AI, and sustainability all will be hot tech trends in 2022, he says, but what might really matter most he says is Matter. Matter is the protocol created by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) that makes all smart home devices, regardless of their walled ecosystem, to work together.  Wolpin believes that the major players will collaborate for the same reason that the fax companies had to agree upon protocols, and that the home technology market is beginning to slow because of the lack of inter-operability.  Other Big Growth Opportunities… 5G: The rapid growth of 5G devices will warrant to development of new applications in “cities, infrastructure, education, and digital health,” says Rick Kowalski, CTA director of industry analysis and business intelligence. Enhanced user experiences: Nearly every consumer technology product we’ll see in 2022 will be smarter, more intuitive, and perhaps even more conversational. “By adding artificial intelligence and machine learning to devices and attaching services to hardware in homes, companies extend monitoring capabilities to consumers beyond standard access points,” observes Elizabeth Parks, president of Parks Associates. “These new services add benefits of security, convenience, and information for consumers.” Sustainability: Ross Rubin, principal analyst at Reticle Research says consumers and investors are driving demand for applications that can minimize the environmental impact or make transparent to stakeholders an organization’s environmental impact.  But no technology trend is newer for ’22, more anticipated, and more potentially impactful, than Matter. Red more > ### Why Almost Any Company Can Build its Own Application Today At the dawn of the technology era in the 1980s it was often less expensive for a large company to create its own software solution than to use one offered by the few major companies that offered pre-packaged solutions.  Then, in the 2000s, when the complexities of developing and maintaining technologies grew exponentially and the third-party solutions became both sophisticated and affordable, the majority of companies pulled out of building their own technologies and moved to third parties to manage their accounting, marketing, human resources, inventory, customer relationship management, and other solutions.  Today, with technologies such as Ruby on Rails, companies can take a concept to a “minimally viable solution” that in fact is built to meet the needs and scale to support growth while providing the flexibility to migrate to even more robust solutions should your idea achieve hockey-stick growth.  In the agriculture industry, for instance, fertilizer firms are creating technologies to help farmers use their products more effectively. JetRuby’s team is happy to hold a preliminary evaluation call to help you determine if your company’s idea can reasonably achieve your objectives and what it costs to do so.  ### Effective App Development Part 1 This is the first part of our series on effective app development. The first step is to establish the vision for your app—what is the opportunity or area of pain it is addressing. If the app is expected to generate revenue, the first step is to establish: What is the potential market in terms of size, revenue potential? Is there anyone else with an app that serves the same market? If so, how will yours be different? How do you intend to market your app? Do you already have the audience from another business? Do you have a marketing partner willing to support your new product? What are your ongoing costs versus anticipated revenues and how long do you need to get to break-even? What are the chances that a major competitor can beat you to the market? Is there a major potential competitor who might be tempted to buy your app if it succeeds instead of creating its own version to compete? If the app is intended for internal use, the key questions are: What area of pain or opportunity is being addressed? What is the return on investment in terms of cost savings or enhanced stakeholder experiences? Who will be in charge and what is his or her experience in creating an app? What is a realistic timetable? What benchmarks will be used to measure success? The next post will focus on monetization. Keep up with these and other how-to articles on our blog. Effective App Development Part 1…This is the first part of our series on effective app development. The first step is to establish the vision for your app—what is the opportunity or area of pain it is addressing. If the app is expected to generate revenue, the first step is to establish: What is the potential market in terms of size, revenue potential? Is there anyone else with an app that serves the same market? If so, how will yours be different? How do you intend to market your app? Do you already have the audience from another business? Do you have a marketing partner willing to support your new product? What are your ongoing costs versus anticipated revenues and how long do you need to get to break-even? What are the chances that a major competitor can beat you to the market? Is there a major potential competitor who might be tempted to buy your app if it succeeds instead of creating its own version to compete? If the app is intended for internal use, the key questions are: What area of pain or opportunity is being addressed? What is the return on investment in terms of cost savings or enhanced stakeholder experiences? Who will be in charge and what is his or her experience in creating an app? What is a realistic timetable? What benchmarks will be used to measure success? The next post will focus on monetization. ### Kudos® Platform Raises $10 Million for Employee Recognition Expansion in a Red-Hot Market.... Kudos®, a Calgary-based employee recognition, people analytics, and organizational communications firm has raised $10 million from the Canadian Business Growth Fund for a minority equity investment at an undisclosed valuation. The company says the proceeds will be used to further position Kudos® for global expansion, which includes doubling its headcount to 120 employees in the Calgary area and across Canada by the end of 2022. Just last month, recognition company Awardco raised $65 million at a valuation of over $900 million. Earlier this fall, Reward Gateway, a UK-based recognition firm was purchased by Boston-based technology investment firm Great Hill Partners announced that it has agreed to purchase London-based Reward Gateway at a valuation of $217.6 million. ### Alviere Raises $70 Million in Funding—Signals More Interest in Fintech Alviere, reportedly the leading embedded finance platform enabling any brand to deliver financial products and services to their customers and employees, has raised $70 million of new funding, reportedly the largest investment in this emerging sector of #fintech to date. According to Yuval Brisker, CEO and co-founder of Alviere: “Embedded finance technology is taking the decentralization of financial services to another level. Now any brand with an existing customer base - be it a telco, a retailer, a software company, a marketplace -- or an automotive company will be able to deliver a robust array of financial products and services to its customers. With Alviere’s industry-leading technology and expertise, brands who never considered the idea can now launch a highly lucrative, immediately profitable new line of business. Our embedded finance solution can easily and quickly deliver ‘everything personal finance’ to your customers, deepening customer relationships and insights while dramatically increasing bottom line revenue.” This is a great example of how innovators use applications to address needs and opportunities. The digital revolution remains early stage. ### How to evaluate an IT service provider When you're in the market for a new IT service provider, evaluation criteria are important in helping you find the right fit. However, these criteria can be difficult to understand and apply when you're in the thick of it all. Here are some tips for evaluating an IT service provider using essential evaluation criteria.Step 1: Evaluating the Monthly FeeWhen selecting an IT service provider, it is critical to determine not just the cost of the service but also the long-term costs of operating the service. If you're working with a company that charges hourly rates for services, evaluate their cost per hour and note the additional costs associated with monthly fees. If you find that your monthly fee is high in comparison to their hourly rate, consider selecting another service provider whose fees are less onerous.Step 2: Evaluating the Services OfferedThe next step is to evaluate the services offered by the supplier. You are looking for a range of services that will meet your needs in terms of cost, availability, and performance. You should also ask about the IT protocols in use by the supplier. This post has focused on the four key areas that are an important part of evaluating any IT service provider--Quality, -Cost, -Responsiveness, and -Expertise. The next step is to compare these providers in terms of price. It is important to remember that this comparison should take into account agreements reached by both parties. One of the first things to assess is how well the provider's IT infrastructure matches your needs. Ideally, the areas should be able to meet your business demands and provide a secure environment for all employees. You will also want to take a close look at the company's policies and procedures for service delivery, as those can make or break success. Establishing an effective long-term strategy for evaluating service providers is important. When it comes to IT, this is done by first understanding the process of software development and how it has changed over time. It's also crucial to understand project management. After learning these processes, you'll be able to determine what factors are important in selecting a new provider.Step 3: Evaluating the IT ExpertiseThis is all about how you can evaluate the credentials of an IT expert. When evaluating an IT expert, it's important to look at the resume and qualifications as well as their past work history. You also need to make sure that they have a solid reputation and that they've been reviewed by others in the industry.ConclusionWhen it comes to choosing the right service provider, the most important question you should be able to answer is whether or not they provide what you need. For this reason, you should make sure that the company has a proven track record, experience in your specific type of work, and can produce results for you. Our IT services include app development, web development solutions. Clients get our services to improve digital transformation, speed up service delivery, increase operational efficiency, or expand to new markets. We allow partners to build custom software for their organization. Clients get help with transitioning to the marketplaces of today. We work closely with clients to make sure their business needs are met. We offer flexible services through SaaS programs tailored for everyday use.At Jetruby, we make sure our clients are happy with the services we provide, and we always take extra steps to take care of your needs.JetRuby Agency has been recognized as one of the top San Francisco Web Development Companies by Design Rush. ### Reasons to Choose React for Your Web Development Project There are many reasons to use React if you're working on a web development project. This framework is easy to learn and can help you get started on a project quickly. It has a wealth of ready-made components, and it has been favored for projects where dynamic page updates are necessary. The framework also provides many benefits, including backward compatibility and rich SEO factors.The modular structure of React allows developers to separate components into modules, which is helpful for enterprise projects. It helps maintain code reuse, which can help reduce the overall size of your application. Because it breaks applications into parts, it's easy to keep your code clean and easy to maintain. The modular structure makes your application more maintainable and scalable, saving time and money for enterprises. Because it supports multiple versions, React is a good choice for web projects of any size.Cross-platform development is another major advantage of Reactjs. Unlike native application development, React enables developers to write the same code on both iOS and Android platforms. This allows for better collaboration between developers, and it helps your business reach a broader audience. Since React supports multiple platforms, you won't need to learn two different languages. With minimal resources, you can work on your project while still meeting your goals and expectations.React's steep learning curve makes it a good choice for many business projects. Compared to other technologies, React builds a project faster and is easier to maintain. As a result, fewer rewrites and less money are spent on maintenance. Reusability saves you money by reducing the number of duplicate codes, which can lead to higher maintenance costs and decreased productivity.Using ReactJS is a great way to make a web application a lot easier to maintain. React's modular architecture means that different developers can write individual components, which can be easily reused. It makes reusing code a breeze, which helps enterprises save money and time. This is one of the main advantages of ReactJS. There are many reasons to choose React for your web development project, and this framework will provide the perfect platform to get started.Reactjs' open-source nature allows developers to create complex applications that are easy to maintain. The framework can be used to develop applications for a range of businesses, from startups to enterprises. The best-suited React application for your business project is one that allows you to create a high-performance and flexible website. The software has a wide range of advantages. It is compatible with a variety of browsers and is extremely fast.The reusable components of React allow developers to achieve good abstraction layers. These components give the application a consistent look and feel, which can help reduce development costs. The framework doesn't limit the choices of architectural patterns, and coders can design their applications based on the needs of their business. It is a very popular framework for web development and is the preferred choice of big companies.Reactjs is also highly customizable and flexible. Its flexibility makes it a good choice for almost any type of web development project. It can be used for any kind of web application. Simple websites with static content aren't ideal for ReactJS, but if you're looking for a dynamic website, you can use the platform. If your project requires the use of more complex components, then React is not the best choice for your site.React is an excellent choice for cross-platform app development. This means that developers can use the same code for iOS and Android platforms. This eliminates the need to write code in different languages. Moreover, React helps developers to create mobile applications that can be used on multiple platforms. By allowing developers to make a single app for both OS platforms, React is an excellent choice for businesses that want to reach a wider audience. ### IoT in Healthcare - Benefits and Challenges The use of IoT in healthcare applications can save money and time on diagnostics. It also has the benefit of reducing patient wait times, which can be an expensive proposition. The technology can help monitor patients and reduce costs. The emergence of IoT in healthcare is a welcome development. However, there are challenges and opportunities to consider before making the leap. Here are some of the benefits and challenges of using IoT in healthcare.BenefitsFirstly, IoT devices provide transparency between patients and health insurance companies. Secondly, IoT devices can track the daily activities of users and improve their health. They can also reduce human errors, which will increase the rating of hospitals. In addition, these devices can help save money and time in hospitals by allowing physicians to work more efficiently. Lastly, IoT devices can help improve patient health and quality of life.Healthcare organizations can benefit from the use of IoT sensors. These devices can improve monitoring of patients and allow physicians to have a better understanding of the condition of a patient. These applications can improve medication management and reduce human error. One example of an IoT in healthcare application is continuous glucose monitoring for insulin pens. In the future, the technology can also help monitor a patient's vital signs and provide real-time feedback.By making patient data easily accessible, IoT apps can help doctors save 15 hours of manual charting every week. This is an exciting development for the healthcare industry, as it will make the process of healthcare delivery more efficient. If used well, IoT in healthcare applications can help doctors provide better care to their patients at lower costs. The potential for IoT in this industry is truly astounding. This technology is changing the way we treat our patients.IoT has seen a lot of success in various sectors, but the advantages have not been known to all. In healthcare, IoT offers similar benefits like successful patient outcomes. Some examples of these are care coordination, connected data, and remote diagnosis (RIG).Also, it helps in:Reducing emergency room wait timeEnhanced drug managementImproving hospital productivityChallengesHealthcare data is vulnerable to cybercriminals. Without adequate security, hackers can compromise Personal Health Information (PHI), steal a patient's electronic health record (eHR), and file fraudulent Insurance claims in the patient's name. Another challenge is the lack of standardization of devices that can be connected. IoT in healthcare applications can be costly and can limit the number of patients who can be served with the same care.One of the biggest challenges to IoT in healthcare is that it is very difficult to connect with patients through a secure and reliable platform. Unlike other types of technology, IoT devices can only be connected to a specific network. This makes IoT in healthcare applications more challenging and slow, but it can also be beneficial in terms of healthcare. In addition, the benefits are greater than the problems.JetRuby Agency has been recognized as one of the top Top San Francisco Software Development Companies by Design Rush. ### Outsourcing Your App Development Mobile app development is one of the fastest-growing industries today. The labor market for those seeking an app developer is encouraging, time-efficient technology is allowing users to have apps created in minutes, and there are over 2 million apps on the App Store and over 2.5 million on the Play Store.As a result, finding the right app developer can be difficult with billions of developers available. Furthermore, you need to consider prerequisites, such as availability, location, and skill-sets in order to find the perfect app developer.This article will offer you a step-by-step guide to outsourcing app development. It will help you understand the process, what you should look for when hiring an app developer, and how to communicate with him/her efficiently.What is the Difference between an Inhouse and Outsourced App Development Company?Recently, many businesses have been outsourcing their app development to save money and gain more profit. Outsourcing is defined as the practice of contracting work within a company or organization to an external business, service provider, or individual. Due to the decrease in cost and increase in end-product quality, there has been a growing trend of outsourcing companies in recent years. So what exactly is the difference between an in-house and outsourced app development company?Inhouse app development companies typically provide a full range of app development services while Outsourced App Development companies provide only one or two specific types of app development services. It is important to note that the difference between an in-house and outsourced company is more than just the selection of services provided. It also includes size, cost, and reliability.Benefits of Outsourcing to a Third Party DeveloperA third-party developer can provide one of the most cost-effective ways for your business to grow. Outsourcing to a third party also has many benefits for your company, such as increased time to market, increased financial stability, and increased scalability. Outsourcing also helps you with reducing errors and redundancies that may come from handling everything internally.When Should You Outsource Your App Development?You might be tempted to outsource your app development. There are a number of reasons why you should consider outsourcing. Having an outsourced team that is not in your home country means that you can hire from a different pool of developers, and it will save you time and money.Evaluating a Potential External PartnerApp development is one of the most challenging projects that an entrepreneur can pursue, which has led to a huge number of opportunities for outsourcing. With outsourced app development, companies can make sure they receive quality apps at low costs by identifying and selecting partners who have demonstrated their expertise in mobile app development.How to Hire an External PartnerWhen it comes to app development, some people may find it difficult to manage the process at home. The solution is to hire an external partner, someone who might be experienced in the field and can help you develop your app. If you are considering outsourcing app development, it's important that you do your research first.Communication Tips for Ongoing ProjectsSome people might wonder, "How do I outsource app development?" Whether you're in the early planning stages or have already started on your project, communication is important to make sure that you and your outsourcer are on the same page from beginning to end. Communication skills are vital for any ongoing project because it ensures that both parties are satisfied with the progress of the work.ConclusionThis blog post can be summed up with one word. Outsource. Hire a company in America or anywhere else in the world to develop your application for you. Once the design is completed and the cost is determined, only then should it be brought back to your website for finalization and publishing. ### Discovery Phase in mobile app development This blog article discusses the importance of a discovery phase in app development. It provides some insight into why this important step is crucial in the early stages of the planning and development of the app, as well as how to go about setting up an effective discovery process.It's all too easy to start development on your app and immediately encounter a roadblock. Letting the discovery phase take its course, this is where you get to see what features your community needs or would like out of their app and build something that satisfies your customer’s needs.The discovery phase and market analysisIn order to create a successful mobile app, developers must thoroughly understand the market and how their app can compete in it. This is known as the discovery process. In this blog, we will explore what goes on when developers make use of that process, how it can help them avoid costly mistakes, and how much time it takes for them to complete their project.What should be considered when designing a mobile app?A mobile app is an ideal medium to deliver information and trigger action. When designing an app, it is important to think about the person's needs of the app and what they will get out of it so that it can be tailored to their specific needs. It is also important to think about the discovery process in your app so that users have a smooth experience when discovering new content.Why analytics is crucial for your successNo matter what language you're developing your app in, the discovery process is crucial for your success. Analytics is an essential part of the mobile app development process. Analytics is a process that helps businesses measure the performance of their mobile app. These numbers will help your team gauge product success and improve the app in order to achieve future goals. Analytics can be used to answer questions like how many users you need, how much traffic your app is generating, conversions ratios, and more. They help determine what works and what doesn't. If you want to use analytics to their full potential, make sure that they're integrated into your development process.How to become a successful app developerMobile app development is a process that involves the discovery and maintaining the discovery throughout the process of creating an app. It requires you to identify what your project is about quickly and get a sense of what users need from the app. This is crucial because it will help you determine what platform to develop for.ConclusionThe discovery process is critical for mobile app development. If a company has a clear understanding of what they want, it can make an executive decision to buy an initial set of competencies and then build, iterate, and evolve the app on its own. Companies need to start with the foundation of what their idea is all about and work from there.Want to know how to vary the design of your mobile app to appeal to different demographics? Our industry-leading mobile app consultants will help you learn more, starting your journey when you sign up today. ### When Developing Employee Apps, Don’t Forget the Employee Many companies overlook the critical importance of involving employees in the deployment of any type of technology. If you are building technology, look for technology companies whose discovery process addresses early on how not only the features and user interface, but how the deployment will address the employee component. This article provides a useful checklist of ideas on how to address the issue of employee engagement that can make or break a deployment strategy. The number one reason for the failure of technology deployments involving employees is a failure to implement effective engagement processes. ### Searching for a Unicorn: Think Climate Change Solutions “It is my belief that the next 1,000 unicorns — companies that have a market valuation over a billion dollars — won’t be a search engine, won’t be a media company, they’ll be businesses developing green hydrogen, green agriculture, green steel and green cement,” Larry Fink, CEO and Chairman of BlackRock, told the Middle East Green Initiative Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Climate change is a business opportunity, Fink said, because addressing it will require that virtually every segment of industry will have to be reinvented. “Getting to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is going to require a revolution in the production of everything we produce, and a revolution in everything we consume. The process of creating fuel, food and construction materials, with all the needs that we have as humanity, it all has to be reinvented,” Fink said. “And that’s going to require a large amount of investment, a large amount of ingenuity and a large amount of innovation.” That innovation will include myriad web applications. ESG is a business opportunity.   ### Goldman Sachs: What Disruptive Means The Goldman Sachs Future Tech Leaders Equity ETF (GTEK) looks to put investors on the right side of disruptive and innovative technology trends. ETF Trends' managing editor Lara Crigger interviewed Cole Feinberg, head of Americas distribution for Goldman Sachs, on what qualifies a technology stock as being "innovative" or "disruptive". His answer: “Some of the trends we see as disruptive are e-commerce, electric vehicles, fintech, AI, genomics, clean energy, and so on. I like to think of them as ‘sectors 2.0.’ Historically, tech has been its own sector. But our view is that tech is now permeating every single sector, and you don't necessarily have to be a company creating the technology, but you definitely need to be one embracing it.” More specifically, he explains: “Take genomics as an example. With genomics, if you could actually cure the disease — and that's what genomics seeks to do, by tapping into the human genome — well, then you don't really need pharmaceuticals, do you? Because pharmaceuticals treat the disease. If a genomics company cures the disease, there's no reason for the pharmaceutical company to exist anymore. That's the disruption.” It he point isn’t clear enough, he goes on to say: “So if you can get to the heart of the matter — and this is what I think the future tech fund is really doing — you'd see that genomics, AI, robotic surgery — all these things are light years ahead of what we'd say are the traditional subsectors of healthcare. You're taking the Pfizers and whoever out of the picture altogether, if you can cure the disease that they are treating.”   ### Why Should Startups Consider IT Outsourcing in Business Why Should Startups Consider Outsourcing IT IT outsourcing may sound like a cumbersome thing to do. Especially for startups and mid-size businesses. The reality, however, is totally different. It's only a myth, and we will bust it for all our outsourcers and their offshore teams.  IT outsourcing services can be a blessing in disguise for your business, and we will prove it in this piece. Time Zone Differences Supporting IT Outsourcing Let’s start with different time zones. Yes, we admit that time differences are inevitable. But are they problematic in IT? We don't think so. Instead, we believe that the earth being round is beneficial for organizations as they can now outsource work 24/7. This is even more true for startups who can save on rent, set up costs,  infrastructure, salaries of full-time teams by forgoing in-house departments.  Not all entrepreneurs have big cash in the beginning. So, preventing a shortage of funds and simultaneously accessing a superior talent pool is only possible via outsourcing. Thanks to offshore teams working globally, you can find IT availability at any time of the day and even at night. With international experts knocking at your virtual doorsteps, all your software needs will be fulfilled in a timely fashion. You might be baffled by how these time zone differences work, and it's easier to see them as a problem than a remedy. However, with best practices and organizational tips like the ones we follow at JetRuby, you will experience that IT's timing issues are not problematic. Without further ado, let’s jump into the world of technology where time and distance both are foregone: Are Time Zone Differences Really Beneficial? We all know, offshoring programs don't need words to back their effectiveness. They are beneficial for organizations one way or the other. For example, cost-effectiveness, innovation, good quality, and reduced time-cycle are just the tip of the iceberg.  So it's fair to say that the outsource software development industry is booming, and there is not just one reason but quite a few causes behind it. And differences in time is one of them. If somebody tells you otherwise, they are not your well-wishers. Maybe, they don't want you benefiting from all the efficient approaches of outsourcing.  We know you're not going to believe what we say without validation. So here are some proven benefits businesses may gain from outsourcing. 1. Continuous Software Development Cycle The different time zones can seem like an obstacle in IT. However, with time many companies began to realize their shortcomings and are now negating this myth. Now organizations are making the most of time zone differences and utilizing them to generate a continuous software development cycle with 24/7 support. From learning tips on mobile app developments to innovating beyond, offshore companies make it possible every hour.  Thanks to outsourcing software development, more and more businesses are learning of this opportunity and are beginning to exploit timing differences. Instead of letting the day and night issue hinder their processes, they use them to reduce their IT project's development cycles. This gives them a considerable comparative advantage over their competitors. 2. Highly-Skilled Specialists At Your Virtual Doorstep Another benefit from outsourcing that is most appreciated is the provision of an international pool of talent. But did you know behind this advantage are the extended hands of time difference. Yes, you get experts from all around the globe at your disposal because you respect their time zone.  Not all businesses can possess an all-inclusive in-house service. Especially when it comes to finding the perfect tech Co-Founder,  IT outsourcing services become the need of the hour. For example, if your business requires a highly technical eCommerce application within a tight deadline, you will not be able to get it with your existing small pool. Moreover, hiring an in-house team is usually not feasible both in terms of cost and time. This is where the knights in shining armor from different time zones wade in. The IT outsourcing services allow you to cater to your business needs without jumping into the hassle of hiring a new team. Instead, you get someone with diversified knowledge from across the globe at your virtual doorstep and create your app or software ready in time and budget. This expands your business capacity as a startup or SMB and allows more flexibility too. The need for hiring expensive in-house teams no longer hinders your potential, thanks to offshore teams who substitute them quite efficiently. It also enhances your reputation as the quality of your work improves. There will no longer be rookie mistakes that newbie mobile app developers make, as offshore companies are pros at what they do. They broaden your spectrum and allow you to make use of new services. Moreover, they are more viable and affordable too.  3. Work Done Overnight This business gain is by far the most underrated. Businesses are now operating 24/7 without paying for overtime and having employees work night shifts. Organizations need to understand that this can turn around their whole budget. It can take their revenues way higher if they make optimal use of their offshore teams. This time difference is an asset that ensures your projects are uninterrupted no matter what time of the day (or night). So if your company assigns a task to its offshore team in the evening (your time), the team will work on it overnight and present it to you the next day.  When you virtually meet with them, you will have ready-made results. No, the developers in outsourced teams are not magicians, but they will work on it while you sleep at night. Remember, your bedtime will be their office time. This 24/7 availability will not only give your business an edge over its competitors but will enhance its agility and help it take projects that were infeasible before.  4. “Follow The Sun” Model It's common knowledge that large multinationals love dealing with outsourced software development. However, it's a mystery how they manage the time difference across different continents. So let’s uncover their secret for you. They adopt the “follow the sun model,” allowing them to deal with international clients and dealers simultaneously.  This model allows the sun to never set for these large companies as they spread their service and development sites across many time zones on purpose. It lets them literally follow the sun as work passes from location to location within regular daylight hours. As a result, projects get completed and queries resolved wherever and whenever the sun is shining. Not only that, but they also receive enhanced responsiveness as a plus, thanks to their 24-hour offshore teams. They heavily benefit from outsourcing as they cater to their customers round the clock through constant support from IT Services Companies in outsourcing. Ps: they suffer no delays, and the sun transits smoothly all across the globe. 5. Hands-On And Shake-Off Sessions Another suitable approach for enterprises and organizations with distributed teams is ‘Hands-On And Shake-Off Sessions.’ These sessions forgo the time zone and don’t even require many units across the globe. Instead, it depends on the collaboration of two teams and is quite simple. If done correctly, it can lead to optimal results without incurring too much labor and outsourcing costs.  In this offshore workflow, the first team works the beginning shift. But an hour before the end of the working day, they “hand over tasks and shake off their hands” with the second team. In this overlapping hour, the other team takes up the charge and begins their work hours. How Do We Make Outsourcing More Manageable & Efficient Avoiding Micromanagement However,  there are obstacles in time zones as well. But with experience, offshore developers like the ones in our team know how to tackle them. Challenges only make us better because our practical tools and optimal project management processes make us highly prepared for every meeting. By combining extensive knowledge and experience, we cover your back in all aspects of product development.  That is why almost all international startups from multiple time zones are pleasantly surprised when they discover that it requires less time and effort when communicating with offshore teams like JetRuby. With agile frameworks and methodologies to coordinate all tasks and meetings, we prevent micromanagement. Thanks to utilizing industry-standard Scrum iterations such as Daily Scrums, Sprint Planning, Sprint Reviews, and Sprint Retrospectives, the communication is efficient and effective. Maintenance And Support It's not just off-shore developers that are efficient, but the support system is also solid. From account managers to project managers, you will find all of them available during your business hours. You can discuss issues with them without time delays so that there are fewer interruptions and better results. Another advantage of working with outsourcing companies like JetRuby is that we assist you in server maintenance and deployments during low-traffic periods. As there are not many users in the application during the night, we provide our service at those golden hours. Lastly,  we don’t leave you unattended after getting the job done. Your startup receives 24/7 Quality check-ups, 1 Hour or Less Critical Incident Response,  and post-launch assistance. It's a complete package so that your business can grow without any hassle! Final Verdict If you’re running a startup or an SMB, you should focus on achieving your business goals and improving processes. And when it comes to IT, there is no better way to do that than outsourcing.  You will likely be missing a lot if you don’t hire an offshore team. Don't let the myths pull you down. Let the outsourcers pull you up and take you beyond your working potential.      ### Seed Stage Startup: What are the steps? Finance is a key issue for any startup. It is not easy to attract investment because of the high risks and the complicated process of launching startups. But wait, here’s another problem - to build the work with investors interested in your project in the right way. The division into investment rounds helps with this. At each stage, money is raised for clearly defined tasks. There are financing limits as well. Therefore, we made this article to address every seed stage that a startup might go through. What are investment rounds and what are they? Investment rounds are stages of fundraising for business development. There are 3 early stages of fundraising for startups - pre-seed, seed, and Round A. All other stages are late stages - they have letter names (Round B, Round C, Round D, etc.). Why one should divide investing into several rounds? The name of the round immediately indicates the stage of the business, which is convenient for startups and investors alike. Startups immediately understand which investors to approach and which not. And investors can focus on the segment of interest and not process unnecessary applications from irrelevant startups. For example, if a startup is looking for seed financing, but sees that the investor is only focusing on investing in late-stage businesses (round B and above), there is no point in wasting that investor's and their team's time. It's Matchmaking - look for those who are right for you. Types of funding rounds Seed Stage Startup - What are the steps? Pre-Seed Funding The initial seed stage of startup funding a new business occurs so early in the process that it is generally not included in subsequent rounds of funding. Often referred to as "pre-seed" funding, this stage typically refers to the period during which a company's founders are establishing their operations. The founders themselves, as well as close friends, supporters, and family, are the most common "pre-seed" funders. This funding stage can occur quickly or take a long time, depending on the nature of the business and the initial costs associated with developing the business idea. Additionally, investors at this stage are unlikely to invesе in exchange for equity in the business. Typically, the investors in a pre-seed funding situation are the business's founders. Seed Funding When the MVP is launched and has begun to monetize itself, it's time to think about seed investment. The very name of this stage speaks for itself: this is the seed, from which a good harvest is expected. The key task of this stage is to find your product-market fit. Also, gradually scale your team and increase your sales and revenue KPIs. Keep in mind that all project seed funding should go into product growth and development, not into the payroll of business founders and co-founders. Typically, seed projects seek the support of an investment angel, raise money on crowdfunding platforms, apply to incubators, or send information about themselves to investment companies that take the focus on supporting start-up organizations. Investing in early-stage companies is the riskiest. Most startups "go bankrupt" in the first year of their existence. At the same time, if the idea is successful, the venture capitalist will get the maximum benefit from the deal. Series A funding As soon as a startup passes the seed stage, receives recognition from the audience, and begins to pay for itself, it is ready to attract the first series of investments. At this stage, many projects continue to fail. Even when the business is doing fine at the pre-seed and seed stages, a "first-round crisis" often occurs. Keep in mind that only 46% of seed companies survive the next round of investment (CB Insights data). Because in the first round we are talking about a much larger investment than in the initial stages (usually say amounts from $2 million to $15 million), investors will demand from the business proportionally more. By the way, a typical estimate for such companies is from $10 million to $15 million. Most often, at this stage, it is possible to attract venture capitalists, who become anchor investors and take part in subsequent investment rounds. Series B funding A startup that is ready to pick up round B is a project that has a finished product and a loyal user base, but it's realistic to scale. Ask yourself if you can quickly increase the number of customers from 100 to 1,000. What if you could increase that number to 10,000? Scaling up is not only about the number of consumers of the product but also about expanding the team. The startup team must be able to serve, please and listen to each new customer. At this point, the funder will no longer have time to "do everything at once," and the bulk of his past authority will need to be delegated. Series C Funding Businesses that make it to Series C funding rounds have already achieved considerable success. These businesses seek additional funding to assist them in developing new products, expanding into new markets, or even acquiring other businesses. In Series C rounds, investors invest in the core of successful businesses in the hope of recouping more than double their investment. Series C funding is targeted at scaling the business, ensuring that it grows as quickly and successfully as possible. One way to scale a business is through acquisition. Consider a hypothetical startup that is dedicated to the development of vegetarian alternatives to meat products. If this company raises a Series C round of funding, it has almost certainly already demonstrated unprecedented success in selling its products in the United States. The business has almost certainly already met all of its targets from coast to coast. Investors have a reasonable belief that the business will succeed in Europe as a result of their confidence in market research and business planning. Perhaps this vegetarian startup faces a competitor with a sizable market share. Additionally, the competitor has a competitive advantage that the startup could leverage. The cultures appear to mesh well, as both investors and founders believe the merger would be a win-win situation. Series C funding could be used to acquire another business in this case. As the operation becomes less risky, additional investors enter the fray. Series C investors include hedge funds, investment banks, private equity firms, and large secondary market groups. This is because the company has already established a successful business model; these new investors come to the table expecting to invest substantial sums of money in already thriving businesses as a means of securing their position as business leaders. Typically, a company will conclude its external equity financing with a Series C round. However, some companies may qualify for Series D and even Series E funding. However, the majority of companies that raise hundreds of millions of dollars in Series C funding are prepared to continue global expansion. Numerous companies use Series C funding to help boost their valuation in preparation for an initial public offering. At this point, companies typically have a valuation of around $118 million, although some companies pursuing Series C funding may have much higher valuations. 4 Additionally, these evaluations are increasingly based on hard data rather than on expectations of future success. Businesses seeking Series C funding should have established, robust customer bases, revenue streams, and a demonstrated track record of growth. Companies that continue with Series D funding do so either as a final push before an IPO or because they have not yet accomplished the goals set forth during Series C funding. In Conclusion What do we have in conclusion? All in all, every seed stage in a startup has its own means and broad terms. Not all startups go through every round. Often rounds are combined or, on the contrary, intermediate rounds are singled out. The division into investment rounds gives an idea of the scenarios and dynamics under which startups develop. With that in mind, you can safely make your way towards the production stage of your digital product. However, what if you are completely new to the development of your digital product and are still getting around the correct path? What kind of IT outsourcing partner can you entrust your project to? Or moreover, what if you don’t know how to effectively put your investment to work. If you can’t understand or determine how exactly you should spend your capital to reach your product’s full potential, then JetRuby is the right place for you. Specifically for young startups and beginning entrepreneurs, we created a unique program called the Design and Discovery Phase. Where we analyze your project, produce the correct estimate on your development plan, and analyze your product vision. All of that you can get on our business commercial service. Leave a short description of your business and schedule a call with us today! ### Feature prioritization: 5 Key Frameworks Feature prioritization is more than just stacking in a particular sequence; it entails juggling the numerous inputs and opinions of stakeholders. Sifting through the demands and feature requests for a sprint or a product roadmap is one of the most difficult aspects of a product manager's job. Another difficulty product managers face when prioritizing is determining how many team members, stakeholders, and customers to participate and how heavily they should vote on which features, tasks, and updates to work on next. In an ideal world, effective product prioritization frameworks would allow you to drown out the loudest individual in the room by employing quantitative rankings, charts, and matrices with values directly related to your customer feedback and product strategy. For that reason, we present to you the correct way to settle your feature prioritization. How do you begin feature prioritization? Feature Prioritization - How do you do it? Before embarking on the route toward our North-Star objective—complete and utter client satisfaction—we should accomplish two things. Product analysis Awareness: How does the discovery flow look? Can prospective clients find us via Google, social media marketing, or review sites, for example? How is the messaging conveyed—is it clear or perplexing? Consider the following: What concerns might a customer have? Are there any potential objections or challenges? What motives do we believe people have for signing up? Purchase: What motivates prospects to make a purchase—or what discourages them? Service: How is the in-product experience overall? How is your onboarding process structured? Is assistance available at all times? Customer loyalty: How long do customers stick around before leaving? Is a referral system in place? Is it possible for users to receive additional features or priority support? In our case, we might emphasize the features "chat" and "newsletter" from the list provided by our product owners. Our product prioritizing study determined that these possible features would facilitate communication with our clients, hence assisting product management in understanding their demands. Kano Model Another effective feature prioritization technique is the Kano Model. This hypothesis, developed in 1984 by Professor Noriaki Kano, categorizes customer preferences. Product managers and teams may forecast customer happiness with product and service features using this prioritization methodology, based on the concept that it is function-dependent. This methodology of product prioritization is classified into five categories: Threshold Attributes Customers expect certain features, and while they may not be impressed by them, their absence would be disappointing. A good illustration of this is a search bar used to locate products on e-commerce websites. Performance Attributes The type of features that are not included in the initial product sale. Rather than that, PMMs incorporate them to boost overall contentment. A pleasing color palette combined with an attractive typeface not only adds to the creation of an eye-catching design but also the user experience by preventing user errors when browsing it. Small touches like this will help us increase our users' time spent on our product. Excitement Attributes These are the critical elements that give the product its competitive advantage and set it apart from the competitors. By conducting market research, product managers can develop a product strategy that focuses on improving features such as quicker registration, faster service, and enhanced customer communication channels. Indifferent Attributes Customers cannot decide if certain features are good or negative. Changing our logo is a wonderful example of this. It may elicit certain responses but will not influence the functionality. Reverse Attributes These characteristics may be associated with decreased quality or performance, which may result in decreased levels of satisfaction. One of the primary characteristics of this category is intrusive advertising. 5 strategies for feature prioritization Feature Prioritization - Strategies Once we've done some "soul-searching" for the product, it's time to get serious about the process. There are numerous techniques for prioritizing features in a product backlog. Several of them are concerned with the urgency of the feature, while others are more concerned with the benefit/effort ratio. Silver bullets are obsolete, especially in today's customer-centric environment. Product managers must memorize all of these strategies and be knowledgeable in all of the various priority frameworks to employ them and make the best decision at any given moment. Opportunity Scoring The approach of opportunity scoring is to evaluate customer happiness based on the results of distinct features. This is because customers evaluate the value in terms of outcomes, rather than the technical execution of features. To use this technique, you'll need to create a list of the outcomes of the probable features that will be included. Customers should rate the importance of the features and their satisfaction with the existing solutions on a scale of 1 to 10. The features are then displayed on the chart, and you'll see which ones have a high level of satisfaction initially introduced but a low level of pleasure while used. The gap denotes an unfulfilled opportunity that can be addressed by working on the feature. MoSCoW method No, this methodology bears no resemblance whatsoever to Russia's capital or any other Euro-Asian country. The abbreviation M (Must have), S (Should have), C (Could have), and W (Won't have) refers to the features that this methodology must prioritize. It is one of the most frequently utilized and is utilized by stakeholders, among others, to comprehend the relevance of efforts contained in a particular release. This paradigm for prioritizing is divided into four sections: Must-haves: non-negotiable features. Should-haves: important features. Could-haves: nice to have features. Will-not-haves: lower priority features. The primary objective is to accurately name each feature to communicate its purpose. Before using this priority structure, stakeholders and the product manager should ensure that the overall objectives, product strategy, and prioritizing factors are all aligned. They can next discuss how the product team will resolve any conflicts and, if necessary, make product decisions by allocating resources to each area. Buy a Feature Prioritization of buy-a-features is a technique you can apply with consumers or stakeholders to help them rank a list of prospective features. The method is straightforward but enjoyable. Create a list of possible characteristics and assign each one a "price" (based on a relative cost to develop it). Distribute a certain sum of money and then ask people to purchase the features. Some will spend their entire budget on a single feature they are passionate about, while others will split their funds throughout the space. As a consequence, you'll have a prioritized feature list. RICE methodology The acronym RICE stands for each of the focuses that can be obtained via the application of this prioritizing structure. When discussing a prospective feature, it's also worth considering the following: Reach: the number of customers that will be reached with a feature. Impact: the impact score from 0,25 lowest to 3 the highest. Certain: the percentage of certainty that you have, based on research or statistics. Effort: effort based on a relation person - month. Then, once you have all the numbers, you can perform the feature prioritization magic by solving for the final rice score using the equation: The RICE score enables product managers to keep track of their forecasts. This paradigm for prioritization is a quantitative method, therefore it may not be the most successful in some circumstances. Nonetheless, it may become useful when making more objective, difficult decisions. Impact/Effort Matrix The impact/effort matrix enables the classification of features into one of four quadrants. This enables the team to have a better understanding of how a given feature will add value in the long run. Consider the influence of the feature on market demand, customer acquisition, retention, engagement, and revenue when working with this model. Your team is responsible for defining the values contained within this model. You can arrange a meeting with your team and allow members to vote on features based on their impact and effort requirements. Once the process is complete, you'll want to prioritize innovations that involve little effort but have a significant impact. In Conclusion When you begin discussing building projects, there is usually an air of excitement. The addition of new features is great. You can envision all the incredible locations your product could go, the results it could provide, and the best-case scenario. However, as an entrepreneur, you must always observe the feedback and reaction of your potential customers. Since you don’t want to fail at achieving great results and just fail your startup entirely. The same goes for your product development steps, as it is also a necessary component for delivering the right digital product. What would you do, if you don’t have enough knowledge and experience in that? In that case, we can provide a direct specificity of your product development process. Over the past 10+ years, we have been involved in numerous startups and entrepreneurs that have been actively engaged in developing unique digital products. All of them have been successfully raised to a solid stage when they can efficiently labor productive results. How did they accomplish that with us? Everything has begun with our technological flow or, more precisely, with the Design and Discovery Phase. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a strict MVP plan covering the future product development and the action plan with all potential features for your product evolution. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours. ### How do you write your business letter? While email is a simple and rapid means to communicate regular business messages, the printed business letter is still the preferred method of conveying critical information. A well-crafted letter with beautiful stationery can be an extremely effective communication tool. To ensure that your letter is as professional and successful as possible, utilize the business letter structure and template provided below and adhere to the following fundamental business letter writing standards. What is a Business Letter? What is a business letter? A business letter is a formal, professional letter that is sent from one firm to another. These letters can be used for business correspondence with clients, workers, and stakeholders, as well as personal correspondence. Whether you're informing a potential client about your product, collaborating with another business, persuading someone to attend an event, or simply sending a thank you message, a well-written business letter may make a difference. While business letters convey an air of professionalism and class, they can be tiresome to write if you are inexperienced with the notion. Core aspects to consider when writing a business letter Date The dateline is used to show the letter's date of composition. If, however, your letter is completed across several days, provide the date of completion in the dateline. When communicating with businesses located in the United States, utilize the American date format. Address The inside address is the address of the receiver. It is always preferable to address your letter to a specific individual within the company. If you do not know the individual's name, conduct some research by contacting the company or speaking with corporate personnel. Include a title for yourself, such as Ms., Mrs., Mr., or Dr. Respect a woman's desire for Miss, Mrs., or Ms. If you're not certain how a woman prefers to be addressed, use Ms. If the individual to whom you are writing is a Dr. or has another title, use that title. Salutation Leave another line blank and begin with "Dear," followed by the recipient's title and surname. You don't want to use 'To Whom It May Concern,' 'Dear Sir,' or 'Dear Madam,'" Weiner explains. Rather than that, conduct a LinkedIn search or contact the company directly to discover the most suitable recipient. After the salutation, a comma or a colon is allowed. According to Turner, the traditional salutation titles are Mr. and Ms. If a person's gender is not evident, contact the employer to determine the appropriate title. Alternatively, you can use the recipient's complete name without a title in the salutation, albeit this is not the recommended method of address. Letter Body Single space and left justify each paragraph within the body of the letter in the block and modified block formats. Separate each paragraph with a blank line. When drafting a business letter, keep in mind that conciseness is critical. Consider a welcoming introduction in the first paragraph, followed by a declaration of the primary issue. The following paragraph should begin supporting the primary point's importance. Continue justification with background information and supporting details in the next paragraphs. The concluding paragraph should reiterate the letter's aim and, in some situations, request action. Closing The concluding paragraph should begin at the same vertical point as the date and one line after the final body paragraph. Capitalize only the first word (for example: Thank you) and leave four lines for a signature between the closing and the sender's name. If the salutation is followed by a colon, the closing should be followed by a comma; otherwise, there is no punctuation after the closing. Complimentary Closing This is a little statement after your letter. You have several alternatives here, but choose one that corresponds to the formality of your relationship. The following formal closings are recommended: "Yours Truly," "Respectfully," or "Sincerely." If your letter is less formal, you may use the phrases "All the best," "Thank you," "Regards," or "Best." Whatever you pick, end it with a comma. Signature Sign the letter below the complimentary closure. Make sure to skip at least four lines to allow space for your signature. Following that, type the name that must be signed. Additionally, you can include your job title beneath your entire name. Enclosures (If applicable) If you intend to enclose anything with your business letter, simply write Enclosures after the signature. When it comes to business letters, simply employing the correct justification and structure is insufficient. You must establish the appropriate tone and ensure that your reader comprehends the letter's purpose. Do not forget about these small, but important things Business Letter Tips Professional tone - Leave the casual, chatty language for email; your printed business letter should be more professional but yet friendly. The business writer should try for an overall tone that is confident, respectful, and sincere; one that makes appropriate use of emphasis and subordination; and one that employs nondiscriminatory language. Write clearly - Early in your letter, make your point. To avoid miscommunications, adopt direct, succinct wording. Avoid industrial jargon in favor of vibrant, dynamic language that will capture your reader's attention. Organize information logically - Separate pertinent details into distinct paragraphs. Consider dividing content into parts with subheads in a lengthy, information-packed letter. You may choose to highlight keywords to make them more visible – this is a technique that is supported by the majority of word processing programs and your color multifunction printer. Use color - It's simple to highlight a few words with color. Simply select the type and click the arrow to the right of the Font Color option, then select the desired color. Alternatively, try highlighting a few key terms inside the text. To highlight a type, select it and then click the Highlight button. AutoText - This one simplifies the process of adding color (or any type style) that would normally need multiple clicks or instructions. As an example, suppose you're writing a report that compares your organization's performance to that of a competitor. Word can automatically color your company's name whenever it occurs, making it easy to spot those entries. Be persuasive - Establish an immediate favorable bond with your reader. If you have a connection with the reader - whether you met previously or work with a shared colleague - mention it in your first paragraph. Whether or not you believe your reader will agree with the letter's thesis, it is critical to establish common ground and construct your case from there. Understand your reader - It is vital to anticipate how he or she will react to your message upon reading it. Address his or her needs or desires, as well as a specific problem, before outlining your solution. Provide evidence in the form of instances and/or expert opinions to substantiate your assertion. Maintain a welcoming tone throughout. Proofreading - All of your meticulous crafting and printing efforts will fall short of covering up spelling and punctuation issues, which leave an indelible unfavorable impression. In Conclusion Now that you've mastered the skill of writing an excellent business letter, it's time to get started and practice it on whoever you want. Be it your future investors or the sponsors you are seeking, it is up to you to present your proposal and portray your business product. Speaking of the latter, you might be wondering what exactly you should write if your product is still in the development phase? But more importantly, if you’re still in the development process, how can you understand the correct stages for it? If you have stumbled across such a thing, then our service is just for you. For the past 10 years, the JetRuby team has developed a specific product development technology, called the Design and Discovery Phase. Which is a first step towards the construction of your potential MVP. During this step, our experts will produce a strict MVP plan covering the future product development life cycle. So, if you are an entrepreneur who is looking for a correct methodology and wants to understand his project development process, then leave us your project description. We’ll contact you within 24 hours after our experts receive your inquiry. ### 7 common startup milestones to achieve before funding Half of the small businesses fail within the first five years. And the remaining half regularly fail to achieve crucial business goals. That is a terrifying statistic for any business owner, even those who have been in business for more than five years. At times, market trends conspire against them. Certain unsuccessful businesses might fairly be blamed on unfavorable economic conditions and a bunch of other uncontrollable factors. Nonetheless, the majority of businesses fail as a result of circumstances outside their control. According to a Gallup study of 4,000 entrepreneurs, the founder is frequently the primary reason for a failing business. They then deconstructed the traits of successful business entrepreneurs to give evidence-based abilities and strategies that you may immediately use. To assist you in remaining focused and on track, we've broken down these entrepreneurial methods and skills into seven attainable startup milestones. 7 Common Startup milestones 7 Major Startup Milestones Completed proof of concept This stage is extremely inexpensive in comparison to other startup processes and occurs before the completion of the entire product. It frequently occurs before any product development at all. This phase is used to determine whether additional development should be pursued. At this step, planners determine whether there is a genuine market need for the product as envisioned or the model as produced, or whether it contains a potentially fatal fault. At this point, entrepreneurs may have identified a new potential as a result of the testing and refining of their first notion. The concept challenges are going to be made about desired product characteristics, target markets, pricing range, and perception of need. All product planners should consider the two following questions: Have we established that an opportunity exists that offers a sufficient reward to justify the associated risks and costs? What have we learned from this test that alters our assumptions and, thus, our product development objectives and target markets? Some aspects of product development, production, and test marketing may appear inexpensive enough to justify omitting this step. However, it is going to be very dangerous, as you need to justify your own decision and at least produce another alternative product solution that can somehow ease your situation. MVP The purpose of an MVP is to build the bare minimum version of your product that \fulfills client needs. Now, to clear up any confusion: Prototypes are distinct from Minimum Viable Products. All MVPs are prototypes in their heart but are far ahead of their time in product development. An MVP is created after you have validated all of your hypotheses and assumptions through prototyping. While developing your MVP, it is critical to consider critical steps such as research, wireframing, and design. Integrate your basic principles and emotions into the design of your MVP. Consistency in design, tone of voice, and product imagery is critical. Consistency in UI design will help define the brand image of your items. Marketing Strategy One of the first startup milestones that have existed for a long time is the marketing strategy. Since nobody is aware of you or your concept, thus you must promote your startup. Marketing will bring your startup's name to the attention of potential clients. It is every business's lifeblood. Utilize online marketing to its full potential in the digitization era. By using content marketing, you may build email lists of interested consumers. Utilize your networks and enter startup competitions (even if you do not succeed at it completely9, you will almost certainly receive free marketing). Create a scalable marketing approach that can easily be amplified without incurring additional marketing expenses. When developing a marketing strategy, keep your budget in mind, as the majority of firms make the frequent mistake of spending a lot of money and receiving small returns. Positive Cash Flow Positive cash flows occur when your cash inflows exceed your cash outflows. This does not always imply that you are profitable. Positive cash flows indicate effective revenue and expense management. It demonstrates a significant rise in liquid assets, which enables reinvestment in the business, shareholder payments, and even some cushion for unforeseen financial issues. The more cash flow you generate, the better your chances of being viable in a competitive market. This critical startup milestone enables business expansion while keeping independence. Several of the most effective techniques for achieving a good cash flow rating include collecting receivable payments, growing cash sales, enhancing credit rating through cash reserves and debt management, acquiring short-term loans for daily overheard payments, and so on. Landing Page Customer interviews are an example of a channel for qualitative validation. A landing page enables you to objectively validate your app concept. Utilize prototype screenshots to demonstrate how your product will be unique, how to utilize it, and why interested users should join up early. While many sites are likely prototype tools, many can assist you in creating a viable landing page in an afternoon. Reach a stable number of sales If you've constructed a successful company model, a scalable marketing approach, and the ideal staff, you're well on your way to long-term success. The final business objective is to achieve a certain level of sales. Establish a particular sales target. Without a purpose, a firm will stall. Having a goal will motivate you to continue progressing in the direction of your desired growth. Establish an aggressive, yet attainable, revenue target for your organization. The data will change depending on your business's type. Only you know what number to use as your target, but after you've chosen it, ensure that everyone on your team is aware of it. Make it a shared goal. Customer Acquisition Strategy How much does it cost you to acquire a paying customer via each channel? What is the return on investment for every dollar spent marketing to potential customers? These are straightforward questions, but a surprising proportion of early-stage firms are unable to respond. Unless you can do so, you are probably not prepared for a Series A round. While meeting these criteria does not ensure a successful Series A, failing to do so essentially guaranteed failure. Raising a Series A investment is already one of the most demanding aspects of your role as an entrepreneur, so why not spend some time first establishing these four critical aspects of the business? In Conclusion All in all, there are lots of startup milestones that should be achieved in a correct and relevant approach. The ones we have mentioned in our list above are the core essential ones and should be prioritized and executed with a solid success mark. Furthermore, if you are a beginning entrepreneur who is just starting his business journey, don’t be afraid to ask questions from experienced startupers or potential investors on the topic of startup milestones. As they are the ones who can greatly assist you. However, what if you can’t understand the base principles of any startup milestone you have set, that directly connect with your product development plan? In that case, we can provide a direct specificity of your product development process. Over the past 10+ years, we have been involved in numerous startups and entrepreneurs that have been actively engaged in developing unique digital products. All of them have been successfully raised to a solid stage when they can efficiently labor productive results. How did they accomplish that with us? Everything has begun with our technological flow or, more precisely, with the Design and Discovery Phase. It is an accessible business and development steps where our experts will produce a concise MVP plan covering the future product development. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours. ### How to develop an app for your ecommeerce startup Ecommerce businesses have revealed massive growth in the past few years. The use of mobile phones and the internet has also been increasing. A growing number of people are purchasing from their homes or mobile device instead of driving to the store. This leads to substantial demand for online business. Beginning an eCommerce organization is an effort with lots of actions and decisions that require coming together at the correct time. You need to spend appropriate time laying the proper groundwork. Once your eCommerce startup is set correctly, it is straightforward to handle and lucrative too. In this post, we will share the most critical points on Developing an Ecommerce App and making it successful. Find Your Specific niche The first step in building an e-commerce application is to decide on your niche. Your niche would consist of diverse aspects like the products you are planning to offer. The categories that you intend to host in your virtual stores. For example, you may plan to focus more on main grocery components like rice, butter, milk, eggs. You may need to move your other items like clothes, accessories, books, etc., to the secondary areas in that case. The choice of your location should, nevertheless, be preceded by a comprehensive market research study. For instance, at JetRuby, our business analysts and market professionals carry out substantial research studies to determine the acquiring tendencies, the purchasing patterns in currently existing stores, the practicality of viability of importing goods, the probability of pushing particular products through marketing, and the chances of users adopting them through analysis of previous experiences, and so on. All these elements, along with your vital areas of the supply chain, should be determined and marked as your preferred specific niche. Another crucial thing to consider at this phase is the consumers you are targeting, their age, their mobile usage stats, research studies on their online spending patterns, etc. Planning Essential Features The mapping of the essential features for e-commerce apps is the next thing in the e-commerce app advancement process. We need to comprehend that users are turning increasingly more mobile-dependent. Hence it is crucial to ensure comfort as much as possible through app functions. For instance, an e-commerce app with items in disarray will disengage users and put them off. Some vital functions for each imaginative mobile application concentrating on e-commerce are: Basic authentication features like social media login or two-step login, etc Product search with categories and sub-types. Review system to develop a connection with consumers. Multiple payment techniques that are entirely safe. Easy-in and easy-out policy. Engaging push notifications. Client support. Tracking of the product accurately. Advanced functions like AI and AR incorporated try the process. The array of functions you pick to implement is straightly related to the eCommerce app development cost. When the necessary features are mapped out plainly, the next step in the app-building process is to get down to app building.   Follow Amazon principles while planning the features  Amazon is the most popular eCommerce app in the United States when it pertains to mobile shopping. Why? The response does not depend on the size of a company but on some basic concepts it follows. Do you understand Amazon just started as a simple web bookstore? Well, if you didn't, you know it now. In simply 27 months since inception, they got to serve around a million customers. They accomplished this through no miracle but the same basic principles. So now, let's talk about those success concepts Amazon follows.   Customer Needs Assessment Amazon, when beginning as a book shop that runs online, had something. Already up to their sleeves. They had researched well into what their consumers need. The booklists, the formats that they will prefer, the normal digital parlance of checking out a book and beginning, pausing again and yearning for the same kind of genre, and much more. The ability to hit on the heart of customer requirements supplied them with a terrific headway in the competitors.   Make Customer Life Easy Customers are much like you, they do not want their item hanging at arm's length. They want it in their hands, wherever possible. A fundamental human urge that Amazon perfectioned in their app design. The categories they Brought in their apps are simply great. One can simply get to the correct display screen with a few clicks. And when it's easy, consumers return and again.   Surprise Your Customer It is simply another element that Amazon apps capitalize on. They just send you the ideal kind of alerts most of the time. How do they guess it? The Artificial Intelligence tool that Amazon utilizes learns through your interesting patterns the essential things you need or might need in the future. And when the push alerts hit you one fine early morning, you feel surprises. The deals and game vouchers are likewise something amazon utilizes a lot to expand its reach.   Give Room to Customers to Express Many business owners are reluctant to face introductory remarks. They are simply ignorant to anticipate a honey shower from everybody. Or that's what Amazon feels since Amazon takes its clients very seriously. The remark and review areas are often well attended. It is this section that makes Amazon more genuine as the business allows democracy to prevail here.   Balancing Design Elements One of the peaks of success of e-commerce applications like Amazon is the user-aiding design. A style that 'understands' the user’s mind and provides the keys and buttons to navigate with ease will win clients’ hearts. The wireframing of the app, the essential features, simplifying check-out processes, etc., form the core of design factors to consider. However, these features require to be thought about with clients as they can impact the cost of developing an app. Hence, constant customer interaction is an unspoken ritual to follow in this action. If you look at an amazon app, you find some specific design frameworks that they have followed throughout the application, like:  Using a simple one-column structure in the interface to display products Simplicity through high-level functions like cart, search, structured menu, wishlist, and so on. Minimum item information upfront and more info for those who need more.  A very tiny graphics, color, and simple interface to keep things clear and clean. It is likewise the time to design your brand name and plan a logo or name that fits your style feel. Most people call their child after birth, but our experience reveals that an app follows its reputation and that deciding on it throughout the creative stage is more efficient.   Platform Selection & Development  The next step is to choose the platform, whether iOS or Android or a PWA, you desire for your mobile e-commerce application. While many on-demand services are Android, ingenious and targeted apps decorate the iOS app store. The region of your operation and your customers’ economic situation are all the identifying aspects of platform choice. It is well known that iOS applications score well in North American and most of the EU, with some exceptions. A visionary mobile app development company would decide on the market analysis phase to offer a philosophical direction to mobile app development.   Always Start with Product Development Strategy This is the first step towards creating A. Product Development Strategy assists you to evaluate your startup, get feedback, and gain experience at no charge. Consequently, its advancement should be your next step after considering your idea with startups and ensuring that it deserves an effort. If what you’ve read is just like that, then JetRuby has something for you. As we’ve been on the digital market for more than 10 years with many startups, we felt their anxiety and doubts during the development cycle. For that reason, we have developed a technological flow that can potentially cast all of your worries away, and it starts from the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation where your team and ours will create a general plan covering the future product cycle and an action plan with high-level features for your first steps. Got interested already? Leave your short project description, and we’ll be in contact with you within 24 hours.   Intensive Testing When we come to screening e-commerce applications, the most crucial focus locations besides the standard test cases are: just check out the above architecture of an e-commerce application. The crucial interacting elements customers, staff, supply-chain operators, etc. The varied channels of entry through mobile, web, syndicates, desktops. The mixing of the core functionalities of the mobile app with the back-end functionalities of all programs that are testing an e-commerce app is not a simple job yet inevitable for success. The Workflow of the e-commerce application Payment gateway performance Compatibility with web internet browsers SEO and mobile responsiveness Social network integration   App Launch and Support Finally, it is time to launch your app. The first stage offers you much insight into the marketing activities needed for the final app launch. The social networks promotions, video and google ads, and numerous other strategies like gaming, provides, etc., can assist your app get the ideal reach. The thing that keeps an e-commerce business going forward is how it treats and responds to its customers. So, always be ready with innovative and caring customer updates to impress them and engage them nearly every day. Going dexterously through all the above actions will make sure that your app is among a kind and hits the road to success in a matter of weeks. If you want to build a fantastic e-commerce app for corona time, you can schedule a virtual meeting with us. We offer you a quick-to-launch white-labeled solution to save your stocks facing expiry to reach the right customers.   Final words Now you know to develop an effective eCommerce app. Over the years, Jetruby has provided mobile app development services to companies across eCommerce,  finance, healthcare, retail, consumer products, logistics, AgriTech, and entertainment. We follow this same process for all of the mobile apps that we create. Following this enterprise mobile app development process will ensure a successful launch of your app as well. If you wish to begin with yours today, request more information below.   Have a great idea but don't know where to start? Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! ### How to validate your business idea? So you've got an idea for a startup but don't understand if it's worth pursuing. According to Statista, approximately 65% of startup founders find that they fail within the first 3 years of launch. This is a scary figure for any new business owner, however, you can quickly avoid this scenario by ensuring you checked your idea from the beginning. Whether you're the creator of a first-time startup or have multiple organizations in your portfolio, every new venture ought to offer a solution to problems worth solving. This guide will go through how to check a startup idea, including validating tools that can help you in this process. Why is verifying your startup idea is so important?A startup failure is a lesson learned, however, if you can avoid running your service into the ground right from the start, this is undoubtedly a great way to start. The goal of idea recognition is to guarantee that your company design has potential. A research study by CB Insights reveals that the top reason for startup failure is the lack of demand for the product. Business Plan vs. Idea ValidationLet us start by saying that the standard suggestion for launching a startup is to write a business plan. However, the business plan is all about execution. The assumption is that you have a validated solution, and the business strategy is how you plan to create a business to get people to buy your key. When a person has an idea for a new service or product, the first step is not to define how they will implement their concept but to validate if they have a problem and, more significantly, want to pay for a proper solution. Did you understand that product-market fit is among the most typical reasons that organizations fail? Even if you believe everybody will love and pay for your app does not mean it is true. Therefore, the very first question should not be "how do I implement my concept? but "what do I need to learn to validate that the problem is read and clients are ready to pay for my solution?"Rather than writing a business plan as the primary step in setting up a business, my guidance is to follow the lean-startup process and do a bit of validation testing on your company idea and service first. So whether you start by producing a business model canvas to define and verify your company idea so you can tease out all your leap of faith presumptions or you simply have a nugget of an idea and do not know where to start, you need to begin the procedure by verifying your business idea first. It is far better to learn early that you require to change your solution before investing time and money on a service idea that nobody needs.Your concept might solve an issue, but you will not make any money if there's no market for it. Any idea-based startup requires to target customers who want to pay money for your services or product while resolving genuine problems that matter to them. Your target market requires to care sufficient about your service to convert them from capacity to paying clients. Your ultimate objective is to retain and make them devoted clients. Startup idea validation is the procedure that begins with your embryonic plan, acquires a stamp of approval from the market, and ends with a happy consumer base. Let's look carefully at ways to confirm your startup idea and some common idea validation platforms.Conduct Market ResearchMarketing research is about figuring out the viability of your product ideas. It involves gathering info on the target demographics, particularly about the customers’ needs and how they look for the details to affect their purchasing choices. In addition, conducting marketing research permits you to define trends in the markets and the problems that clients are dealing with. Besides customer validation, you'll likewise need to carry out a research study on your rivals. If you can't access your rival's app, you wished to test, head over to their Help Center. Opportunities are, you'll discover some screenshots and explanatory videos that might be useful.Start with GoogleIt might sound apparent, however, such simple and trivial things are frequently overlooked. Take a couple of evenings and try to find some info on similar businesses, search engines, find similar subjects on forums, or even look for them on YouTube. Discover if someone has done something similar before. Was their effort successful? If not, check what they did wrong and how you can avoid similar errors. Browse the associated specific niches for any examples that might be useful to you as well.Make Sure the demand Does ExistNo need on the market is the main reason why most startups fail. You have to be sure you will fix a real problem with your startup, and this issue matters for a sufficiently large number of people. To rapidly estimate if your idea will potentially need the market, you can resort to the services examining search query data. Each of them has a similar operating concept: you go into keywords and get statistic data on them, check dynamics, and similar search phrases. To evaluate your startup idea for demand potential, We recommend you to use the following tools:Kparcer.comKeywordTool.ioAhrefs keywords generatorPreparing Proto PersonasProto personas are different from the basic personalities used in identifying the target audience of a product. While the latter involves substantial research, the proto persona takes a more low fidelity and ad-hoc approach. The process of producing proto personas is based on the intuition of the team members. To select the best people, you ought to ask, "What needs does our target market have?". As the proto personalities are not built with research study, they require to be updated when more tests are carried out to represent the users of your product better.Ask Possible Target AudienceNever ask your pals or acquaintances about it. They might offer you biased answers only, and a sample like this is not large enough. You have to ask those people who might be your future buyers. To do so, you can create an opinion poll in a thematic group on a social media network, begin a thread on an online thematic forum, or use the Quora.com question-and-answer site. Random people will supply you with better feedback. Besides, if you have an adequate budget plan, you can order a study conducted in focus groups arranged by analytic data companies.Have a great idea but don't know where to start?Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time!Study your competitorsNo matter how unique your business idea is, there are possibilities that somebody else has already thought of a version of it; it all comes down to the execution of your business idea. Start by not simply looking at your competition but by finishing a thorough market analysis of their items to learn how to provide something much better. Think about ways to improve their offering and recognize gaps you can fill. Watch on their social media; users are most likely to air their grievances and post reviews for your rivals, so use this to your benefit. Learn from their mistakes and adopt similar strategies to develop your startup successfully.If you have never developed such items before and have not worked in the target-specific niche, you will most undoubtedly discover people to peep on and find out something intriguing from them. When you study your rivals, you will know how other companies in the industry resolve similar problems and what you can borrow from them to adjust them for your start-up. Even a simple search in the App Shop and Google Play will enable you to find many fascinating things.At this point, you need to remember and follow 3 easy guidelines as follows:Never attempt to prevent competition entirely. In places with no match, you will more than likely earn no income.Contemplating on a concept, analyze the already formed people's needs. Think about how you can please them quicker, in a more straightforward method, or less expensive.Do not duplicate any existing startup.You can develop a startup in a highly competitive market, carrying out a distinct idea at the same time. Everything depends on your approach to product implementation, the value you supply to your audience, and how effectively your product resolves their problems.Read more: How Your Business Can Fail Without Proper Competitor ResearchLaunch a Coming Soon Landing PageYou can do it even without MVP, all you need is to comprehend how you see your future product. You will need to invest a bit in advertising, but this type of evaluating your startup concept will ensure your greater confidence in the importance of the item you are about to produce. To conduct such testing, follow the algorithm below:Register a domain.Make a landing page on WordPress or any other website builder, explaining the project and publishing pertinent images.Include a form for users to leave their email if they want to get informative letters on the product release.Connect web analytics and launch an ad campaign in Google Ads/Facebook Advs.Analyze the outcomes and conclude.There are many websites you can use for this. You can begin by signing up a domain and producing a whole web page with item details, images, and a list of benefits.Insert a feedback type into your landing page to collect insights, and think about adding a 'subscribe now' button to begin collecting prospective customers' contact information. It might even be worth checking out complementary methods to market your business online to determine how your potential client base may respond to your idea. As a bonus, once you effectively verify your startup idea and manage to launch the product in the future, you will have a ready database of your future clients' email addresses.Finally, Find Out How to Earn Money on ItEven the brightest idea may fail if startup founders do not know how to earn money on their product. You need to understand how to monetize your startup, what the prospective market size your item has, and the number of paying clients you have to bring in to reach a break-even point a minimum. Study how other businesses generate income on their products and examine whether your target market is solvent enough. You may require to insert the monetization function in your future item as a kid at the initial phase of its development.Always Start with Product Development StrategyThis is the first step towards creating A. Product Development Strategy assists you to evaluate your startup, get feedback, and gain experience at no charge. Consequently, its advancement should be your next step after considering your idea with startups and ensuring that it deserves an effort.If what you’ve read is just like that, then JetRuby has something for you. As we’ve been on the digital market for more than 10 years with many startups, we felt their anxiety and doubts during the development cycle. For that reason, we have developed a technological flow that can potentially cast all of your worries away, and it starts from the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation where your team and ours will create a general plan covering the future product cycle and an action plan with high-level features for your first steps. Got interested already? Leave your short project description, and we’ll be in contact with you within 24 hours. ### Visual Marketing Ideas for your startup Intro to Visual Marketing The visual marketing materials you utilize are the impression prospective customers have of your company. An affordable method to start is using free themes to produce every little thing from logos to leaflets to social media images. Developing the First Impression for Your New Are you starting a business? Building something from scratch can feel daunting. Your small business is like an ember, and if you want it to ignite, you need to fuel it with an effective marketing strategy. Even if you have a fantastic product and services, your startup can fail without arranging your advertising objectives. If people don't understand about your product, how can they buy it? Read more: https://jetruby.com/blog/biggest-startup-mistakes/ Have a great idea but don't know where to start? Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! Why is Visual Marketing Important? This is the digital advertising and marketing age, and visuals are essential. According to a study featured on Endeavor Beat, focus spans are shorter, and the competition for our dwindling attention is stiffer than ever. So, why is aesthetic marketing crucial? Just how can you stand out from the crowd and also grow your start-up? An organized advertising and marketing strategy will involve your target audience and, in turn, expand your business. Not sure where to begin? Below are 6 basic marketing guidelines to assist you in starting developing your brand name and advertising your small company. Incidentally, among our preferred aesthetic marketing tools for applying all of these suggestions is PosterMyWall. As well as in this short article, we will show you how I used this electronic advertising and marketing device for a selection of advertising and marketing products.   Begin With Your Why Before you also think of sharing what you are offering, ask yourself why you are marketing it. Why is your product so essential? Furthermore, who is that vital to? If you provide a solution to a problem, don't just sell your product or service but offer the situation. This is an essential factor for your target audience. As a brand name, it is very important to make clear what you represent. That is what will attract your audience. Starting with the why you develop the ideas will undoubtedly form your brand identification. Then, you can solidify your brand name values into imagery and aesthetic advertising graphics for your logo layout, objective declaration, and advertising materials. But before you do that, it's vital to understand who you are interacting with, in other words: that is your target market?   Know Your Target Market And Also Where They Hang around It's time to crystallize who your product or service is for. For example, among the best means to do this is to section your market into buyer personas. Analyze your target clients as well as dissect essential information of their life. Find the answer to detailed questions like Just how old are they? Do they reside in the city or the country? Are they single or settled down? Just how much cash do they make every year? What are they enthusiastic about? Where do they hang out?   Create Hype On Social Media Social media is a powerful tool because individuals love to share visual media. According to HubSpot, visual content is shared on social media sites 40 times more than any other material. This is a fantastic opportunity to utilize engaging aesthetic content to develop your brand.   How can you use social media to promote your organization? Post teaser images of brand-new products before their launch day. Create customized graphics that match your branding and placed the spotlight on your brand-new product. Furthermore, you can market older products right into distinctive graphics and arrange them into your posting rotation. The social network provides your company the opportunity to combine your brand's unique story with aesthetic visual content to develop an involved, loyal audience.   Post Visual Content on Facebook And the best method to see stable development is to publish consistently on Facebook, Twitter, and any other platforms about your target market. PosterMyWall makes it easy and inexpensive for you to use the same layout graphics for multiple systems. Merely resize pictures to the dimensions of each one of your social channels and arrange your blog posts to auto-publish. Not only will resizing save you priceless time, yet it develops a regular and fluid advertising campaign that people will immediately recognize. As a small business owner, time is one luxury you do not have.  With every facet of startup advertising and marketing, it's crucial to maintain your target market in mind. Analyze the information on their social networks task: What time are the most active? What content are they responding to and also involving with the majority of? Use Insights and also Analytics on your social channels to acquire important info regarding your target market. After that, you can strategically arrange your content to auto-publish during times of peak activity.   Become An Authority in Your Niche One of the very best ways to promote your brand is to end up being a leading professional in your area. Doing so creates trust with your target audience and also built a loyal audience. Why does this work? When you share your knowledge, you build credibility because users believe and trust that the information you're sharing is legitimate and crucial.   Share Your Smarts As an example, you know the ins and outs of your field much better than anybody, and also, by sharing your expert expertise, your credibility emerges into a devoted following. Not only have you established yourself as an authority in your area, but you have a higher chance of converting your following into customers. Even if they do not convert to direct sales, you have generated good faith from brand ambassadors who trust you due to your credibility.   Visual Content Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses Material advertising is effective because people know that they will get insight and solutions to their problems when you share your expertise, which creates a good reputation for your brand.  You might have the very same field experience as your rivals. So, why should people select your brand over their own? Since you are sharing your competence and teaching them something they intend to learn more about. Publishing content directly to your Twitter and Facebook accounts is simpler than ever before. Use unique services like Buffer to utilize social media scheduling features. Attach your social accounts and begin posting precious and appropriate material across all your social channels with one click. Content marketing works since when you share your professional understanding of people's unsolved issues, it multiplies as well as blossoms into loyal customers.   Rise To Speed Up On Video Advertising And Marketing Video marketing ought to be a vital organ of your startup advertising and marketing campaign. Why? Since people straight-up love video clips. Bear in mind just how Facebook began as an area to share musings with a brief status update? What's dominating your feed now?   Instagram Loves Video Content Instagram began as an app to share an "instant" picture taken from your camera phone. Now, it's everything about Insta Stories. 500 million users check Stories daily, according to Instagram's internal information. These numbers are telling. Especially for businesses, which make up 1/3 of the most-watched stories on Instagram. However, it does not quit there. Think of viral content. What medium frequently goes viral? Why do feline videos and also dancing obstacles spread like wildfire? There's something regarding video clips that stick and also alter. When it concerns drawing up your small company advertising strategy, you'll wish to participate in the activity. Don't understand the first thing about video clip advertising and marketing, as well as think it'll cost you weeks of sweat equity to figure it out? Think again.   Making Video Clip Content is Easy Making video clips is much easier than you think. As opposed to producing videos from square one, convert posters right into video clips. Consider a brand-new restaurant opening up in a trendy neighborhood. Raise the exhilaration and buzz by transforming the menu image into a video with one click and letting the food come to life. Think of steam rising from a hot dish of soup or the metallic glint of a fork as it slides via the glossy icing of a velvety cake. Transform static pictures right into motion to obtain your viewers' mouths watering, as well as eventually lining up to get a table at your new dining establishment. You can promptly develop custom-made videos from scratch using a complimentary online editor or customize among countless professionally developed video clip templates. Just individualize a design template of your choice, add information appropriate to your brand, download it, and go to town sharing it on all your channels.    Video Clip Marketing Web Content Turns Visitors Into Customers Video clips bring your message out of the physical and also right into the digital and are a great way to transform viewers into consumers. With video advertising and marketing, you place your brand message right into motion, and it handles a life of its own. What's to quit your brand's video clip from going viral?   Establish For The Long run To go the distance, concentrate on developing quality connections with your clients. Instead of one-time purchases that don't foster long-term involvement, incentivize your clients to keep returning for more. How can you put this idea right into specific steps?   Engage Customers If a new customer purchases your app or service from your business, instead of thanking them for their purchase, welcome them to join a client rewarding program with a discount rate voucher or cash reward toward their following their next purchase.   Offer Customer Rewards Turn their cart right into a revolving door by offering them benefits for their loyalty to your business. Create a branded discount vouchers from professionally designed gift certificate templates.   Ready to kick start your startup? Visual marketing is an effective strategy to build your brand name and also involve your target audience. The first step to growing your startup business is to refine your product development and marketing strategy and create the evergreen visual material that involves your target market. Now go and get started?   Have a great idea but don't know where to start? Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! ### Psychological triggers that convert a lead to a client Psychologically, the human mind prefers simplicity over complexity, which is why people avoid situations that increase their cognitive load. According to the Simplicity Theory (ST), uncomplicated situations pique an individual's curiosity. This notion can be extremely effectively used in sales and marketing. Customers seek minimalist experiences, whether it's with the product itself or the brand experience. Notably, simplifying does not have to mean removing procedures (like on the checkout page) or clarifying language. Additionally, it entails mapping the customer journey, identifying pain points, and resolving them through the implementation of a user-friendly solution that simplifies the user's life. Additionally, simplification refers to developing a complete, seamless brand experience that customers can easily browse on their own without experiencing roadblocks. Therefore, to unveil some secret and hidden psychological triggers that can directly impact your audience, we prepared the 10 most famous and important triggers, you might want to incorporate right now. Top 10 psychological triggers Top 10 Psychological Triggers Storytelling Stories are an excellent approach to stimulate your clients' brains and increase your sales. Why? Because tales elicit emotions, and 95% of our cognition occurs in our subconscious—the area of our brain responsible for emotional connections. Stories include inventive uses of words, images, and sounds that, when done correctly, help you stand out among the sea of noise. By engaging parts of the brain associated with sight, hearing, taste, and movement, a well-told story enables people to sense things they have never had. A compelling tale can significantly boost people's perceptions of your credibility. A compelling tale can help consumers connect with your product. Sense of urgency Individuals enjoy being the first or the only ones to obtain something. We like one-upping our peers selfishly and subconsciously. Thus, if you can arrange something in such a way that only a select few individuals will have access to it, you will increase sales. Offers that are only available for a limited time heighten the sense of urgency. They, together with discounts and free shipping, will immediately increase sales. Corel does an excellent job of instilling a sense of urgency with their offers. Promoting limited-time discounts and the importance of additional savings in packaged offerings helps convert anyone who is on the fence or hesitating between them and a rival. Customer reviews Client reviews demonstrate that the customer who is viewing your marketing content is not the only one who is interested in it; it has been used successfully by others! According to Baymard Institute research, around 95% of users consider reviews to be a reputable source when evaluating a product or seeking additional information about it. As a result, it's fairly clear how much influence they have on first-time purchasers in particular. Reviewing contributes to the herd mentality. The overwhelming majority are followers and are not interested in being the first to try something. Customer feedback can be displayed almost anywhere: on your website, on your social media pages, or even in email campaigns or datasheets. The possibilities for harnessing positive feedback to build confidence in your business or product are limitless (s). As a result of this psychological effect, prospects who see others sharing pleasant experiences are more likely to purchase from you than those who do not read them at all. Additionally, buyers who see those evaluations may choose to leave their own, assisting you in increasing your ratings. Coupa increased sales by displaying handwritten client success stories with real photographs. Coupa is an excellent example of how to personalize reviews to assist potential buyers to engage more deeply with their product. Loss Aversion Most of the companies experience more loss than gain. For instance, if we were informed we would receive a $2,000 rise, we would be overjoyed; however, if we were told our salary would be reduced by $2,000, we would be enraged, unhappy, and dissatisfied. The feelings we would experience if we lost the money rather than receiving it would much outweigh the satisfaction we would experience if we gained it. This is the aversion to loss's strength. When confronted with the prospect of losing something, we tend to behave more quickly and spontaneously. To employ it, you want to create an environment in which your audience believes they will lose something if they do not purchase your goods. You can use words to demonstrate that the consumer already owns the product, a video of another person using the product, or just provide a limited-time trial. Context Effect How frequently do you purchase popcorn when out shopping? Consider how frequently you purchase popcorn at the movies. I'm ready to wager you're significantly more likely to purchase popcorn at the movie simply because that's what you're expected to do. This is referred to as the context effect. To leverage this effect, you must create an environment for your consumers that encourages them to buy or at the very least puts them in the buying mindset. According to research, the comfort level of the floor, for example, affects how buyers evaluate the quality of the goods they are purchasing. By taking this online, you may create a pleasurable experience that will entice consumers to purchase. Free Valuable Content When the idea of reciprocity is used in marketing, it means that when a customer receives something, they feel obligated or motivated to reciprocate. Apply this directly when a friend does you a favor, such as bringing you supper or assisting you with relocation. Even if they did not request a return, you are likely to feel compelled to repay the favor in some way. This psychological principle can be applied to any type of content marketing effort. Provide valuable information for free to your target audience. It could be a useful template, an e-book, or another worthwhile resource. Consider the following ideas when deciding what type of material to offer your users. The content must be valuable. If the content doesn’t offer something to the reader, they are less likely to give something in return. The content’s value must match the action you want customers to take. If you’re simply asking for an email address, you don’t need to offer much for free. If you want customers to fill out a survey that is pages long, you must offer some type of reward for doing so. Choosing what type of content to give out is not a decision to be taken carelessly or fast. Consider the content's value and the type of content you wish to offer your audience. This becomes easier once you've established which psychological triggers your target market is likely to respond to. Different Content Formats Dopamine is a neurotransmitter found in the brain that aids in the regulation of the mind's pleasure and reward centers. When new items are launched or released, they frequently cause an actual release of dopamine in the part of the brain responsible for responding to novel stimuli. Simply put, when something new is introduced into the brain, individuals experience an emotional flush. This high is caused by the hormone dopamine. Apple is incredibly adept at harnessing the power of dopamine. Users abandon perfectly decent devices in favor of nearly identical new ones when something new is presented. They are more eager to purchase anything new, even if they already have something similar in their possession. You can leverage these psychological triggers by first selecting a contentious or difficult topic for folks in your sector. Create a blog article about the concept and heavily market it for a month. Once the tempest has subsided a little, reintroduce the same concept in a different style — perhaps an infographic or a movie. Although the same concept is presented, users feel as though they are receiving something new due to the new presentation. These emotional triggers in marketing pique the brain's interest in the subject. Color psychology Did you realize that colors have a greater emotional impact than words? As such, the colors red and orange are connected with vitality and passion, yellow with optimism and joy, and blue with confidence and trust. Because colors define our moods and can impact our responses, you should use them effectively to communicate your message. Additionally, visual information is processed by the brain 60,000 times faster than text! Color psychology is an excellent tool for predicting and guiding your consumers' choices, allowing you to sell more. Novelty Individuals are eager to pay for updated and enhanced versions. It is more than a matter of willingness; they desire to. When we try new things, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released in our brain, providing us with a sense of pleasure. That is why individuals value upgrades, enhancements, new features, and innovations. You do not need to introduce a new product to your offering to leverage novelty as a psychological trigger to increase sales; simply add a new feature or change the way something operates (just remember to inform your clients!). Wondershare accomplished precisely this. They did not invent anything new; they simply upgraded their product Filmora. Updates entice users to try the latest version of a product they currently enjoy, and also entice users who disliked previous versions to return. Build a Community People crave a sense of belonging. Let us return to Apple, which has amassed a tremendous following of enthusiastic customers who will purchase anything and everything they provide. If done correctly, the act of building a community around your brand and product is very powerful. Engage your audience in a conversation, speak directly to them, and provide relatable anecdotes about other consumers. To feel a sense of belonging, individuals must feel as though they "fit in," thus use language they would use and describe circumstances they may encounter. In Conclusion By appealing to your audience's psychological triggers while developing your marketing personas, you can ensure that they return to your site and develop trust in your business. Thus, in your next content marketing effort, incorporate emotion, authority, reciprocity, mystery, and a variety of formats. But let’s suppose that you have prepared enough material to start your first marketing steps and you prepare to build your product, but here’s a thing: you don’t understand how to effectively use it to gain the most productive result both for your customer journey map and the product you want to achieve. More than that, you’re entirely new to it, and you require assistance, then what? In that case, we can provide a direct specificity of your product development and customer journey mapping processes. Over the past 10+ years, we have been involved in numerous startups and entrepreneurs that have been actively engaged in developing unique digital products. All of them have been successfully raised to a solid stage when they can efficiently labor productive results. How did they accomplish that with us? Everything has begun with our technological flow or, more precisely, with the Design and Discovery Phase. It is an accessible step where our experts will produce a direct MVP plan covering future product development. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours! ### Ultimate 9 startup leader habits you should pick up today! Successful leaders do not achieve their positions by chance, but by being deliberate in their everyday actions. They understand that it is their leader habits that determine who they are and how successful they can become. If you want to replicate the most successful leaders, the most effective strategy is to embrace and regularly follow their behaviors. Therefore, the following are some of the most common leader habits of highly successful and effective leaders, along with a detailed description of certain patterns and results. 9 Leader Habits that you should acquire 9 Core Startup Leader Habits Make fearful decisions Fear. Let's face it, what we are familiar with is nearly always preferable to the unknown, as it provides a sense of security. When we are content with the current quo, even if it is boring or painful, things are predictable. However, excellent leaders make it a habit to upend the established order. They understand that progress and significant change can only occur through taking risks, being courageous, and trying something new. Personal and creative development cannot occur amid comfort. The majority of us remain in our comfort zones out of fear of change. What if the relationship does not work out? What if you discover too late that you would have been better off staying put? These unknowns have the power to keep you so paralyzed by fear of change that you stay where you are unsatisfied. Make it a habit to step out of your comfort zone and take some calculated risks. You may not win, but you will certainly learn something. Take care of your health Great leaders practice self-care on four levels: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. They understand that the general health of their physical body serves as the basis upon which all other excellent things might flourish. If you are not physically healthy, how can you expect the levels above the physical to be healthy (emotional, mental, and spiritual)? If you are ill at the base, the entire you will be unable to perform at the levels of peak performance you desire. As a result, make it a habit to exercise regularly, eat a balanced diet, get adequate sleep, and take your daily vitamins to assist in maintaining your attention, energy, and endurance throughout the day. Consistency Nothing is more disruptive to a team than an inconsistent boss. I know because I had the good fortune to work for one for several years. What was considered to be of high quality one day would be derided as being of low quality the next. This instilled doubts in the team, which resulted in delays as teams sought perfection or drove them to pause and make errors. Great leaders strive to instill trust in their team's talents, and one of the most effective ways to do so is through consistent behavior. Daily Reading A good leader understands the value of daily reading time. They understand that it maintains their sharpness, broadens their perspective, and boosts their knowledge. It makes little difference what you read—a journal devoted to your subject, a book on leadership theory, history, or biography, or even a well-written novel. The more knowledge you have and the more quickly you can acquire it, the more capable you become of leading others. Do your work early on There are numerous reasons why arriving early works, but it's also a strategic decision for leaders who want to own their time and take control of their day before the rest of the company comes to life. Take a few moments to review your calendar, refill your coffee mug, and arrange your workplace. It provides enormous psychological benefits. Additionally, it demonstrates to those you supervise that you take your leadership role seriously. This period in the morning enables you to check your emails and voice messages to stay current on employee events such as sick leave requests or family emergencies. Certain managers utilize it to approve budget requests, authorize documentation, and examine staff surveys or comments. The time alone is distraction-free and ideal for doing quick, mundane activities. Making an early arrival a habit is one of the most effective methods to persuade others to do the same. Learn something new every day Good leaders are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to learn and make it a daily practice to pick up knowledge wherever they can. Purchasing the latest best-selling book or seeing a TED Talk are both popular and effective methods of increasing your knowledge bank. Interpersonal relationships, on the other hand, provide a broader range of options and consume no training and development expenditure. To elicit wisdom and abilities from your team, it's as simple as allowing each stakeholder at the table a few minutes to contribute. Alternatively, it can take the shape of mentorships, in which you seek to learn as much from your protégé as they do from you. Listening to others, taking notes, and probing inquiries teach you empathy and emotional intelligence (EQ) skills (highly valuable traits for leaders). Making this a daily routine increases your exposure to new ideas that you may utilize to solve common problems and identify future leaders in your firm. Produce a solution, not a problem Blame is never the answer to an operational issue, a customer concern, or any other business issue. Blame is a diversionary approach that saps teams' efficacy and efficiency. Effective leaders prioritize resolving issues first, then doing root-cause analyses to minimize the likelihood of the issue reoccurring. The majority of clients are not concerned about who is at fault; they simply want their issue resolved. Determine your weaknesses, but focus on your strengths Great leaders understand that they do not have to do everything and that they can delegate tasks to others or rely on team support in areas where they are weak. They understand that they were employed for their strengths and are committed to maximizing those strengths for the benefit of their organization. Additionally, they are secure enough to be vulnerable and disclose their flaws to receive help, rather than covering them up or attempting to conceal them. Lay out your goals Numerous leaders emphasize the importance of setting down goals and then rewriting them daily. Others argue that reading goals aloud once a day is sufficient. Developing the practice of keeping your goals in front of you is crucial for enhancing your potential to succeed. The main concept here is to constantly renew your goals to ensure you're on track to attaining them. Without such a practice, it's all too simple to lose sight of your objective. Instead of taking control of your life, you discover that you are simply reacting to whatever happens next. When you make it a practice to concentrate on your objectives, you work toward and accomplish them more easily. Attaining goals in this manner feel great; it makes success pleasurable and inspires you to continue thriving. In conclusion All in all, leader habits are patterns of certain actions that are repeated regularly, and effective leadership is no exception. You cannot declare yourself an effective leader by attending a leadership seminar or managing a team of people. Consistency is critical for developing and displaying positive habits that become second nature. Therefore by developing your leader habits, you can safely place your company on the motivational and confident road. However, what if you are new to business thinking and you don’t know how to effectively use your capital to achieve the desired results? Especially if you are stuck in the middle of your product development process? To avoid such complications, JetRuby has developed a technological flow with one core priority: understanding how your digital product can be correctly developed. The very first step of our technological development flow is called the Design and Discovery Phase. It is an accessible business and development step where our experts will produce an MVP plan covering the future product development lifecycle. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours! ### Startup Incorporation: All you want to know! Incorporating your firm has a lot of advantages, including providing personal liability, facilitating the sale and transfer of ownership, establishing a corporate identity, and building credibility. Perhaps you have already assessed the advantages and disadvantages of incorporation and have decided to begin the process. Or perhaps you're simply unsure of whether or when to incorporate your startup. We'll cover the fundamentals of incorporation in this article, bring you through the process step by step, and explain how to get started incorporating your firm. When To Incorporate? When you should make your startup incorporation? While you can draw inspiration and guidance from your favorite businesses, do not attempt to imitate anyone else's formation date. When a business chooses to incorporate, the circumstances are unique. However, there are a few factors that may assist you in identifying the optimal time to incorporate. One is when you're ready to expand your passion into a full-fledged business. Another instance is when two or more individuals work together. Another instance is when you begin contracting with third parties. If you find yourself in one or more of these situations, it's time to commit to incorporating and invest the necessary money, time, and effort. It is substantially easier to incorporate your business early and correctly, avoiding costly mistakes that could derail the operation later. Additionally, this is your chance to select the ideal structure for the startup, one that promotes growth. Reasons why founders should make startup incorporation Protection against personal liability Founders frequently engage in agreements with co-founders, investors, developers, workers, and independent contractors early in the life of a firm. When you incorporate, your corporation assumes the risk of these contracts on your behalf. Reduced risk makes your firm substantially more appealing to investors. A properly structured corporation indemnifies its directors and officers against third-party lawsuits. In a sole proprietorship, for instance, any personal debt or liability of an owner entitles creditors to pursue the business, even though the owner has no connection to the business. In many situations, a corporate director or officer's finances will be unaffected by third-party claims, and any personal claims brought against a director or officer will not be imputed to the corporation. Additionally, by incorporating, you assure that the business will continue uninterrupted if you leave or die unexpectedly. There are limitations to this, which a lawyer can discuss in greater detail with you based on prior case law and an examination of your formation documents. Protection against other founders Incorporation enables you to freely transfer your shares, subject to any restrictions imposed by state law or your stock purchase agreement. If approved, you may transfer your shares freely without obtaining the previous written agreement of all other shareholders. Most startups restrict this transferability to safeguard the corporation and its shareholders against certain share transfers by other shareholders. This is a sort of restriction under which the corporation has the first right of refusal to repurchase the departing founder's shares in specific situations. Investors require incorporation before investing Investors throughout various stages of your startup's development, from angel investors, to venture capitalists, will invest in your business in exchange for a stake in the company (usually stock or the option to buy it at a discounted rate later on). While you are a vital component of your business, any investor is mainly concerned with the return on their investment in your business. To this end, and for legal and tax purposes, any investor monies received should NOT be put in or mixed with your funds. You must incorporate or establish another type of legal entity to create a bank account in the company's name, accept investments, and manage the corporation's financial statements. Your corporation will possess a venture’s intellectual property When you, your team, and your contractors continue to develop your idea, whether it's a new mobile application or an e-commerce site, you're taking the first steps toward developing your company's intellectual property (IP) portfolio. Patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets are all examples of intellectual property. The intellectual property (IP) of your business is what investors, partners, acquirers, other team members, and your users will value. The worth of your company's intellectual property is frequently what drives the company's overall valuation higher. If you invest in intellectual property protection and a strategy for developing a strong IP portfolio, your company's valuation will improve proportionately. If you develop intellectual property before incorporation without completing the necessary measures to transfer it to the corporation, the corporation may not wind up fully owning the IP, resulting in a break in the chain of ownership. This will have a detrimental effect on future investments, collaborations, and acquisitions during the due diligence process. Consider acquiring protection for your IP under the company's name as soon as possible to avoid a break in the chain of IP rights and title. When to Incorporate? Numerous factors can affect the time of incorporation. As a general rule, if you have confirmed your business idea and intend to pursue it seriously, the first order of business should be to form a corporation. Failure to incorporate on time can expose individuals to financial risk, result in the loss of intellectual property rights, and result in missed opportunities to attract people and finance. The following are some common business situations in which an entrepreneur should unquestionably incorporate. Multiple Founders Involved If your business has several owners, a compelling justification can be made for incorporating before the owners begin working on the business idea. By adopting bylaws and sharing ownership, you can significantly reduce the likelihood of future misunderstandings and problems. This is critical if one or more founders decide the firm is not for them and leave. It's also critical to consider whether the founders contribute in uneven ways to the firm, such as one supplying funding while the other provides sweat equity or intellectual property. In other words, the sooner you incorporate, the sooner you can solve these difficult challenges and avert a future calamity. Need to attract top talent Many entrepreneurs discover that the most cost-effective method to attract outstanding talent is to provide stock options as an incentive. This cannot be accomplished without incorporation. Employee stock option schemes allow employees to purchase a specified number of company shares at a fixed price that is typically less than the shares' true worth. This is the model followed by a large number of Silicon Valley firms. Intellectual Property Protection Any firm that incorporates any form of intellectual property should immediately incorporate. Intellectual property generated before incorporation is the sole property of the inventor. After incorporation, the startup's intellectual property becomes its property. Failure to incorporate before the development of distinctive goods, processes, applications, and other creative components might cast doubt on ownership. This ownership issue might result in conflict if the individual who created the intellectual property decides to leave the startup and wishes to retain the intellectual property. Incorporating before the development of intellectual property eliminates the need to resolve ownership disputes, which can be costly and time-consuming. Need to Hire staff If your organization is prepared to hire employees or third-party contractors, you should incorporate them immediately. Not only will it be easier to hire them through a corporation, but it will also safeguard your assets from any liability issues with employees, the workplace, or contracts. Additionally, incorporation permits the business to acquire ownership of any intellectual property developed by its workers or contractors while on the job. Other operational activities Before entering into any contracts with clients, such as office, equipment, or car leases, or service agreements, the startup should be incorporated. If you are not incorporated, you will engage in those contracts on an individual basis and will be personally liable if you are unable to fulfill them. Additionally, others may view an unincorporated startup as less established and will likely offer you less favorable conditions in exchange for the extra risk associated with dealing with an unsophisticated business. Finally, corporate taxes frequently offer deductions for expenses that are not allowed under individual or unincorporated business tax schemes. Before your business may generate revenue from sales, you must comply with the law and establish a suitable corporate structure. Raising capital If you are seeking investment, angel investors, venture capitalists, and other investors will often decline to engage with an unincorporated business. Sole proprietorships and partnerships appear undesirable to investors because they do not allow for the ownership and transfer of shares and do not provide for restricted personal responsibility. Unincorporated enterprises are not eligible for bank business loans. Any loan would be made to the founders on a personal basis and would be contingent upon the founders' creditworthiness. To get the loan, the founders may be required to pledge their homes or personal automobiles as collateral. Types of Startup Incorporation Types of Startup Incorporation Sole Proprietorship Essentially, this means that you are your business. The company is formed in your name, and all corporate obligations are funded entirely via your expenses. The benefits of this arrangement are that you have no one else to answer to and that it is quite straightforward. However, there are numerous downsides to combining personal and professional spending, and with a sole proprietorship, you are directly liable for corporate financial troubles. This type of agreement can quickly get complicated, particularly during tax season or in the event of a lawsuit filed against your organization. Certain sole proprietors elect to register for a DBA, which stands for "doing business as." A DBA is typically used for marketing purposes rather than for legitimate business goals. Your DBA is an alias that gives your sole proprietorship a more professional appearance. Partnership If you decide to bring in partners, you will need to establish a general partnership, which often entails the execution of some type of official partnership agreement by all partners (usually not requiring a state filing). Additionally, this type of business structure is straightforward and uncomplicated to administer, and joining a partnership enables you to raise capital through the sale of partnership interests. However, in a general partnership, the border between personal and corporate funds remains blurred, and all partners may find themselves in financial difficulty as a result of a business crisis. Additionally, there is some possibility for confusion regarding the duties, responsibilities, and liabilities of partners. Limited partnership Limited partnerships are a subset of general partnerships. In a limited partnership, general partners are still responsible for the operation of the business, but investors can purchase a limited partnership interest. Limited partners are not as ingrained in a corporation as general partners are—the worst-case scenario financially is that they lose their initial investment. Additionally, as a founder, a limited partnership ensures that such partners' engagement is modest, ensuring that you retain control of your organization. Having said that, entrepreneurs are often opposed to this type of business due to the lack of built-in security for entrepreneurs. Limited liability companies (LLC) These types of businesses have a more established legal structure, which provides some liability protection. Finally, a framework exists that segregates your assets from your business's debts. Additionally, while an LLC's activities are governed by an agreement, there is no buy-sell provision, which might create complications if all members do not contribute equally to the organization. LLCs are not required to have boards of directors, hold annual meetings, or keep minutes. There is no restriction on the number of members in an LLC, and ownership can be divided into several classes, which provides entrepreneurs with some flexibility when raising equity financing. An LLC makes appropriate if your business is just at the point of development where it can attract angel investors but not venture capitalists (i.e. you are expecting that your business will generate losses). Angel investors will be driven by the possibility of tax losses; venture capitalists will not. Venture capitalists continue to prefer owning equity in a firm over membership interests. C Corporation If your business is in its infancy (particularly pre-revenue) and your sights are set on venture financing, forming a C corporation makes sense. Venture capitalists are at ease investing in this type of business. Additionally, there are additional benefits to this type of business beyond finance, such as a separation of debts, taxes, and legal structure from your assets. C corporation adds another layer of organization, such as the requirement to hold yearly meetings and keep minutes. The potential disadvantage is that the C corp gets taxed on its corporate profits, but since you're just getting started, you're unlikely to have any profits to tax, so this isn't a significant issue. S Corporation Without going into detail, S corporations are so named due to the way they utilize Subchapter S of the federal internal revenue law, which exempts them from corporate income tax (at the federal and state level). This is a fantastic option if you are OK with a small number of stockholders but require liability protection. An S corporation separates your assets from the debts of your business and gives some tax advantages (which may not be significant if your business is in its infancy and not producing any money). S corporations are not the best structure for raising venture capital because they are limited to a single class of stock, preventing you from undertaking repeated financings. It is possible to convert your firm into another corporation in the future, so do not be overly concerned about being locked into your decision. Having said that, it's critical to sit down and evaluate your financial objectives and goals (along with possibly meeting with a lawyer or finance professional) to identify which business structure will be most advantageous for your firm at the present. What documents do you need for startup incorporation? The primary incorporation documents for a startup that wishes to become a corporation are the following: Certificate of incorporation - The certificate of incorporation is an official file with the appropriate Secretary of State that normally includes the company's name, allowed number of shares, and par value of the shares. The action of incorporator - The incorporator's action is a document signed by the "incorporator" (often the founder of the startup's lawyer) that adopts the bylaws and names the inaugural board of directors. The bylaws - The bylaws are a legal document that establishes the startup's corporate governance and includes rules and regulations for the internal administration and management of the startup. The stock purchase agreements - Stock purchase agreements formalize the issuance of the startup's shares to the founders and often include vesting provisions. Technology assignment agreements - Typically, a technology assignment agreement protects intellectual property established before the incorporation date (more on this below). Confidential Information and Inventions Assignment Agreement (CIIAA) - The CIIAA (also known as a private information agreement) is perhaps the most frequently ignored document that is either not completed during incorporation or is never completed at all. A good CIIAA incorporates nondisclosure and nonsolicitation provisions. Additionally, the CIIAA allocates associated patents, domain names, and business plans to the startup. It is the output of the project or venture. Board consent - The initial board consent will authorize the issuing of shares to founders as well as other items such as the appointment of the startup's officers. How to make your startup incorporation? How to incorporate your startup? The entity, jurisdiction, number of shares to authorize, number of shares to issue, and vesting schedules for founders. These are the primary considerations while incorporating your startup. With these considerations in mind, how do you incorporate them? There are several alternatives available to you: 1. Hire an attorney Historically, the majority of companies engaged a lawyer to handle the incorporation procedure on their behalf. A good attorney will walk you through the types of decisions discussed above, generate the necessary documents (Certificate of Incorporation, Bylaws, Initial Board Consent, stock purchase agreements, and others), and file your Certificate of Incorporation with Delaware (or another jurisdiction). They will also frequently assist with other details such as obtaining a Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) and obtaining a State Employer Identification Number (SIN) (a third-party registered within the state who receives correspondence from the state on your behalf). We recommend that you use UpCounsel to engage an attorney to assist you with business formation, which will cost between $1,000 and $2,000. The formation fee for higher-end law firms is frequently more than $5,000. 2. Do It Yourself If you're not willing to spend several thousand dollars on attorneys and are willing to roll up your sleeves, you can incorporate it on your own. However, a word of caution: if you make a mistake with your incorporation, it could result in significant complications down the line, or at the very least make you appear incompetent, so proceed carefully. First, apply for Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN). Second, establish a required "registered agent." Harvard Business Services is a popular choice that costs $50 per year. They are not particularly useful and are largely interchangeable, yet you are required to have one. You may create all of the documentation for free with Cooley Go's Delaware Incorporation Generator. Cooley is a globally respected law firm with a thriving startup practice. Then, you must fax the Certificate of Incorporation (produced by Cooley Go) and a Filing Memo to the Delaware Division of Corporations at the fax number indicated in the memo. It will set you back $89. Thus, for $139 and some do-it-yourself elbow grease, you've created a Delaware C-Corporation. However, before filing with Delaware, we urge that you consult with someone—an advisor, another founder, or an attorney—to ensure that everything is in order. 3. Stripe Atlas If you don't want to spend $1,000+ on legal expenses but lack the financial means to handle it yourself, a fantastic third alternative emerged only last year: Stripe Atlas. Stripe will incorporate your business, arrange for a registered agent, generate your federal EIN, and even open a bank account for you for just $500. That is as simple as it gets. And voila! You’re all set for your startup incorporation. In conclusion From the extensive overview of all the processes and details that are directly involved in the startup incorporation process, an entrepreneur can easily make his way through it. Knowing all of the incorporation types, documentation, the incorporation process, and other related information. However, one thing that is also integral and has an irreplaceable point in this process as well as the product development process, which can a hassle for some startups. What if you’re not sure how exactly your product or service should evolve further on? What if you don’t know which features to include for getting the right attention both from your target audience and investors? If you have stumbled across such a thing, then our service is just for you. For the past 10 years, the JetRuby team has developed a specific product development technology, called a Product Development Strategy. Which is a first step towards the construction of your potential MVP. During this free business consultation, our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development life cycle and an action plan with high-level features. So, if you are an entrepreneur who is looking for a correct methodology and wants to understand his project development process, then leave us your project description. We’ll contact you within 24 hours after our experts will receive your inquiry. ### Why do startups succeed? In order to find the answer to this question, we conducted our own research: we have studied a fair amount of reports and scientific publications. We’ve been researching the factors of startup success because we are an app development company that supports and assists different startups - when a  business founder asks us to build their idea into a product, our team doesn’t just code for them — we invest time and money into researching how we can help them succeed. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step (learn more about Product Development Strategy Session).  According to our research, here are the five reasons why startups succeed: They Have Unique Ideas You need to find a way to solve users’ problems, you need to have domain understanding, and you should come up with a solution that no one has actually formerly developed previously - or, at least, improve on an existing business idea. Like in the world of fashion, some ideas are trendier now than others. For example, fifteen years earlier, people were approaching us wanting to develop socials networks. Ten years ago, everyone was developing SaaS apps to automate workflows. Five years earlier, the blockchain trend began - and everybody was disrupting their industries with blockchain. Just keep in mind that your idea needs to be unique, especially if it's following a trend. It needs to be special to you in one way or another since you can't simply copy what other people are doing and expect to be successful. Have a great idea but don't know where to start? Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different startups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! They execute their ideas by creating a team Ideas are terrific, but everybody has them, and just a few people actually start working on them. And only a few people bring their concepts to life. That's because execution is hard. We do not always have a step-by-step guide on how to put our ideas into practice. Often, execution is an experiment, filled with trial and error and failures and pitfalls. Having an experienced team that can assist you to execute your concepts effectively. But developing a team that can work as a single organism is yet another obstacle. Sustaining this group, keeping them motivated to continue, giving them hope and a reason to go to work every day - it's not constantly basic or easy. We have seen teams fall apart during their product launch in spite of collaborating together for many years. We have seen teams fall apart a couple of months after they experienced success because some employees were in for the money only. On the other hand, we have also seen teams that have collaborated for more than a decade and remained strong throughout their time together. This is the kind of team you dream about. A people you can trust. To earn that trust, however, you require to be a great leader and set a positive example to guarantee to ensure accountability and motivation. Startups get funding If you can show that your business idea fits the market and your user base is growing or will grow quickly, finding the money will be easy. Many startups stay underfunded either because they do not show a convincing growth rate, or because they deliberately chose not to be funded. Bootstrapping through the early days can have its advantages. Yet, even when repeat business owners launch a new startup which that can afford, they still prefer to raise outside capital. It brings in more excellent investors with a beneficial interest in your success.  Not running out of money is the CEO's primary task. It's why most companies fail. Some can win just by raising huge financing rounds. Eventually, it includes trustworthiness and visibility. It allows you to purchase the business, move fast, hire well, and make financial investments that will settle big in the days ahead. Storytelling is the key thing in fundraising. Being able to catch the essence of what you are carrying out in 15 to 20 slides is the way to success. For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template developed by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel where the most vital slides are highlighted.  Read more: Optimistic Strategy Of A Solid Business Pitch   Strong Founding Team Everything starts with the founders. Their smarts, grit, passion, and determination to learn trumps whatever else. Even the business idea. It is based on the founders that the company will be able to raise financing in the early days, or not. You can be an army of one or a team of several ones. Or anywhere in between. Just make sure you have that sticktoitiveness to get you through and inspire others to wish to occur for the journey. Read more: How to find the perfect tech co-founder for your tech startup   They Have Good Timing One of the primary factors of a startup’s success is great timing. Forty-five percent of the difference between success and failure is about releasing a product when the market wants it. According to us, there's no such thing as a saturated market due to the fact that you can constantly find a blue ocean and offer your product to a specific niche audience. For instance, when the PC market ended up being saturated, Apple began offering a different type of computer system and prospered wildly at it. A lot of businesses release their products to markets that have no idea about the issue in the first place, which usually ends in disaster. When Microsoft developed Zune, they (and other competing companies) invested millions of dollars trying to educate users about why they should switch from CD players to portable MP3 players. Apple utilized another way. They understood the principle of having good timing. They began marketing iPods when the market already 'accepted'  MP3 players, profiting from the efforts of others.   Have Great Mentors You can't know everything. You are not able to learn it all before you start a new business. At every action of the way, you'll need to keep growing as a leader faster than your business. Or your company will outgrow you. The most successful business are those who surround themselves with the very best business mentors they can find. These are fundraising consultants, solid M&A consultants, board members, and even CEOs. Surrounding yourself with experienced people increases by a mile the reasons why startups reach success.  Read more: How Your Startup Mentor Can Change Your Startup   Need a tech mentor for your startup? Want to find a great startup mentor to help you with specific issues? We here in Jetruby will help get your startup or side project where it needs to be. We have developed a technological flow that most of our clients undergo during the past 10 years of constant collaboration and cooperation with various startups. The first one of which is called a Product Development Strategy session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours!   Product-Market Fit When the product-market fit isn't working or happening, it's fairly obvious: Consumers and clients aren't getting value from your product, nobody is actually speaking about it, you have no reviews, and deals are consistently not closing. All of these are symptoms of a lack of product-market fit.   If no one wants your product, you don't have a market.  When the fit is taking place, success is explosive. You'll see that customers and clients are nabbing up that item quickly, or usage of your product is growing quicker than you can keep up with. Your company account is filling up, you have the ability to hire more assistance personnel and employees. You have actually successfully established a product-market fit when engagement is piling up much faster than you can manage. Until you find it, your company is just blowing around in the wind and burning cash. Once you crack the code, things can take off really quickly and naturally. Get out there, speak with clients, test, get feedback and sharpen it again up until you have actually got it.   Succeded ones have a Business Model Having a business model is the second factor for startup success. You need to have a business model when you establish your startup, though it's great to understand that it's fine to alter and establish it as soon as you see that your product is wanted and needed by clients. Marketing and sales take precedence. While having a sound business model in place is necessary, a startup can endure without it too. However, there are exceptions to this. For instance, YouTube began as an easy online video sharing platform with no profits design in place. Nevertheless, its developers realized the need for their item and gradually presented functions that would help them earn money from their service. While crucial to a start-up's success, a business model can be added at a later phase when your clients require what you have to offer.   Conclusion  Beyond that, you require a product development strategy, persistence, determination, a willingness to be flexible, and a world-class team. You also require to be frugal, bright and cultivate strong advisors. The best way know to do all these things well and effectively is to follow a systematic process where you plan, devote, track outcomes, promote accomplishments and raise the needed capital, or "fuel in the tank," to drive the development of your startup. Always remember, it's not an easy task to run a tech startup company, so don't refrain from asking for help. Having someone to guide you is better than failing alone. We at Jetruby help startups build their businesses from scratch, guide them by giving free startup product development consultation, and most importantly, help them achieve financial freedom by developing their idea into a business model. Now that you have these ideas, want to know which one of the tech startups will work for you? Contact us now. ### What is product-market fit? Why do you need it for your startup Today's app market is extremely competitive. Tens of countless new apps appear every month in AppStore and Google play, and very few ultimately succeed. If you are hoping your app will be one of those that make it, you'll discover that product-market fit (PMF) is essential. In this article, we want to figure out what PMF implies and how to make sure your mobile app has it. What is product-market fit? Product-market fit is about to do with having the ideal product for the best market. Despite the fact that there's no single standard on how to measure it exactly, there is no arguing that when you have PMF, product purchases and growth tend to skyrocket. When you do not, the opposite will happen as customers are not getting the value they want out of your app. PMF does not just indicate having users who are willing to pay for your product, it typically also indicates having pleased clients that will spread the word, and become your greatest salespeople. How To Measure Product-Market Fit According to Forbes Magazine, a product-market fit is a hair-on-fire issue that an identifiable group of individuals has. It's a scenario in which a product satisfies clients’ needs in such a way that alternative products do not. Marc Andreesen, who introduced the term in 2007, thinks companies who have actually attained this perfect state can feel it due to the fact that money is piling up, and investors are more and more interested in business. On the other hand, startups who haven't attained product-market fit can feel it due to the fact that word of mouth isn't spreading out, offers aren't closing, and press reviews are flat. Aside from just having the ability to feel it, the most concrete method to assess your product-market fit and comprehend how clients see your app is by sending them surveys. The concerns in these studies are pointed, and ask clients if they think your item is a must-have and if they would miss it if it were gone. Product Market Fit Questions When you design your surveys, you want to reassure that all questions will give you the answers you want. Here are some examples, along with designated answer choices to be included. How would you feel if you could no longer use this item? Really dissatisfied Somewhat disappointed Not disappointed at all (it really isn't that helpful). N/A - I no longer use the product. A follow-up question to this is "Please help us understand why you chose that answer," where app users can specify their answers in a text box. Their responses will provide a more in-depth understanding of why your product means so much a lot to them or why it is not a must-have. Product-market fit for a mobile app So, how to determine whether your startup concept has a product-market fit? Well, drawing on what we saw above and suggestions from other specialists, here are a few strategies to help you out. Check the keyword search volume in the app stores If you have not launched your app yet, this is an exceptional starting strategy. Both Google and Apple have data available on this front and there are tools such as Mobile Action or Sensor Tower that provide access for the data for both stores and can come rather useful. There is no one perfect tool to carry out this research study, which suggests you will have to do the legwork by compiling information from different sources, however, if you do it, and you do it well, it will all be worthwhile. Analyze app shop conversion metrics   This is something you can do when your mobile app is already up and running. Both the App Shop and Google Play generate data, such as conversion rates, that you can use as leading indications, which you can then compare to the average in your category. If your conversion rate is not as average industry one, don't despair, as you can constantly work on app shop optimization and find methods to enlarge conversion. Use Sean Ellis’ 40 percent Guideline  According to Sean Ellis and his startup pyramid conception, an excellent way to measure whether you have actually got Product-market fit (PMF) or not is performing a study to check how users feel about your app. If at least 40% of your users would be "extremely dissatisfied" if they did not have access to your app anymore, then you're absolutely on the right track. It is important to keep in mind that we do not advise you to use just one of these 3 techniques. When it comes to mobile app performance, the more the merrier. Likewise, keep in mind that you should compare yourself with other apps in the very same category as yours that have similar usage patterns, so you get more reliable and beneficial information. Product-market fit is a continuous process  It might seem like you need to just concentrate on PMF before releasing app or just after starting out, but it is actually something you must never ever take for granted. Markets and trends constantly change, which means that your app need to be changed accordingly to remain in the game. Furthermore, you may want to add on to your app or broaden to new markets, and this also means working on your product-market fit. For all these factors, PMF is something you must remember throughout your app's lifespan. Product-Market Fit Goals for Startups Many startups fail because they invest in apps that nobody wants to purchase. Startups need to prioritize product-market fit above all other goals since those that find it will significantly increase their odds of success. To avoid this fate, ensure you understand the discomfort points your item fixes along with the difficulties your consumers are looking for to solve. You can do this by focusing on 6 main areas, which we'll discuss below. Determine your target customer. Work to determine the target client who represents the users that will more than likely benefit from your product. Usage market segments to define your ideal customer, and establish buyer personas for those consumers, so your group will clearly comprehend who it is building towards. This procedure can be divided in four steps: Analyzing your service or product Familiarising yourself with your competitors Choosing sector criteria Carrying out research study The research phase itself is thoroughly crafted around defining your buyer personality, determining which part of that personality you'll target, performing market research with ready research concerns, and summarizing your findings into absorbable takeaways to show your individual contributors, executives, and board. Have a great idea but don't know where to start? Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! Gather intelligence Talk with your clients to determine their pain points and just how much they would think about paying for a solution to those obstacles. Look for insights from your sales and marketing teams to recognize repeating customer complaints. Gather a large adequate data sample to offer significant feedback. Think about, too, that face-to-face conversations will typically generate feedback that online studies will not. Focus on a single vertical Most of the startups have a tight budget which indicates that attempting to offer your products to everybody will likely result in disaster. Begin with a narrow focus and dive deep into that market. Establish yourself as the market expert in a single domain with a goal to stimulate a viral spread. For example, Spotify saw that individuals were ready to pay a small cost for endless access to music legally. They didn't enter into the marketplace attempting to take on existing music streaming services like the discovery-focused Pandora or the more standard, pay-per-album structure of iTunes. They developed a platform for people who wished to listen to any album, at any time, by just paying one cost. They discovered a gap in the market and targeted the people in that gap. Specify your value proposition Determine which customer needs you can best address with your services or product. Find out how you can surpass your rivals and satisfy your consumers. Don't forget your product roadmap when determining which challenges you'll deal with; not every problem will suit yours. For example, Spotify's value proposal places the streaming service as offering access over ownership, offering data-driven personalization, and the chance for material unbundling. Measure your product-market fit You should measure your performance to manage your success. Determine key data points that will help you track performance. Start by determining your total addressable market (TAM) - the overall number of people who can take advantage of your product/service (i.e., If everybody might utilize your product/service or began using it). TAM can be calculated by increasing your average income per user (ARPU) by the total possible clients in the market. Once you have your TAM, determine what portion of your TAM are current app users. Prevent complacency If you manage to accomplish the product-market fit, don't assume you'll constantly have it. Your clients' needs will change gradually, and you should continuously re-evaluate market conditions to continue fulfilling those requirements. Conclusion Succeeding in the mobile app industry is not a simple task. It takes a lot of work before and after releasing your app into the market. Product-market fit is among the many tools that will provide you an opportunity out there. We hope this info has actually proven beneficial which you can use while developing your app if you don’t do so already.    Need an app development mentor for your startup? Want to find a great startup mentor to help you with specific issues? We here in Jetruby will help get your startup or side project where it needs to be. We have developed a technological flow that most of our clients undergo during the past 10 years of constant collaboration and cooperation with various startups. The first one of which is called a Product Development Strategy session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours!   ### What is Neuromarketing and why do you need it? The more neuroscientists learn about the brain, the more social psychologists understand consumer behavior, and the more marketers can apply these insights to branding and customer trust, the closer the moment of neuromarketing's realization draws. This is very critical as the more detailed and concrete the information is regarding the client’s behavior, the more likely a business can fastly attract the attention of the right target audience. To further discuss and understand this brand opportunity for new startups, our marketing team prepared this article specifically for you. What is neuromarketing? What is neuromarketing? The scientific study of how the brain reacts to branding and advertising is called neuromarketing. Neuromarketing makes use of data from the following sources: Neuroscience Behavioral economics Social psychology These insights are used to quantify and improve the effectiveness of several aspects of marketing, including the following: Product design Branding Marketing practices What if you could view the neurological light show created by your customers when they interact with your brand? What if you could see exactly how your marketing efforts, sales teams, and customer service representatives — or any other component of your organization – are responding to consumers? Which parts of their brain light up when they chat about your brand with their friends? A greater understanding and empathy for your consumers enables you to more correctly forecast their behavior and provide the best possible customer experience. Neuromarketing is about more than producing memorable advertisements and cues. Human behavior insights may be utilized across your organization, from CEO alignment to improved cross-functional communication and cooperation to employee and customer experience improvement. What does it consist of? Consider a diagram with three overlapping circles. These three circles reflect the three industries that comprise neuromarketing: traditional marketing, neuroscience, and medical technology. Traditional Marketing The world of traditional marketing is contained within the first circle of our Venn diagram. This is the territory of David Ogilvy, Madison Avenue, and, more recently, Seth Godin. This is the circle to which the majority of people prefer when the term "marketing" is introduced. It is well-researched; it works, and it has established a stronghold. Consider the Forbes Global 2,000. The world's largest firms rely on traditional marketing to reach a wider audience with distinctive and valuable messages. Brain Research Our second circle is made up of fields of research that are specifically concerned with the brain. This encompasses, but is not limited to, behavioral economics, social psychology, and neurology. When an institution such as Duke or Cornell conducts a study on the brain, the results are published in a journal such as The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. Medical professionals and other researchers rely on these findings. However, from a marketer's perspective, those findings remain inaccessible to any type of practical implementation. Medical Technology Medical imaging technology has enabled us to obtain precise images of what occurs within our brains during the last several years. More precisely, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) have advanced to the point that time-lapse photography of the brain's inner workings can be generated. Despite its obvious primary application in identifying illness and disease, having this representation of our minds has provided researchers with a treasure of data. Researchers are beginning to have a better understanding of how our thoughts function. Here the blood flow to many regions of the brain responsible for emotions such as excitement, fear, fight or flight reaction, and desire with a single fMRI scan. Neuromarketing Without all three of these circles, the field of neuromarketing would not exist. Traditional marketing provides the tried-and-true tactics and critical insight that underpin some of the most captivating marketing that everyone can see today. And yet, with expanding institutional research and sophisticated brain imaging, those methodologies are now being tested. Several have been discredited, while others have been boosted. This topic has mostly remained undiscovered for years, owing to a dearth of substantial study and correct data. Now that the third circle has begun to indicate whether or not someone would purchase something when they say they will, top agencies (and, by extension, top firms) have been utilizing neuromarketing to increase sales. Campbell's Soup undertook a neuromarketing study in 2008 to assess whether or not to change its labeling. This and subsequent research are being spurred by a race between huge marketing conglomerates to amass a war chest of neuromarketing technologies that will help customers gain an advantage over the competition. Benefits of neuromarketing of consumer neuroscience Benefits of neuromarketing Theoretical neuromarketing provides a novel theoretical framework for comprehending consumer behavior and decision-making processes (especially the purchase process). The simplistic Homos Economicus paradigm is abandoned in favor of theoretical neuromarketing, allowing us to focus on how unconscious reactions influence human behavior and buying decisions. The new human actuation models explain the processes that humans go through before acting, which include two non-conscious and one conscious phase: Processing of information The attentional processes (non-conscious) are responsible for selecting what stimuli attract our attention or not.) whether these stimuli are different (bottom-up attention), or ii) whether our brain considers these stimuli to be important (top-down attention). During decision making, attentional processes will be responsible for the consideration of an option. Determination of meaning and emotional value Our brain recognizes the information received by our senses non-consciously and provides it with meaning and emotional value. This is why when we are making a non-conscious decision we already have a favorite option. Deliberation and analysis Conscious cognitive tasks are included herein, such as recovering memories, interpreting the past, anticipating the future, planning, generating intentions, evaluating and making judgments, simulating, solving a problem, calculating, and reasoning. This phase can make us select an option, which not necessarily is the most attractive one from a non-conscious viewpoint. Our experiences affect this paradigm, as we learn from the consequences of our actions. This has an effect on the type of future information we process, its meaning and utility, as well as conscious decision-making. Additionally, theoretical neuromarketing enables us to have a deeper understanding of the function of emotions in human decision-making. Alternatively, it might assist us in comprehending how cognitive biases influence our actions. Finally, when we discuss how our many senses influence consumer behavior, we refer to sensory neuromarketing, visual neuromarketing, auditory neuromarketing, and olfactory neuromarketing, among others. What companies offer neuromarketing services? Neuromarketing is a practice that is gaining popularity, and numerous businesses employ or offer some form of neuromarketing. The various sorts of businesses can be classified into the following categories: Companies that use neuromarketing These are primarily B2C businesses of medium to large size that are accustomed to conducting traditional market research and desire to supplement their findings with emotional and cognitive (subconscious) information from consumers. These firms occasionally purchase their neuromarketing laboratories (especially if they are already used to carrying out their market research). Nonetheless, it is more common for investigations to be outsourced to traditional research institutes or specialist firms. Companies that offer neuromarketing services These types of studies complement the services offered by traditional market research or user experience (UX) firms. Neuromarketing firms that specialize in this type of service. Other sorts of businesses, such as marketing or digital marketing consultants, PR agency, communication firms, and design studios, that employ neuromarketing to enhance their services' results. ​Companies that sell neuromarketing technologies Companies that sell medical gadgets may potentially be used for neuromarketing purposes (although neuroscience experts are required). Companies that supply customized, easy-to-use neuromarketing laboratories for non-experts (it is crucial to ensure that technology is reliable). In conclusion In the end, as you can guess neuromarketing is a brand new term that was invented not so long ago. However, due to its productive and practical results, more and more companies are slowly starting to get in with the flow of it. Furthermore, it can widely open up a whole branch of opportunities for your business to interact dynamically with your target market. It’s a great both theoretical and practical concept that is dynamically striving forward to innovations. For new entrepreneurs, this can be a very good and solid opportunity to make creative marketing at an early stage of their product development. But what about the product development process itself, how it should be handled from their point of view? In that case, JetRuby’s product might be just what you need. Our must-have product is developed for those who want to know every single detail about their product development process and ways to achieve the best possible results out there. This is the Product Development Strategy Session. A free business consultation where our expert team will concretely analyze your project and produce a ballpark estimate on your current digital idea status while adjusting your business and technological flow. Leave your project ideas right now, and we’ll contact you ASAP! ### Strategies to establish a connection with your customers It's easier than ever in today's fast-paced world to engage with your audience and increase your consumer base. At the same time, with so many tools and resources available, making those personal relationships may become complicated and daunting. To assist you in establishing those precious connections, here are seven simple and efficient strategies to connect with your clients while simultaneously expanding your customer base. 7 Effective strategies for connecting with customers in marketing Strategies to connect with your customers Partner up One of the most prevalent strategies for business growth is to partner with another company. Utilizing the current client list of other businesses is an efficient technique to introduce yourself to a new audience. As an example, suppose you own catering business. You may work with a local business to cater one of their forthcoming events, such as a law office, accountant, or real estate agency. While their participants are enjoying the event, they are also being exposed to your product, don't forget to have business cards and flyers available so that guests can contact you. Uber and Spotify are more well-known examples. This cooperation enabled Uber riders to build Spotify playlists. If you're a regular Uber rider, you've undoubtedly already downloaded the Spotify app to listen to your favorite music. That is a potent bond that no amount of money can duplicate or compensate for. Another method I've discovered for partnering is to begin by offering to blog for them. Here are a few tips I have for anyone interested in the guest blogging. This is how I grew my online invoicing business from a one-man operation to a multi-million dollar enterprise. Be active on social media. Businesses benefit from having social media accounts; but, simply having an account is insufficient; you must interact actively. According to a recent poll, 40% of users want a company to answer within an hour of connecting, and nearly 80% expect a response within the first 24 hours. Many buyers check to see if a firm has an internet presence before doing business with them. Customers are already using social media channels to discover new products, give reviews, and share their favorites with friends, and you should meet them there. Interacting on social media may make your business's brand shine, and it's an excellent way to stay top-of-mind and on your customers' newsfeeds. Customers are continually rating and discussing businesses on social media, and there is a significant possibility your business will be discussed at some point. Engaging with customers on social media and responding to social media comments are excellent strategies to shape the narrative about your brand. Additionally, it enables you to address bad comments as they come. Provide superior customer service According to an American Express survey, "78% of consumers have abandoned a transaction or avoided making an intended purchase as a result of a negative service experience." That statistic should serve as a stark reminder to business owners. Customer service is critical in today's customer-centric environment. This includes promptly responding to customers' questions, inquiries, or concerns via social media platforms, forums, review sites, or email. However, you must also go above and above. Take notice of what your consumers say about you on social media. If you come across a consumer who is gushing about your business, publicly thank them for their wonderful remarks. If they make a bad statement—publicly or privately—offer to set things right. Go above and beyond. Go the extra mile for your customers. As a small business owner, you're likely to have a tight relationship with your consumers, which you can leverage. Provide loyalty discounts, recommend certain goods based on your knowledge of a customer's interests, and always rectify an unpleasant experience. Certain clients will have an adverse reaction to your brand. However, it is your responsibility to ensure that your consumer or client has a positive experience. Customer service that is second to none will keep customers coming back for more. Be Authentic It's frequently difficult to discern what is genuine and what is staged in the age of social media. There is even a term for it: "planned candid." Take a look at anyone's Instagram page and you'll be inundated with photographs of a "casual" stroll down the street or an"unplanned" laugh during brunch. These photos rob a moment of its realism. Avoid this type of interaction with your customers. Interacting with your consumer should not be a "planned" activity that you tick off a checklist. Rather than that, ask insightful questions. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, listen. Avoid just glossing over the customer's response to the question to check another box. Pay close attention to what clients say. Similarly, avoid providing a canned response. Customers are bombarded with “planned” moments; they recognize the difference between a genuine and sincere response and one that is empty and worthless. Genuine and authentic relationships elicit the true source of their frustrations or happiness. Survey your customers. Sending out surveys is an excellent approach to stay informed about your consumers' demands and needs. For instance, your business can conduct periodic consumer surveys to ascertain which products customers prefer, what modifications should be made to existing products, and what products should be introduced to your range. When clients feel as though they have a say in what you provide, this can assist establish loyalty. Additionally, doing customer surveys can assist you in improving your overall product or service offering and catering to your customers' needs. This can result in increased sales, which translates into additional money in your pocket. Know Your Customers and Anticipate Their Next Move The Japanese have mastered the skill of intimately knowing their clients through their omotenashi mentality. They have developed such a strong relationship with their customers that they can predict their requirements or desires before they are even realized. In other words, clients do not need to explain who they are or what they want; we already know who they are and what they want. With today's technology, acquiring information on a customer is easier than ever—from understanding their purchasing habits to forecasting their next business challenge. And resolving those difficulties can be as simple as sending a text message, initiating a pop-up chat, or placing a call. This also implies that each employee, across all organizational levels, should have some level of visibility into each customer. In Conclusion Customer engagement is not a campaign; it is a commitment. It is a corporate concept that pervades all facets of your firm daily using social. Consumers are constantly on the lookout for trustworthy businesses. Earn their trust at the initial visit and then continue to build it through strategic and regular communication. Maintain a relationship with your customers and you will earn their loyalty. Among all of the points that we’ve covered, there is one that is tremendously important too and that is an efficient investment in your product. It can be both for marketing purposes and for implementing a set of technical features. So if you’re a young startup and you can’t understand or determine how exactly you should spend your capital to reach your product’s full potential, then JetRuby is the right place for you. Specifically for young startups and beginning entrepreneurs, we created a unique program called the Product Development and Strategy Session. Where we analyze your project, produce a ballpark estimate on your development plan, and adjust your current flow to the correct one. All of that you can get on our free business consultation. Leave a short description of your business and schedule a call with us today! ### Major risks of mobile app startups It's difficult to predict and plan all software startup pitfalls and other issues. By nature, the software is intangible and typically includes a large number of stakeholders. This combination of aspects can develop various risks that require to be considered and managed from the beginning of a software job. While we can estimate the risks these threats will have on your software project, the likelihood and impact of them occurring will differ depending on the methodology you are using. We, as experienced software development experts, who have been on the digital market for more than 10 years and helped many startups to grow from scratch with the help of the Product Development Strategy Session, compiled a list of the most significant risks in software development practice.    I. Software development planning issues    No software advancement plan: it's a comment that specifies the stages, goals, metrics, and outcomes of each step of a product development strategy. If the strategy weren’t created or improperly done, the software application development company would have no guidance, especially when things do not go as expected. No methodology: if the software development team has not decided on a specific detailed method for handling tasks and processes, it will eventually lead to scheduling problems. When developers choose a Waterfall, they know for sure that they have to complete the stage. If they select Agile, they understand the increased flexibility. Not defining these terms injures the job. No responsible team members: task managers must plan the task, assign tasks, and oversee sprints. No experience: if the vendor lacks the insights and tried-and-proven practices for organizing the project, it will eventually lead to a possibly demanding schedule. Also, scheduling issues often emerge to the lack of understanding of project requirements. As a result, groups either ignore their job's work or overestimate it, trying to buy themselves re time if something goes wrong. The most reasonable method of avoiding this problem is taking risks into account while writing software application requirements files, however, don't treat the worst-case situation as something that will undoubtedly occur. For more information on how you can apply some of these risk management strategies to your project, please check our Product Development Strategy Session.   Budget development risks   Budget threats, just like timing issues, are a result of preparing failures. However, the effects of budget plan problems might be a lot more noticeable than the timing ones. For example, if the budget plan isn't appropriately dispersed, the financial investments might exceed the limits. In the best-case scenario, the software development startup will be forced to perform other tasks on a smaller-sized budget plan. In the worst scenario, the whole project might be put on hold. Thankfully, budget risks, just like scheduling ones, are resolved throughout the planning. If the development company knows its possibilities and constraints, it's possible to avoid the pitfalls. The leading causes of budget management threats are: No realistic understanding of product requirements: some features might be more expensive to develop. No warning system in the project. The developers and startup owners must agree on the ers mad controlling budget plan and alerting each other if there's a tiny possibility of exceeding defined limits. Financial management software can help identify these issues in time. To prevent budgeting issues, ensure that your developer has documentation and control systems in place. Ideally, you must have the ability to track real-time how your resources are assigned to the project and why. II. Operational development threats     Even if the team correctly completed the planning stage, it's still not bulletproof insurance from other kinds of software development problems. Operational risks are the ones that can occur even in highly skilled teams of developers and need to be avoided throughout the project development. The most common development issues Wrong priority assignment: at the beginning of the development, teams might not understand product purpose, target audience, and critical features. As a result, they may concentrate on the job’s tasks that need to be shifted to secondary instead.  Poor assigning policy: the product manager should provide clear communication within the team and assure the entire understanding of the project. This factor is vital for success. If PM fails to communicate the deliverables clearly for each developer, the team will ultimately wind up with an inefficient workflow.  Wrong tech stack. Project managers also need to take the duty of choosing the right technology and professionals that have the necessary expertise. If it's done wrong, the team will utilize not the most appropriate tech stack and perhaps, not fulfill the requirements. No result metrics. App developers and QA’s must be aware of the main deliverables for the concept. The method by which the results are specified should be transparent for all employees and stakeholders. Operation threats are lowered with proper communication. If management and all team members are on the very same page, the possibility of these risks can be significantly reduced. Need a tech mentor for your startup? Want to find a great startup mentor to help you to avoid all potential development risks? We here in Jetruby will help get your startup or side project where it needs to be. We have developed a technological flow that most of our clients undergo during the past 10 years of constant collaboration and cooperation with various startups. The first one of which is called a Product Development Strategy session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours! III.Scope Variations risks  What is a scope change? Scope variations happened when the size of an iteration changes after a timeframe had been agreed upon. Due to receiving frequent consumer feedback, stakeholders or product owners will often ask to differ the project’s scope. Nevertheless, scope variation creates a severe risk to the project. When a scope varies, it substantially affects the ability of the developers to stick to the original timeline of a project. So, how do you manage project variations? Managing customer expectations around how scope variation can impact the initial estimates is a required mitigation method for this threat. From our experience, using a variation metric to measure the scope changes allows for greater visibility to the app user of how the feedbacks have impacted the project.  The following are some other valuable strategies for dealing with scope variations. Short, adjustable iterations (or the Agile method) allow for more frequent opportunities to reflect upon and vary the project scope; and elaboration of only prioritized work. IV. End-user Engagement This risk is where an app is published to app stores however the users are resistant to change, or there is a conflict between users. Why is user engagement so meaningful? Guaranteeing that the users of a product will adopt the app will directly link to its success. When it comes to a startup building software for an external client, it will correlate with profitability. When it comes to an enterprise developing an app for internal use, it can determine whether the software will improve its performance. How do you improve user engagement?  You might be surprised how easy the response is - listen to your users. Some possible mitigation techniques for this risk consist of: User testing and studies; Focus groups; Regular releases;  Beta testing. These mitigation techniques are far easier to apply to utilize agile development. The chance of poor end-user engagement is much more most likely for projects following a waterfall methodology. This is due to the fact that these types of projects are unable to adapt to end-user feedback during the development process. In addition, the nature of waterfall development requires no scope variations. V. Poor Quality Code When the quality of a concept does not align with stakeholder expectations, there is a considerable risk that the project will not be successful. Poor quality code can occur for several reasons, for instance, when the project is underestimated, and developers hurry to complete the iteration. So what is a harmful code? Poor quality code can include several things. First, the code may be difficult to read, meaning it might be difficult for other developers to read it, review or make changes. Second, it may have been rushed and released without testing, therefore full of bugs that might have been avoided. Thus, the poor quality code produces a threat of technical debt.  How do you define technical debt? A technical obligation is any code that decreases the agility of a software task in the long term. Typically it is created by using shortcuts when writing code to develop the project faster. Nevertheless, code quality is necessary since it decreases the long-lasting development effort by making it easier to understand, keep, and extend. How can you improve code quality?  Developers need to preserve a high standard for their code. This can be done by following these methods: Carrying Out User Acceptance Criteria to have stakeholders verify the project complies with the  standard; Code reviews; Precise coding requirements and guides; Evaluating of all code; Appoint a dedicated PM to monitor the quality of the project and take ownership of all stakeholders for the success and failures.  VI. Poor Productivity When a project team falls behind on planned timeframes, you might need to analyze the development team’s performance. Though not likely, poor performance might be the cause. How do you determine developer productivity? To identify the productivity levels of your development team, you can use tools such as burn-down charts or iteration reports. If your company has gone through a good hiring process, it is not likely you will face this issue, nevertheless the impact on a task if it does take place can be destructive to the product delivery process. . It is, therefore, valuable to think about the following strategies: A team culture of your company; Set attainable timeframes and a sustainable rate during your project estimates to prevent burn-out of staff;  Hire a dedicated Product Manager who is directly involved and collaborates with the developers. Bear in mind that people aren't machines, and it is unrealistic to require them to be productive every hour they spend at work.  VII. Low Stakeholder Engagement What is low stakeholder engagement? This is where a client or stakeholder you collaborate with is not engaging with your team at the frequency necessary to preserve high-performance levels. Low stakeholder engagement is a substantial risk to projects because slow responses from the customer can impede delivery timeframes. The chance for low stakeholder engagement is increased when implementing agile approaches. This is because versions are more frequently delivered and need more regular feedback from stakeholders to the development team. How can stakeholder engagement be improved? Here are some techniques that can be used: Clear agreements with the consumer or stakeholders around response times, particularly for any User Acceptance Testing;  Good selection of Delivery and project goals/priorities. VIII. Inadequate Human Resources Though unlikely, sometimes, a stakeholder or development team member must leave a project all of a sudden. This can create a threat to the project, especially if task understanding is not effectively documented. So how do you lower this software development risk? Throughout a development process, it is valuable to: Preserve up-to-date documents; On-board new or replacement stakeholders with a learning guide;  Control the invoice schedule and team usage frequently. Conclusion To perform a practical software development project, teams need to consider each kind of the risks mentioned above. Here's a list of activities that are required for effective threat avoidance. Planning: software development should begin with the production of a product development strategy and advancement plan; Automation: the procedure of information analysis, real-time tracking, measurement ought to be outsourced to management, accounting, and quality control software application. If teams know the risks of each task and development stage, they will know what risks to prevent in the first place. This is why risk evaluation and prevention is an ongoing activity relevant for all phases of the software development process.  Need help? We are ready to assist: With the above list, we have presented you with some risks for your mobile app startup. Always remember, it's not an easy task to launch and run a tech startup company, so don't refrain from asking for help. Having someone to guide you is better than failing alone. We at Jetruby help startups build their businesses from scratch, guide them by giving free startup product development consultation, and most importantly, help them achieve financial freedom by developing their idea into a business model. Now that you have these ideas want to know which tech startups will work for you? Contact us now. ### Marketing Psychology: What do you need to know? To execute a marketer’s work properly, they must first understand who their customer is, what they want, and what motivates them to make a purchase. If this seems vaguely psychological, it is because these methods are founded on psychological theories and are frequently referred to as marketing psychology. And, while marketers are not psychologists, they do make various psychological insights about human behavior to engage with potential clients effectively and enhance conversions regularly. We will look at what marketing psychology is, answer all of the common questions regarding marketing psychology, and show 5 core marketing psychology techniques. What is marketing psychology? What is marketing psychology? To begin, marketing psychology is a subfield of applied psychology that examines the elements that influence consumers' attitudes about products or services. Simply expressed, it examines how a product affects the consumer's behavior. Marketers utilize it to forecast consumer behavior and identify strategies to influence their choices. One example is making a thing appear desirable or attractive. Consumer psychology is inextricably linked to marketing psychology: the study of how and why we acquire goods and services. Marketing psychology examines how people's emotions and perceptions influence their purchasing decisions, drawing ideas from behavioral disciplines such as neuroscience and cognitive studies. How does marketing psychology improve marketing? Marketers, entrepreneurs, and business owners presume that the majority of individuals make decisions based on study and consideration of alternatives. As a result, each marketing strategy is designed to achieve that goal. However, this is not how the majority of individuals make decisions. Individuals typically behave irrationally, making it difficult to forecast their conduct. And, as is frequently visible on social media, they rarely take the time to understand all of the facts before acting. Marketing psychology may provide a competitive advantage for clever marketers and business owners by refining marketing strategies and techniques in ways that consciously and proactively affect people's psychology, behaviors, and decisions to identify more potential consumers. What is the value of marketing psychology for marketers? What's the value of marketing psychology? Marketers can derive significant value from incorporating these tactics into their marketing efforts. However, it is not as straightforward as adopting out-of-context tactics and tossing around trendy jargon. The trick is to understand how these techniques interact. By understanding what is going on in your customers' heads and how they make decisions, you can develop a strong, targeted marketing plan that results in conversions. You may utilize it to boost the effectiveness of your marketing activities and reach out to your customers more quickly. What is the role of the psychologist in advertising and marketing Psychologists play a critical part in several functions within the field of marketing. Not only in consumer behavior research, but also the design, implementation, and subsequent evaluation of the new product's response from the customer. The psychologist is critical for both understanding and causing our clients' emotions. This medical professional is ideal for developing high-quality surveys. A psychologist can fulfill these roles in large firms, consultancies, research, educational institutions, and consumer advocacy organizations, among others. The following specialized competencies within the field of psychology assist marketing professionals in performing more exhaustive work: cognitive, emotional, and perceptual psychology, social communication, and group psychology. Postgraduate education and training are required to acquire these competencies. Everything from the design of a job interview to the color of the bar on our menu can be evaluated by a psychologist before you and your family make a purchase. 5 core marketing psychology principles explained 5 core marketing psychology principles Reciprocity Principle Introduced by Dr. Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, the concept of "reciprocity" is straightforward: if someone does something for you, you will naturally want to reciprocate. If you've ever received a mint with your restaurant bill, you've experienced reciprocity. Cialdini asserts that when servers deliver a check to their guests without a mint, diners will tip based on their perceptions of the service provided. With just one mint, the tip increases by 3.3 percent. How about two minutes? The tip jumps "over the roof" to almost 20%. There are numerous methods to include reciprocity in your marketing. You don't have to be flush with cash to give anything away; it may be anything from a branded hoodie to an exclusive ebook, a free desktop background, or even your expertise on a difficult subject. Even something as straightforward as a handwritten note might help build reciprocity. Simply ensure that you are giving away the free item before requesting something in return. Scarcity According to psychologists, humans place a premium on items that are more difficult to attain. According to Shahram Heshmat, we might think favorably about scarcity since it "automatically and forcefully directs the mind toward unsatisfied desires." Scarcity marketing is used to create fear in consumers that they will miss out on something on sale, robbing them of their freedom of choice. Marketers can employ this concept in a variety of ways, including the following: Limited product offering - Have you ever gone in quest of inexpensive flights only to discover that only three seats are remaining? By noticing that there are only a few tickets remaining at the sale price, you're more likely to make a snap choice about your purchase than you would if 300 tickets were remaining at the regular price.Exclusive access - When it comes to improved membership options, brands can create a sense of exclusivity around their product offering. Whether it's VIP access to a special service or receiving additional features in a product, having access to something that isn't generally available to the general public gives customers the sense of owning something rare and thus exceptional. Clustering Individuals' short-term memory capacity is restricted. The average person can only recall seven items of knowledge at a time (plus or minus two in any particular situation). To cope, the majority of people group comparable pieces of information. For instance, if you had a long grocery list of random goods, most individuals would mentally categorize them (dairy, grain, meat, etc.) to help them recall what was on the list. Therefore, keep clustering in mind while you create content. How can you design and lay out your information in such a way that it is more memorable? One approach to accomplish this is to group related themes, either under numbered bullet points or with varying header widths. Apart from being significantly quicker to skim, your work will be significantly easier to retain and recollect in the future — particularly if you're composing lengthy lists of stuff. Loss Aversion Marketing Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, two Nobel laureates in psychology, developed Loss Aversion while researching Prospect Theory. In brief, Daniel and Amos discovered that people appeared to place a higher premium on avoiding a loss than on obtaining an equivalent gain. Marketers frequently employ Loss Aversion Marketing; consider how many "last chance to buy" emails you've gotten in your inbox. While this can be an effective tactic, the internet has resulted in a flood of this type of marketing, which can have a damaging effect if not done appropriately. Several tactics for Loss Aversion Marketing include the following: Trial offers - According to research, we place a higher premium on possessions than on those we do not own. Thus, by providing your clients with the opportunity to possess the product—even if only temporarily—you allow them to experience the possible loss associated with not having the thing.Limited resource - One technique to persuade clients to make a purchase is to inform them of your product's scarcity. Frequently utilized in e-commerce firms, brands frequently establish a limited quantity of stock and notify customers when only a few more are available.Offering a gift with purchase - Whether it's free shipping, a coupon code for a discount when a customer spends a particular amount, or gift wrapping, the prospect of losing a gift may frequently serve as a strong incentive for pushing your customers to purchase something they were on the fence about. The Decoy Effect While the majority of these ideas apply to fields other than marketing, the decoy effect is virtually exclusively associated with marketing psychology. It is a cognitive bias in which the addition of a third, less appealing choice makes a more expensive product appear to be a better deal than when just two options are available. When consumers are presented with only two options, they immediately compare the price and quality of the products. The third option modifies the customer's mental image of the various products, increasing their likelihood of selecting the more expensive alternative. As an example, suppose a company offers a bargain on a software bundle in which you can get word processing software for $100, a bundle that includes word processing and spreadsheet software for $200, or a bundle that includes spreadsheet software for $175. The existence of the least appealing option—the "decoy" offer of the spreadsheet software alone—increases the likelihood that a buyer will pick for the bundle. In your advertising, employ the decoy effect by combining things into sets of three rather than two, with one option functioning as the decoy. Compare the prices of separate pieces to the total package. National Geographic, for example, utilizes the decoy effect to promote its subscription offerings. In conclusion To summarize, marketing psychology will provide you with a competitive edge in today's digital marketplace. Additionally, analyzing and anticipating consumer behavior enables you to build stronger relationships with your customers and deliver superior purchasing experiences. Believe it or not, this exhaustive collection of marketing psychology terms is only the beginning when it comes to consumer psychology and marketing. However, this is one of the most first layers of investments that an entrepreneur will make along with the proper development of his own product. And that raises a critical question: “How one can invest his capital to gain the most effective results not only in marketing but also in the product development process too?”. If you have stumbled across such a question, then our service is just for you. For the past 10 years, the JetRuby team has developed a specific product development technology, called a Product Development Strategy. Which is a first step towards the construction of your potential MVP. During this free business consultation, our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development life cycle and an action plan with high-level features. So, if you are an entrepreneur who is looking for a correct methodology and wants to understand his project development process, then leave us your project description. We’ll contact you within 24 hours after our experts will receive your inquiry. ### Key psychological customer needs The key to providing superior customer service and retaining existing customers is to understand consumer behavior. When you completely comprehend this, you'll realize what they want from your organization and how to provide it best. Fortunately, technology has significantly simplified – and accelerated – the process of analyzing and comprehending the psychology of customer service. When that technology is combined with years of market and consumer research, you have the capabilities to use psychology to drive your customer service employees and offer the type of customer service that your consumers want. Therefore, specifically for young startupers to understand the importance of customer psychological needs, we introduce an article dedicated to this topic. What does the consumer want? What does he want? The consumer... The key to unlocking consumer psychology is recognizing that wishes trump needs when it comes to customer purchases. In a modern world where hundreds of toothpaste brands exist, and new food products and electronic gadgets are introduced daily, it is in the interest of psychologists and those marketing the products to understand the relationship between financial and psychological factors that influence what people buy. Consumer psychology encompasses more than psychology alone. It should also study economics and culture. As a result, various principles come into play when studying this subject. Psychology views certain factors that include: The Gestalt principle - If you want to understand why a restaurant is popular, it's critical to comprehend the cultural connotations beyond the food. The Iceberg principle - What could be the ostensibly sensible or rational cause for a person to make a purchase (the need)? What other elements (desires) affect it? For example, even if shoes are purchased to protect the feet, the desired shoe may be open-toed, strapless, and have six-inch heels. The Dynamic principle - By appealing to your audience's psychological triggers while developing your marketing personas, you can ensure that they return to your site and develop trust in your business. In your next content marketing effort, incorporate emotion, authority, reciprocity, mystery, and a variety of formats.. Image and Symbolism - From product spokespersons to the image on the wrapper of a candy bar, the ever-elusive association individuals have with a product may play a significant role in whether or not they purchase it, much more than the product's nature or quality. Key Customer Psychological Needs The Need for Attention Never make the mistake of letting the customer feel unappreciated or unattended to. Make them feel ignored for just a moment, and you could lose them forever. Ask yourself, “How can I let this buyer know I am focused on them in a welcoming (not intimidating) way?” The Need for Affection Everybody wants to be appreciated, and customers want to know that you value them more than their money. Demonstrate your affection by delivering small tokens of appreciation, whether in the form of things or services. Ascertain that you provide them with the items and services that best satisfy their needs, not just those that will generate the highest revenue for you. Consider the following: "What will demonstrate to this person that I respect them and care about their comfort?" The Need for Appreciation Everyone enjoys being thanked. Make an effort to contact clients on an irregular basis with personalized messages, whether via email, Twitter, or handwritten notes. Consider the following: "What will demonstrate my appreciation for this person's time, attention, and consideration?" The Need for Acceptance If you can establish an emotional connection with the customer, they will almost certainly become lifelong customers. To accomplish this, you must personally embrace them and accept them for who they are. This is straightforward when dealing with a pleasant customer who spends a lot of money with you but not so straightforward when dealing with angry, emotional, or excessively thrifty customers. The task is to empathize with, maintain calm, and avoid passing judgment on customers despite their imperfections. Consider the following: "What will demonstrate to this person that I am willing to meet them where they are?" 3 core customer psychological techniques 3 Core Psychological Techniques Leverage Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Everybody is familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Demands, which states that you should cater to your consumers' physiological, safety, social, self-esteem, and self-actualization needs. This motivates your customer service representatives to expedite customers' journeys until they become brand ambassadors. However, Clayton Alderfer established a complete model, the ERG Theory, in which customer demands are classified as follows: Existence - When a consumer seeks a simple solution to a simple problem, they have several possibilities. One technique might be to simply differentiate the brand's offers to demonstrate how the brand's products are more beneficial in resolving the consumer's pain points. The objective is to differentiate and demonstrate the brand's solution's effectiveness. Relatedness - This relates to the need to preserve critical interpersonal ties. Once the brand has earned the consumer's trust, they can share their great experience with their friends and family on social media or leave a positive review on a public channel. To reach this stage, the consumer must have completed at least one successful purchase and had the opportunity to interact with the brand's offers. Growth: The inherent urge for personal growth. At this point, the client is already a brand promoter and has demonstrated this by previous actions. Cross-selling should now be considered if the brand is producing a new product, solving a more significant problem, or cooperating with another brand. Consumers may be beneficial at this stage. Personalize All Communication This is one of the most subtle yet powerful methods of assuring consumers of a brand's dependability. When you meet a child for the first time and address them with a generic title such as kiddo or cute one, you obtain passive and voluntary attention; yet, when you manage them by their first name, you immediately gain their attention is a natural reflexive action. Being addressed by our first name creates the idea that we are being contacted by a friend. And there is scientific evidence that this phenomenon exists: Businesses can improve income by up to 760 percent when they use tailored email campaigns. 73% of consumers appreciate businesses that use data to tailor their purchasing experiences. According to research conducted by the University of Southern California, 85 percent of millennials are more likely to acquire a product that has been customized to their preferences. One way to accomplish this is through chatbots, which have established a unique channel for individuals who are naturally receptive to messengers. With growing messaging on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, the natural response to chat-boxes is to reply. As a result, incorporating chatbots onto the home page might be highly beneficial. The Halo Effect It has been said correctly that the first impression is the last impression. While a brand with a big PR spend may be able to rehabilitate itself, not every firm can. That is why it is preferable to have a pleasant first connection between the brand and the customer, as this will pay dividends in the long run. The Halo Effect is a psychological phenomenon that states that when a person has a favorable initial impression of a business, that person will have a favorable view of future interactions with the firm as well. This good perception can be fostered in a variety of ways – by delivering single-click solutions to first-time consumers, by providing essential freebies, by showcasing your credentials, and even by sharing your recommendations, since all of these can have a cumulative effect. In Conclusion Customer service psychology should guide your marketing strategy and, indeed, your entire organization. Understanding others and communicating their demands impacts marketing, sales, product development, and even your executive departments' decision-making processes. Acquire the ability to listen to customers. Allow them to talk, and when you do, speak to them with respect, understanding that by using "positive words," you will generate pleasant feelings. JetRuby has developed a technological flow with one core priority: understanding how your digital product can be correctly developed to avoid such complications. The very first step of our technological development flow is called a Product Development Strategy. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours! ### International Startup Expansion: All you wanted to know You've probably seen that current businesses' income has been continuously increasing, owing in part to increased demand from international markets. To capitalize on these potentially lucrative markets, one might consider foreign startup expansion, as many have already taken the leap and reaped the rewards of diversification. However, how prepared are you to leave your comfort zone, a process that is both difficult and dynamic? To answer this question, we did some research and now want to share with you the results, which might amaze both young and experienced entrepreneurs. Why do you need to make a startup expansion? Why do you need to expand your startup? Having a successful company is not difficult because it can be accomplished with a few simple steps, but knowing how to retain that image in the market and extend it is critical. You cannot rely on the items created in your startups indefinitely. Development is a need in the modern era, and you should develop your business in numerous ways. The most critical thing you can do is to expand your startup but in a more efficient manner. You should improve your items’ quality and thus create two distinct sorts, one in the current version and another in the old style. Additionally, you might have additional locations for your business to ensure that everyone knows about you. You can create online websites for your business, or if you already have one, you can expand it so that it attracts more visitors and educates them about you and your products. There are numerous approaches to expand a company to have a profitable firm ultimately and remain at the pinnacle of success. However, the expansion you are planning should be done correctly, which means that the companies and consultants you hire should be the best. Things to consider when implementing startup expansion What are the steps in startup expansion? Identifying a Value Proposition Your value proposition communicates to customers how your products and services benefit them. This accelerates your firm’s growth by educating your target audience about the value of each product or service you offer. Additionally, it assists consumers in differentiating your business from the competition. Even if you have already established a local business, created your brand statement, and cleared out your UVP, you need to do all of this again, with a bigger inclement towards your UVP. Since most, if not all of your targeted customers will be definitely different, so does your UVP have to be changed accordingly. Developing a value proposition is also critical for attracting investors to your firm. It will assist them in comprehending how your product fits into your clients’ lives and is thus relevant. They'll also consider the duration of your target audience's requirement for your product and will search for ideas that address long-term issues for people and have the potential to be marketed for years. Intellectual property (IP) A business's intellectual property (IP) portfolio includes trademarks, patents, design rights, logos, inventions, and trade secrets, among other things. Having intellectual property gives startups a competitive edge and establishes a distinct identity, product, and service that customers will recognize. As a result, entrepreneurs must register their trademarks and other forms of intellectual property before establishing operations on foreign soil. This protects a brand's unique identity and safeguards against potential IP infringement lawsuits and prevents other businesses from exploiting the same IP. Data protection laws Consumers have been more hesitant to share their data in recent years, and nations throughout the world have enacted stringent data protection regulations to protect consumer privacy and prevent data misuse. As a result, it has become increasingly critical for startups to research potential markets and their data privacy rules before expanding to estimate operational costs appropriately. Certain countries, for example, have rigorous regulations regarding the types of data that may be gathered, how they may be used, and for what reasons, as well as how and where they may be stored. For instance, China demands that specific sensitive data generated and gathered within the country be physically and exclusively retained within the country's borders. Taxation While the rate of taxation varies by country, all tax authorities share a common goal: to increase payments from enterprises operating inside their borders. Therefore, tax law compliance is a critical component of due diligence before entering a new market. Occasionally, certain international agreements between countries seek to promote commerce by reducing businesses' tax requirements. Thus, startups can investigate countries with similar deals with their home market to avoid paying high taxes. Additionally, startups can examine tax structure options to see whether they can lower their tax liability. Further, startups should get familiar with local payroll tax rules to ensure compliance. Product and service liability Complaints about products and services can significantly concern companies that have not thoroughly evaluated the documentation and rules governing consumer goods in a new market. Startups must thoroughly vet all information and claims on their website, brochures, and promotional materials. The goal is to guarantee that consumers are informed on all aspects of a product or service, including usage guidelines, warranties, product installation instructions, and any risks. Due diligence can be an effective preventative measure for companies, shielding them from lawsuits and punitive damages. Additionally, startups may consider insurance plans to cover potential liabilities arising from a product or service-related disputes. Additionally, certain nations have enacted legislation requiring the disclosure of particular product-related information, failure to comply can result in severe penalties. In India, for example, eCommerce websites must now clearly indicate the nation of origin of products offered for sale online. Laws governing international sales contracts International sales contracts must be signed by startups to engage with commercial agents or distributors or sell directly to clients. Properly prepared sales contracts define the conditions of the sale, identify the applicable laws, establish the means of resolving disputes – litigation or arbitration – and provide for indemnity in the event of contract termination. Carefully drafting these contracts ensures that all parties understand their duties and responsibilities and helps avoid penalties or compensation demands in the event of a dispute. Sales contracts must typically correspond to local legislation, and companies may be legally compelled to convert them into the local language in the event of sales agreements with end-users. Nevertheless, this is a prudent measure regardless of its legality, as it will clarify matters for consumers and help avoid future complaints and penalties. In Conclusion While the previously mentioned factors are not exhaustive, they provide a good overview of the fundamental legal issues that must be considered when entering international markets. While expanding, it is prudent to consult with local legal advice to establish a thorough grasp of local laws and legal duties applicable to startups and the associated expenses and impact on the company and income. However, let’s say you’re entirely new to this, and you suddenly get overwhelmed by the number of things you need to consider for the startup expansion. More than that, you don’t know how you can get the most effective result out of investing so much money from product development, then what? We understood this problem early on when we were managing most of our startup clients, and for that reason, we created a Product Development Strategy Session. Your digital product idea will be assessed, and our business experts will adjust your current development flow. All of this while producing a ballpark estimate with your product development process, just so that you can get the most effective results out of your business idea. Leave your project details today, and we’ll contact you within 24 hours. ### Major Ethical Marketing Issues & Consequences Ethical concerns in marketing develop as a result of disagreements and lack of agreement on certain subjects. Different parties for various marketing transactions have certain expectations about how commercial connections will develop and how certain transactions will be carried out. Each marketing concept raises unique ethical concerns. For that reason, our marketing team took an opportunity and made this article specifically for you. Let’s uncover the real roots of ethical marketing issues and make them obvious for every single person out there. However, before we tell you all of that, let’s start with the basics. What is ethical marketing? What is ethical marketing? Ethical marketing is a term that refers to how businesses sell their products or services not just for the benefit of the customer, but also for the benefit of social and environmental concerns. Its objective is to develop long-term customer-brand partnerships based on common values and objectives. Additionally, you might conceive of ethical marketing as the application of ethics to the marketing process. Businesses can accomplish this by thoroughly studying marketing challenges via a moral lens. This includes developing transparent and trustworthy marketing campaigns and content, supporting ethically worthwhile causes, and continually making morally correct corporate decisions. Businesses, large or small, that grasp the power of social responsibility cannot only attract clients but also make substantial contributions to society. What are the main ethical issues in Marketing? Market Research Ethical Problems Invasion of privacy and stereotyping are two ethical issues that arise in market research. The latter happens as a result of the fact that any examination of real target audience groups requires approximations and grouping of individuals. However, if stereotyping is used carelessly, it can result in a range of ethically questionable outcomes. Ethics in Advertising and Promotion As an example, in the early years of businesses' existence, particularly in the 1940s and 1950s, tobacco was promoted as a product that promoted health. As of right now, the law has deemed an advertisement that does not adhere to ethical norms to be a moral violator. So, as we can see, the things that everyone is working on in the old marketing time, now do not seem valid whatsoever. For that reason, here are a few tips that unveil a much bigger picture. When it comes to ethical concerns over commercial content, sexuality is a key source of contention. Violence is also a significant ethical concern in advertising, particularly in cases when the content should not be viewed by children. Certain sorts of advertising may insult certain groups of people even while they are highly relevant to others. Female hygiene items, as well as hemorrhoid and constipation medications, serve as excellent examples. While condom commercials are critical for AIDS prevention, they are occasionally viewed by some as a means of promoting promiscuity, which is fiercely forbidden in certain societies. A negative advertising policy enables the marketer to emphasize numerous shortcomings of competitors' products rather than emphasizing the inherent benefits of their own products or services. Political advertising is rife with such policies. Deceptive Marketing Policies Deceptive marketing policies are not limited to a certain market segment or demographic, and they frequently go unnoticed by the public. There are several false marketing techniques. It can be delivered to consumers in a variety of ways; one of them is through the use of humor. Humor provides an escape or comfort from a variety of human limits, and some advertisers may use this by utilizing misleading advertising strategies to promote a product that may hurt or alleviate the constraints. Anti-Competitive Tactics Numerous strategies are anti-competitive. For instance, bait and switch is a sort of fraud in which clients are "baited" with advertisements for low-cost items or services; however, the promised good is unavailable in reality, and the customers are "switched" to a more expensive product that was not intended in the commercials. Planned obsolescence is another form of anti-competitive policy. It is a technique for developing a product with a finite useful life. After a particular amount of time, it will become obsolete or out of style, allowing the consumer to acquire another product. Additionally, a pyramid scheme is an anti-competitive procedure. It is a non-sustainable business strategy that offers participants payment or services in exchange for enrolling others; it does not provide real investment opportunities or sell items or services to the general market. This type of business approach requires the first investor or "captain" to recruit further members for a price, who in turn recruit additional members to be compensated by the company. What are the consequences of these main ethical marketing issues? Ethical Marketing issues consequences Perpetuating Hurtful Stereotypes Marketing efforts frequently represent specific groups in traditional positions, such as washing powder advertising depicting women as housewives busy with laundry, or do-it-yourself advertisements that rarely depict anybody other than men as "handy." Additionally, while much commercial marketing creates the stereotyped idea that possessing an excess of belongings will result in fulfillment and pleasure, the underlying message is that the consumer will be excluded from the happy group if he does not purchase the product. Using Subliminal Messaging Subliminal messages embedded in marketing materials are used to alter the consumer's thinking. Subliminal advertising may be prohibited depending on how it is conducted. Advertisers can deliver positive subliminal signals that do not violate ethical boundaries by utilizing pleasant imagery, familiar music, and other messages that make consumers feel good. Learning how to employ subliminal messaging effectively while adhering to ethical guidelines can help you raise your sales. Exploiting Social Paradigms Certain groups may find certain forms of marketing offensive due to cultural and ethnic sensitivity. For instance, advertising for a luxury car that portrays the driver as a man capable of charming an attractive woman conveys several potentially offensive societal remarks. These include the notion that a woman is exclusively concerned with financial success, the notion that a guy requires a luxury car to attract the woman of his dreams, and the promise that if the customer purchases such a car, he would instantly become desirable. Manipulating Vulnerable Audiences Similar to how the inclusion of racial or ethnic groups in advertising might serve to stereotype them, the exclusion of these groups from marketing in a multiethnic society can result in image and identity issues for those who are excluded. Marketing to children, in particular, has the potential of exposing ethical issues in marketing. The marketing of fast food and unhealthy snacks to children may cause them to refuse to eat anything else, resulting in childhood obesity. Post-Purchase Dissonance Often, what you see is not what you receive. Post-purchase dissonance arises when a buyer purchases anything by mail order and discovers that the quality falls short of his expectations upon receipt of the products. He can typically return the merchandise for a refund, but the marketer is banking on the fact that returning the item and incurring postal and insurance costs would deter purchasers. In Conclusion Ethical marketing should be built on a foundation of trust with a business's customers. This can be accomplished in the following ways: Transparency - Businesses may earn their customers' trust by being transparent about their manufacturing, employment, and environmental practices. Social awareness - To succeed in ethical marketing, a business must demonstrate a strong commitment to a certain social or environmental concern. Agent of change - Identifying a cause is only the beginning. Successful ethical marketing requires a company to demonstrate tangible effort and change to its customers—through data, narrative, and persistent outreach. Customers are more inclined to support a business when they believe in its commercial decisions, can identify with its moral ideals, and witness tangible good deeds done in the world. And that’s just only the basics of ethical marketing issues and their prevention on practice. However, let’s say you are completely new to marketing and you don’t know a thing, how exactly can you find a partner who can assist you with it? Furthermore, how will you know where and why your startup product should be developed according to the correct development principles (that do include marketing aspects too)? If you have stumbled across such a thing, then our service is just for you. For the past 10 years, the JetRuby team has developed a specific product development technology, called a Product Development Strategy. Which is a first step towards the construction of your potential MVP. During this free business consultation, our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development life cycle and an action plan with high-level features. So, if you are an entrepreneur who is looking for a correct methodology and wants to understand his project development process, then leave us your project description. We’ll contact you within 24 hours after our experts receive your inquiry. ### 8 Circular Startups that change the economy! Despite the difficulties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing economic instability, new startups are launched daily. We combined the 8 most outstanding and worthful circular startups that you should watch out for. All of them have generated new ideas, from plastic recycling to re-mining and battery reuse. What is a circular economy? What are the examples of circular startups? Traditionally, a product is manufactured and the waste, including the packaging, is discarded after use. The circular economy, on the other hand, means that nothing is thrown away but is either reused or built to prevent waste. Numerous startups have incorporated the circular economy into their business models to realize the circular economy. Home spring Homespring is a website that provides furniture-as-a-service to the Millennial generation. It provides subscriptions for designer furniture, allowing users to turn any payment made into an installment if they wish to keep the furniture. Notably, the gross amount would not exceed the retail price at which the item is sold. Among the benefits of choosing Homespring are free home delivery and assembly, increased flexibility, and a fast turnaround time of usually less than a week. Grover Grover is a subscription-based technology rental platform that enables you to rent technology devices for as long as you want (a minimum of one month) rather than purchasing a new one. Its mission is to reduce e-waste and integrate sustainability into everyday life at an affordable price. You can rent over 2,000 tech items across ten categories, and if your gadget fails, Grover covers 90 percent of the cost of repairs with no deposit required and no secret fees. Since its inception in 2015, the business has grown to 84 employees and over 200,000 registered users across Germany. To date, the startup has raised €62 million. VerdraaidGoed VerdraaidGoed, based in Rotterdam, promotes a circular economy by specializing in product design from residual content, social employment, material value preservation, and cycle closure. It participates in a variety of activities, including transforming roadside emergency phones into charging stations for electric cars, converting misprints into notebooks, and repurposing old clothes as office decoration products. Graapz Graapz, a French startup founded in July 2017, assists local businesses in reselling fruit and vegetables that have been removed from shelves due to lack of freshness or for aesthetic reasons. Graapz created an adapted offer to allow merchants to sell surplus goods at discounted rates on a web platform after noticing that few options existed to increase the value of these fragile products and in amounts too small to be recovered by charities. Last November, Phenix, a company specializing in the recycling of unsold products and the elimination of corporate waste, announced a €15 million fundraising drive to expand its international expansion and reach a broader audience through the introduction of a direct-to-consumer deal. It recently acquired Graapz, a specialist in the revaluation of unsold fruit and vegetables, to expand its private consumer offering. The Ocean Cleanup The Ocean Cleanup is a socially conscious organization that has developed a passive plastic collection technology. This startup collects plastic from bodies of water by using ocean currents. According to the firm, its technology is one of the most significant achievements in the process of ocean cleaning. The Ocean Cleanup asserts that it would have a profound effect on the climate. Phoenix Tailings Phoenix Tailings is a startup based in the United States that sells re-mined materials. The startup's patented re-mining technology recovers high-quality metal from mine tailings, significantly lowering production costs. It manufactures aluminum, alumina, iron, titanium, titania, silica, and rare earth metals for a variety of industries, including automotive, medical technology, and chemicals. The startup's operation generates no waste or carbon emissions and thus facilitates the transition to a circular economy. Aeropowder Aeropowder is a London-based startup that develops novel materials from surplus feathers. Their mission is to repurpose waste from society. Per day, we consume over 134 million chickens, and the poultry industry produces over 10,000 tons of feathers, which are discarded. As a result, there is a sizable demand for feathers used in a circular economy. Feathers are made of keratin, a protein that is chemically resistant and physically solid. They are one of the lightest natural fibers and also excellent thermal insulators due to their microscopic structure. The business was founded in 2016 and has raised €50,000 through a Horizon 2020 grant. Circlely Circlely is a French startup that is building a website for product reference. Distributors and retailers can use the platform to sell end-of-life goods through local omnichannel distribution. It digitizes product data to connect it with consumers and social networks on a local level. The startup promotes a circular economy by reducing manufacturing waste and redistributing unsold goods locally. Want to build your circular startup? Perhaps after reading and analyzing some of the most promising examples of circular startups, you've come up with your own idea? Perhaps you've discovered the ideal niche for your circular startup and are now prepared to embark on your journey? Then act quickly, as opportunities to win narrow market spaces present themselves unexpectedly, and you must be among the first to seize them. And treat each move as an adventure while carefully planning your way through the dense forest of your first business venture. However, what if you're totally unfamiliar with it and have no idea who can assist you? Or you have no idea what the product would cost or how to test it? In that case, we can provide a direct specificity of your product development process. Over the past 10+ years, we have been involved in numerous circular startups and entrepreneurs that have been actively engaged in developing unique digital products. All of them have been successfully raised to a solid stage when they can efficiently labor productive results. How did they accomplish that with us? Everything has begun with our technological flow or, more precisely, with the Product Development Strategy Session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours. ### Why your startup needs a mobile app development company and not freelancers  One of the greatest issues startup founders deal with when it comes to getting their mobile application developed is whether they need to choose to hire a freelancer or a mobile app development company. The benefits of hiring a mobile app development company let you have the interest of a group of professionals that consist of business developers, supervisors, designers, developers, and more. Did you know that code itself has no value? For more info, check this page: https://jetruby.com/product-development-strategy/ A mobile development company offers efficient full-cycle management, unlike the freelance app developers who are just the single specialists who work remotely and solely without guidance and supervision. If you are considering hiring a freelancer for app development we as a mobile application development would like to give you a deep understanding of this issue.   App development companies are better for huge projects Hiring an app application development agency is the best alternative besides dealing with freelancers. An app development company and its committed assets and profitable experiences pursue the mobile application development process with a verified method of attempted and tried methodology. They extensively put initiatives on examining the customer’s prerequisites and properly direct them regarding the administration they provide during their meetings. Alongside an excellent mobile application development company, you will obtain all the additional benefits needed to specialize in the purpose of task fulfillment genuinely. Every single requirement for planners, designers, engineers, and also analyzers who work coherently. An additional essential advantage of employing a mobile application development agency is that face that you get to obtain a large scope of evaluation from expert management, organization counselors as well as business analysts besides the numerous with an assessment to aftercare administrations.   Financial limit well-disposed Another crucial benefit of employing a mobile app development company is that you get to pay for the work you pass it over to them. They might charge you on an hourly, week by week, or month to month basis. While the cost of getting an application developed by a freelance developer is a little higher, the general terms of dependability and significant serenity you avail of from the best mobile app development services are fairly undeniable.    Have an idea and want to develop an app without wasting time and money? If what you’ve read is just like that, then JetRuby has something for you. As we’ve been on the digital market for more than 10 years with lots of startups, we felt their anxiety and doubts during the development cycle. For that reason, we have developed a technological flow that can potentially cast all of your worries away, and it starts from the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation where your team and ours will create a general plan covering the future product cycle and an action plan with high-level features for your first steps. Got interested already? Leave your short project description, and we’ll be in contact with you within 24 hours.   Mobile App agency ensures tuned work processes Hiring a mobile application development company allows you to supervise your work in a tuned manner. People working intently or even straightforwardly on their tasks can use an extraordinary and classy response to your development queries. Throughout the hour of doing into a contract with the mobile app developers, you are guaranteed the nonstop supply of specialized help for each and every as well as to inquire belongs to every single discipline. Freelance mobile app developers are unable to offer such benefits or solutions.   Mobile App development companies provide less lawful issues Web development can be an actually difficult process if lots of people are working with each other. The risks of misstatement and also other lawful issues (like HIPAA compliance) always comply with. Employing the administrations of a reputed mobile application development company helps to lower the chances of any genuine concerns that might negatively affect your application. App development agencies revolve around the authorized company materials as well as aid you supply the safety and also stability and also a general feeling of lawful company serenity. As soon as your mobile app developers suggest the principles of the understanding market to you, you don't fall at the risk of obtaining duped. Freelancers: They can disappear When working with a freelance app developer you work with a person that trades their individual time with money. When they do this, the minimal investment is from their end, neither do they have a framework nor a team on the stake. If the freelance mobile developer gets bored or finds a better-paying customer, takes place a holiday, gets ill, or just decided to withdraw, he will simply leave your business out in the cold. If the freelancers are not very professional, they can simply stop a relationship without any warnings.    Backing and Maintenance Independent developers need to be highly specific about the coordination as they are able to complete the other teammates should quickly anticipate in order to create an excellent supply chain. Such perks do not come along with the support of freelancer developers for they don't stick around during the maintenance and also further works of maintenance of the application. So it is a total possibility that while incorporating the complex performances on your app, your code will definitely come across some bugs and also at which point you require to have someone in any way times to perform the fixes, or else you could be compromising with important hrs of operation. Mobile app development companies proficient at their job do not simply develop mobile applications however, keep up as well as obtain more subsequent businesses for their clients. For them, a long-haul connection does not just indicate a new venture in advancement but steady support of current items, updates, and any other bug repairs that can include in your added usefulness.   Time Management Hiring a freelancer is a very time-consuming process. You will certainly have a lot of choices and this is the foremost issue. When you upload a job requirement, prepare yourself to be bombarded with numerous automatic returns to submissions. And when you shortlist some of the choices you obtain confused between special experience vs finest rating. Working with a freelance can be an extremely tiresome procedure and involves the burden of a lot of choices with the primary issues. Whenever you post-occupation of necessity you should be prepared to be assaulted with plenty of set continued entrances that comply with. So at the same time, you could have a waiting list of choices waiting to be addressed and you could obtain bewildered between a kind experience versus ideal assessments. In contrast to freelancers, you can without much of an effort find the most reputable and also trustworthy mobile app development company for your mobile app idea in a span of a couple of hrs.   New Technologies and Industry Trends Most of the freelancers in the marketplace are not aware of the new edgy upcoming modern technologies and trends and do not recognize the "Who's who" in the market to network properly. As there's nobody to them that to take note of, they require to do that on your own. There is always change happening in the industry and most mobile application freelancer developers learn about a single technology or system and try to run their life on it. Since new technologies are developing with the changing time, the professional agency can provide today’s modern solutions that freelancers might fail to do so. Companies are always knowledgeable about what all is happening in the market in order to stay in the business.   Key Points to Consider Before Partnering with an Agency Identify the goals of your mobile app This consists of identifying the needs and solutions of your mobile application development. For this, you can ask these questions to your development team. What do you want from your new mobile app? What uniqueness does your app have in order to be effective Who is your target audience Outlining your demands plainly can help the agency to pitch and develop a relevant proposal. 2. Decide who should be in charge of communication Planning an internal communication process will keep your team focused and foster efficient task progression. So, appoint a Project manager that keeps all the founder's decisions align and also keeps eyes on the day-to-day progress. 3. Define what kind of project maintenance is needed If you do not have a specialist to handle your mobile app in the long term. Then, talk to your agency about the type of maintenance that they can supply. Failing to do so can cause missed out on chances after launching your app. 4. Developing a realistic budget takes experience When establishing a budget for your mobile application development, it is very important that you make up every stage, technological and human resources required for the development of your concept. Partnering with an Agency might sound daunting if your company has actually never done that previously. However, by laying the correct groundwork you can guarantee a fulfilling and productive collaboration.   Conclusion: The underlined points were a few of the essential benefits of enlisting a mobile app development company. So on the off chance that you could be considering getting a mobile application developed for your business as well as desire the most effective solutions its time you connect to a decent mobile application development company that has the ability to ensure you top quality products that has a solid and showed past as well as comprehend to the requirements of al your needs.   Need a tech mentor and app developer for your startup? Want to find a great startup mentor to help you with specific issues? We here in Jetruby will help get your startup or side project where it needs to be. We have developed a technological flow that most of our clients undergo during the past 10 years of constant collaboration and cooperation with various startups. The first one of which is called a Product Development Strategy session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours!   ### 7 Useful tips when developing your first mobile app Developing a mobile application is like starting a new business. And just like running a business, there is no strict sequence of steps that will certainly let you be efficient. Every company venture is unique, as well as every mobile app development story will certainly be slightly various from the others. However keeping that stated, you can still implement several of the very same successful approaches that previous developers made use of to your very own app. Building an app is complicated, specifically if you don't learn from the lessons of that businessman who have actually come before you. As an industry expert who developed apps that have become a successful business, we are very familiar with the process. We know what it takes to be successful and what mistakes you should avoid in order to not fail. While there still isn't a definitive black and white guide to building an application, we have actually narrowed down the procedure to 7 regulations that can significantly improve your possibilities of succeeding. Here’s what you need to know. 90% of app startups fail, so develop a serious development approach  People that have an existing business have a benefit when it comes to mobile app development since they currently have clients that they can market to. Yet if you're developing an app as a startup, there are plenty of reasons why it could fail. Don't get us wrong, we are not stating that releasing an app as an extension or tool of your present business is foolproof. There's still plenty that can fail in those situations as well. There are many situations like that that take place. However, most of those circumstances involved people that weren't taking the procedure seriously. You can't go into this with a half-hearted attitude. Putting your best effort ahead is an outright need if you intend to be successful. Applications take a very long time to develop. If you're not on top of it every day attempting to make points go as smooth and quick as possible, it's going to cost you a lot of frustrations and also even more money. Assuming that app development could be like a hobby or side project for you is a really common misconception. Thus, developing an app requires being on top of your priority listing, especially throughout the development stages. So if you're focusing on other businesses or personal matters, the longer it will take you to create a high-quality piece of code. Sure, not everyone has unlimited spare time in their day. But depending on just how much time you agree to place in will greatly rely on just how you select to establish it. You can do it yourself by learning to code, which you can do in less than 30 days. Employing a skilled developer or company to place it together is another viable option. There are risks and benefits to each of these options. But you, and also only you can determine which option fits you the best. Whatever you choose, just make certain you're not taking the process lightly. Come up with something unique Nowadays the app market is incredibly crowded and competitive. And it's becoming much more so daily. How do you expect to conquer the market which is so saturated? In order to succeed, you need to find your own way to attract attention from the crowd. The reality is that not every person is going to release an app that's as popular as Instagram or Snapchat. There are still plenty of other apps on the market that are making lots of money. Yet they have the ability to achieve this because they have found a way to let users become their customers. If you want to develop a buzz, you have should make people interested. So how do you plan to produce a profit from this venture? Several of the common money monetization techniques include: charge per download Embedded ads in-app purchases eCommerce store Subscriptions Whichever method or strategies you're intending to use, it's all about encouraging people to download and install the app. If you intend to get downloads, you need to offer something that users can't obtain anywhere else. Why else would customers download your app when there more than 2 million other alternatives to pick from? While you will not necessarily be competing with each and every single app offered on the market, it's incredibly most likely that whatever you're doing has been done prior to. We'll run under the assumption that your app has similar attributes and also features to various other applications available for download. Can we accept this fact? In order to get downloads, you'll need to offer a better version of this concept than your competitors. Producing something special does not constantly imply it needs to be brand-new. Just make small tweaks as well as adjustments that improve the user’s experience. Have a great idea but don't know where to start? Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! Design your app for maximum growth  If you assume that you're going to release an initial version of your app and relax, you're sadly mistaken. Sure, you can do this, however, your app will not prosper and will likely fail. Your app is going to require regular maintenance, which isn't constantly cheap. To save you money and time, you should preemptively develop for adjustment. Your app needs to be able to grow and adapt to the market problems as well as user experience. Having as much code and ideas that you can reuse or fix will let you avoid many problems. No app is perfect. Yours will not be either. It's going to have some bugs and other issues, which require updates or improvements. So it's much easier to be prepared for those circumstances than attempting to fix the bugs after the app has been released, which is triggering customers to leave it. So do not put yourself in a losing position when you're developing. If you are not going to code by yourself and considering a hire an app development agency, make sure that whoever you employ recognizes that you wish to have the ability to make updates often. In a perfect world, whoever establishes and also codes the application will certainly additionally provide the maintenance services. However, that's not always the case. So you wish to make certain that the developer does not overcomplicate the coding language or development process. The way whoever works in the future will not have to face an uphill learning contour to determine what's taking place. Built the right team This recommendation follows from the last point. You want to work with the right people for the long term. Don't think about saving money over the following couple of months. Think lasting. Building a team that has the same vision, mindset, and also concept values as you is going to make this process a lot easier. We do not recommend developing an app all by yourself. It's possible, however, it's not realistic. There aren't enough hours in the day, and there are too many roles for one person to handle it alone. We suggest hiring a technical expert right from the beginning. If you do not have a tech background, it may be difficult for you to determine the expertise of developers. While a technical advisor can help you to find the right specialists.  Like any business, you'll come across a couple of advancement agencies that are not always decent and necessarily ethical.  Read more: https://jetruby.com/blog/how-to-build-or-choose-your-technical-dream-team/ Here's a good example to illustrate our point. Have you ever before bringing your car to a new mechanic for something basic like an oil filter change, only to figure out you need all kinds of another job which requires large amounts of costs? But the only thing you understand about a car is how to put it in drive and back. So you bring it to another mechanic and realize that you don't require any kind of additional job done. The very same goes here. You do not want a company that might offer you a lot of unneeded functions. That's why a technical consultant or startup mentor must be the very first person you employ. Startup mentors with the proper knowledge, vision, and expertise will help your early-stage business to grow effectively. The average tech startup has 5 team members or less. So after you hire an expert on your team, the next step is finding a developer. Look for a developer who is reliable, trustworthy, and also skilled. You want them to have experience, however, you additionally require them to be able to concentrate their initiatives on your application as a priority. If they're working with 20 other projects all at once, the quality of your app is going to endure. Highly likely the same issue might occur while releasing your first app.  Get a free consultation from our experienced business analysts If what you’ve read is just like that, then JetRuby has something for you. As we’ve been on the digital market for more than 10 years with lots of startups, we felt their anxiety and doubts during the development cycle. For that reason, we have developed a technological flow that can potentially cast all of your worries away, and it starts from the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation where your team and ours will create a general plan covering the future product cycle and an action plan with high-level features for your first steps. Got interested already? Leave your short project description, and we’ll be in contact with you within 24 hours. Make proof of concepts Don't start with the full development on the very first day. One of the most crucial parts of developing an application is putting a prototype with each other. Yet a lot of companies neglect this stage. Developing a proof of concept can do wonders for your app. This will certainly assist you to see if your concept can really work from a technical point of view. Think about it as an internship, but for your app. Before a company hires a new employee, they may put him on a trial period to see if he really suits the task. While the specialist might seem a great fit according to his CV, the hiring manager won't in fact understand for sure until he starts to work. Very same opts for your application. Yes, any type of concept can sound excellent in theory. However, it's much better to test it out before you initiate a complete full-time development challenge. Prototypes can help assist you in concretely articulate your technical and business ideas. You can beta test your proof of concept to see exactly how it will respond to the market. If you have a mobile site, you can ask the beta testers to compare their experience in between your app as well as the website. This can help you to improve the app with all of the full features and components. And also, as soon as you see your application in the real world and also really have it in the palm of your hand, you can show it to potential investors. Find investors for startup Once you've obtained your prototype, it's time to pitch your concept to financiers. While more money doesn't equate to a successful app, it definitely makes things a lot easier. If you have not realized it by now, developing an application is expensive. That's simply the truth. Investors can help you secure more funding. Take those funds to boost the high quality and decrease advancement time. You do not want money to be the reason that you require to employ an inferior developer. This goes back to the first regulation we talked about. Taking this process seriously indicates you should not need to resolve it. The fact is that the majority of people can't manage to take the chance of all of their life savings with development prices. That's why investors can help in reducing your individual risk also. With even more money behind your project, you'll have even more time to get arranged as well as focused. All of these variables will help you to succeed. Read more: Optimistic Strategy Of A Solid Business Pitch Develop App Distribution Strategy  As we mentioned above, it's not easy to become popular on the AppStore or Google Store. So you can not rely on that as your sole approach to get downloads. While eventually, yes, people will certainly have to download your application from the shop, there are various other methods you can refer them to it. From a marketing point of view, you require to do whatever you can to be successful in the contour and also your competition. Here are some common techniques: using beta testers using early adopters having a signup for your application Getting downloads is only fifty percent of the battle. Afterward, you need to be sure that people are really using the app. The fact is that most of the applications installed on smartphones are actually not used. Obviously, You don't want your application to belong to that group. So your marketing strategy and also distribution methods will certainly need to focus on the user experience as well as retention in addition to the first purchase. Read more: What’s Missing In Your Startup Marketing Plan? Conclusion App development is a serious and constantly ongoing process that will continue after the initial launch as you receive user feedback and build additional functionality.  With the above list, we have presented you with some of the best tips for developing your first mobile app in 2021. However, you need to know that a lot of startups follow these rules. Even though your business ideas are great, they can't just turn into a successful startup. Your priority is to determine whether the idea you have within you is worth turning into a business. Always remember, it's not an easy task to run a tech startup company, so don't refrain from asking for help. Having someone to guide you is better than failing alone. We at Jetruby help startups build their businesses from scratch, guide them by giving free startup product development consultation, and most importantly, help them achieve financial freedom by developing their idea into a business model. Now that you have these ideas, want to know which one of the tech startups will work for you? Contact us now.   ### 8 Startup Tips that could assist your business You have an idea for a startup, but you're worried that you're not going to make the best of it? Let's be clear: Nothing will ruin your idea faster than delaying the process of turning a business idea into a product. So today we're going to cover some of the core startup tips on how to get started from your concept to the actual implementation and "get real” with your business. Startup Tip #1: Start with the product vision Where do you start your startup? Right from your objectives and goals you want to achieve! Figure out precisely what it is that you want to do. If your startup's vision can't fit into one sentence, you'll have a tough time convincing users that you're doing something worthwhile. Also, without a clearly defined vision, you are deprived of a reference point that helps you make the right strategic and tactical decisions. Here are some of the examples of startups who have a clear vision: Airbnb: creating an open world where everyone can feel at home wherever they are. Basecamp: communication is the foundation of project management. Lyft (Uber-like startup): providing people with pleasant and affordable rides. Startup Tip #2: Develop a strategy Business Strategy You will never achieve goals that you haven't set for yourself. With that being said, innovative startup projects are no different from traditional businesses - they must have goals and a strategy to achieve them. They may change as the project evolves, but it is difficult to guide the team without them. Two types of strategies that are definitely worth paying attention to at the start: business strategy and marketing strategy. You can think about functional strategy later when the product appears, and the need to expand the staff will arise: sales, advertising, PR, HR, etc. There is also a value block related to strategy and answers the question: why are we doing this? This is the vision, mission, and values. Startup Tip #3: Use flexible approaches Sometimes you talk to the founders of a startup, and it turns out that development has been going on for a year or two, but the team has not yet interacted with a single live customer. There are critical cases when several versions of a product have already been designed or even fully assembled, but not a single user has seen them. This is a typical late start problem. To avoid this situation, use agile methodologies. However, a complicated methodology is not required, general principles are more than enough: quick launch of MVP, iterations with obligatory release at the end, constant analytics, communication with the end-users, storing all the ideas and wishes in the backlog, project journal, team discussion of the project status, and further actions. If all this sounds strange and you want to do the project long and quietly according to the usual waterfall or step-by-step model - read some of the books on this list first: "The Lean Startup" Eric Ries. "The JTBD Approach” Startup Tip #4: Offer limited functionalities App Functionalities You are solving a business problem, right? Then one of the startup tips for you to follow is to refuse beautiful things that have nothing to do with your solution! Today's users are willing to choose products with limited but unique functionality (like Snapchat), and services like Facebook are considered boring. Get in the habit of saying no to any suggestion of a new feature. The same goes for feature requests from users. Consider adding it only after it's clear that more and more people are demanding the feature. For example, Twitter didn't start using previews for links until 2015, nine years after its launch. The main danger here lies in the fact that the creation of features often requires some kind of functionality refinement (i.e., other features), which quite quickly turns the product into something complicated and incomprehensible. Startup Tip #5: Examine Similar Market Solutions You are unlikely to be the first to come up with a genius idea that no one else has thought of before, but at the same time, it will make you billions. Most likely, the niche you are about to enter already has competitors. If there are none, it is probably a sign that there is no money in that niche. So, here are a few startup tips that you should follow: Explore topics that are close to you - Try to assess how many clients your competitors have, what free activities they offer, how they organize promotions. Go to a few free webinars and see what questions listeners ask (this is also a great source of insights for an educational product) Pay attention to indirect competitors - For example, if you start an online school where you teach children programming, your indirect competitors will organize art clubs online and other projects that compete for children’s attention. Think about how you will be different from your competitors - How will you improve service or offer customers a service that other companies don't have? It is handy to train in 1-2 projects to see how the "inner kitchen" of an online school is arranged from the inside. Startup Tip #6: Find a co-founder Co-Founder The success of a startup largely depends on its founders - their energy and competence. This is one of the essential startup tips out there. As it is possible to make a startup on your own, but there is a significant risk that you will run out of steam in the middle of the road before you get to the launch. Look for a partner and keep in mind: it is better if it is not relatives or close friends. Starting a business from scratch is not an easy thing to do, and there is a great risk of losing both friends and business. Hence a couple of rules: Choose people as partners with whom you feel comfortable working and communicating. It is good when the co-founders complement each other in skills and personality (for example, one can take care of marketing, and the other - the methodology of teaching and conduct classes). Negotiate all terms "on the shore" - Decide how you divide your profits, what you invest your earnings in, and what you do if one of you wants to leave the startup. It is best to make a contract in which you spell out all the terms of the agreement. Startup Tip #7: Communicate with your clients. Constantly. This is difficult for lots of entrepreneurs, so if you feel that it might end up badly, don’t do it. The main benefit of communicating with customers is that you begin to understand what your customers are thinking, how they feel, and how they use your product. Understanding this is critical to the growth of any business. Even if customer communication had no other benefits, it would still be worth pursuing. But there are other benefits, after all: You'll better understand your customers' type and know what's important to them (it will improve your marketing strategy as a result) You'll turn unsatisfied customers into satisfied ones You'll get feedback and comments that would otherwise go unspoken (and could lead to customer dissatisfaction or even customer abandonment) Startup Tip #8: Focus on a small market niche Focus on small market niche A narrow target audience is exactly what will attract investors to your project. For example, a specialized social network or an informational blog for Russian-speaking doctors. Yes, this limits the potential for scaling the project, but investors will appreciate its feasibility. This one is very practical and solid advice out of all demonstrated startup tips. In Conclusion A lot of startup tips are connected with every development stage and do touch upon your business plan. As well as the general development plan where you indicate all of the features implementations and product a complete application. However, what if you are entirely new to it and don’t really know where you should start but have a deep desire to do it right. How can you surpass this uneasy matter? JetRuby has developed a technological flow with one core priority: understanding how your digital product can be correctly designed to avoid such complications. The very first step of our technological development flow is called a Product Development Strategy. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours! ### 8 Travel Startups to follow in 2021 Last year’s travel industry has been a year of fundraising to "survive" the latest pandemic - assuming every entrepreneur has already had the opportunity to collect funds. Crunchbase's most recent data indicates that both the number of funding rounds and the total dollar amount raised by venture-backed travel startups decreased this year. However, as the adage goes, "in the middle of any tragedy lies an opportunity," and we are convinced that many winners will emerge from the pandemic. We've compiled a list of 8 travel startups that are redefining and changing the travel industry and that we believe are worth monitoring in 2021. Travel Startups List! Airalo It can be aggravating to purchase international data plans while traveling. Buying a local SIM card can be time-consuming, and carriers such as AT&T often charge exorbitant fees for international data use. Airalo, the world's first eSIM shop, is here to change that. Almost all new smartphones have an eSIM, a SIM card that is already integrated into the system. Airalo is an eSIM marketplace that enables smartphone users to purchase temporary mobile data plans while abroad. Airalo's mobile data plans are entirely different from traditional mobile data plans, operating on a local network. Hello Alfred The Hello Alfred is a home management service that simplifies business travelers' lives and residences when they are often on the move. The Hello Alfred app enables city dwellers to centralize laundry, washing, grocery shopping, and pet care so they are never left struggling to complete tasks while in and out of the home. Hello Alfred was founded in 2014 and was named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies. It recently expanded into collaborations with urban buildings that integrate the services from the start. Additionally, the app uses artificial intelligence to learn about users' behaviors and expectations to provide them with a more personalized experience with each purchase. Troop Planning meetings and gatherings have become more complex. Troop compiles thousands of data points, allowing corporate travel managers and meeting planners to make objective destination selections rather than relying on subjective opinion. This travel startup's platform optimizes destination selection based on various factors, including cost, travel time, ease of travel, visa requirements, and carbon footprint. The troop is now adding functions to the surface safety and protection information to resolve the risk component of the equation. Smooss Smooss assists travel companies (particularly airlines) in increasing revenue and improving the customer experience by using custom-built solutions built on top of the reservation systems. At the moment, this travel startup's primary offerings are an upselling tool and a disruption recovery solution. Smooss facilitates effortless rebooking via its universal "Disruption Recovery" approach and a customized revenue opportunity through its Smooss Ancillary Platform. Local Time Local Time addresses the well-being of business travelers and low-impact packaging to effect a cultural change in traveling. The Vancouver-based startup develops driven packs of micronutrients that can be consumed before, during, and after flights to assist business travelers in rebalancing their bodies from the inside out. Not only are their travel-inspired formulas made from organic ingredients, but their packaging is also compostable. The bio-based packaging material, predominantly composed of pulp cellulose, is certified compostable for residential and commercial settings. It is intended to biodegrade naturally and fully if disposed of in a home compost bin, an industrial composting plant, or an open landfill. Local Time is the type of product that can serve as a beacon for those seeking to build a new business travel reality. Business travelers constantly seek ways to feel happier on the road while still being as sustainable as possible with their buying power. Local Time is the type of product that can serve as a lighthouse for those looking to create a new business travel reality. Jayride Jayride is a comparison website that enables you to compare the services of thousands of airport taxi, private transfer, and shuttle bus companies to find the best deal for getting to your destination. Suppose you're traveling from your home to the airport or from the airport to a hotel, another terminal, a residential address, tourist attractions, or a cruise ship terminal. In that case, this is the transfer company that will provide you with pick-up and drop-off services to/from the airport. Jayride has partnered with over 3,000 transportation companies worldwide. This service is available to travelers in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, and Oceania. RubiQ It is a Tel-Aviv-based startup that assists airlines in reducing call center load and streamlining the refund and rebooking processes for passengers. In these instances, automation should be the primary method used to improve the experience for both end-users and airline call centers. Additionally, RubiQ offers Airclues, a white-label mobile solution powered by artificial intelligence. It is constantly updated and enables passengers to track the flight's schedule/status and rebook an alternate flight. Sitata Another corporation works admirably hard to handle disruptions. They have a website for you to use on your mobile. Before departure, travelers receive all necessary health and safety information. Additionally, real-time monitoring is available. Additionally, automatic safety check-ins are present to provide real-time assistance. As a result of the COVID outbreak, airlines are focusing their efforts on improving their services to mitigate trip disruptions. Sitata is an excellent example of this type of startup. In Conclusion After reading this article, we hope you’ll find inspiration and the strength to find the most relevant and helpful travel startups for your trip in 2020 amid the pandemic. These travel startups are beneficial for those who love to travel or those travel startups who are yet to be put on the stage. Suppose you’re one of them, and you are slowly begging to rise with your development process, but due to your inexperience, you are looking at the previous startup failures and are scared that your one will fail miserably too. How can you avoid that? In that case, we can provide a direct specificity of your product development process. Over the past 10+ years, we have been involved in numerous startups and entrepreneurs that have been actively engaged in developing unique digital products. All of them have been successfully raised to a solid stage when they can efficiently labor productive results. How did they accomplish that with us? Everything has begun with our technological flow or, more precisely, with the Product Development Strategy Session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours. ### How to find the perfect tech co-founder for your tech startup Having a strong co-founding team is an important success component for startups. Having the wrong team is amongst the top reasons why startups face failure, in particular at the earliest stages of developing a startup. Without a strong team, the concept will simply stay as that, a concept. However, finding the best co-founder can seem like a long and complex procedure. There are numerous things that business owners require to think about when making the decision of who to begin a company with. Based upon our experience, there are 5 important elements that make a strong co-founding group. However, before you begin searching for someone, you require to ask yourself some crucial questions. Do you require a co-founder? There is no right or incorrect answer here. Lots of unicorns have succeeded with only one founder however in general, a team of 2 or 3 individuals has the very best characteristics essential to run a company. Think how great it is to have someone on your team to share your wins with and have a shoulder to cry on, someone that can match your strengths and balance out your weak points. Founding a company is not a stable journey, it can be a real fight where you need some friendly power that you're not going to get from your employees. Where do I begin Before proceeding to you start the headhunt for the best co-founder, you should start with yourself. First of all, discover your superpowers - things you are proficient at and keen on doing. Then, be brutally truthful with yourself and face your weaknesses. When you identify your strengths and powerlessness, try to find a person who completes you. The ideal co-founder will have the abilities you lack. Having the right state of mind is definitely key when trying to find a co-founder. Discovering a perfect co-founder is all about increasing your luck area. Invest as much time as possible with people talking about your concepts. This is when you see whether the individual has an interest in the same field, whether they can include value to your concept and whether you have the chemistry. If you meet someone with whom you see yourself working, that's great! However don't worry, it's alright to tell them that before you begin working together, you want to fulfill other people and have more thorough conversations relating your ideas. Keep in mind to be open and transparent in your communication. It's clear that you want to exploit all the chances. Just keep in mind that the heads-up for your potential co-founder is important to have a strong and truthful foundation of your relationship. What Is a Tech CoFounder Responsible For? A tech co-founder is not just a developer or a worker with some coding skills. First of all, a tech cofounder is a cofounder - a partner who puts a substantial amount of time and effort into the startup. You need a person with a mix of tech & business background, not a regular coder. A tech cofounder can be responsible for: Managing a development team Shaping the development strategy The project's MVP The concepts’ tech stack Dealing with other business-related tasks Cofounders put a lot into the project and generally request a reasonable amount of equity. If you're starting out and require much support, be ready to part with a substantial amount of equity (as much as 50%). Still, the amount of equity a cofounder gets depends upon the individual you're working with. Here's who can be a tech cofounder: Senior developer. A person with 5+ years of programming experience (consisting of managing a dev team), numerous completed projects, and understands of the industry. CTO. A much-evolved variation of a senior designer. CTOs are more proficient at seeing the full picture, have both company & tech backgrounds. And they used to be great programmers, too. Worth employing if you can manage a tech salary and ready to share a reasonable amount of equity. Already a tech cofounder. The next level after a CTO: they have the same great programs and management skills but are more inverse in the company. Cofounders have a voice in the business and are compensated with equity. Or may you likewise need to compensate your cofounder's time and skills with salary? According to Glassdoor, it'll cost you ~$102,055/ year typically if you reside in the US. In a perfect world, a tech cofounder is an individual you already understand and can trust. Perhaps a school or college pal or a coworker from your previous workplace. But if you have no tech & business-savvy people amongst your youth buddies, that does not suggest you won't find a partner. Need a tech mentor for your startup? Want to find a great startup mentor to help you with specific issues? We here in Jetruby will help get your startup or side project where it needs to be. We have developed a technological flow that most of our clients undergo during the past 10 years of constant collaboration and cooperation with various startups. The first one of which is called a Product Development Strategy session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours!   When to Start Looking for a Tech CoFounder? Let's see the most popular cases when you might need a tech cofounder. You need a Tech Strategy To back your concept up with some real tech method (and even an MVP), you need to be into tech elements. Or find an individual who is. As we've said, a technical cofounder shouldn't be a one-sided programmer. It's rather a partner who comprehends business requirements and can assist construct a tech technique for your startup. Need a Reliable Co-founder The most affordable way to discover a person with a tech background is to cooperate with freelancers. But there's a catch. Though freelancers might be terrific designers, usually, they're more concerned about ending up the task and getting the income than about the item's success. Or they may even quit your job and go quiet forever. A cofounder isn't the guy who does all the tech-related jobs for you. Yep, tech people might do not have marketing or sales skills (that's where you can be beneficial for your partner), however, they should not focus exclusively on tech tasks. Have a Great Concept idea The idea matters a lot. But the concept won't assist your cofounder to pay for rent and groceries, so individuals will not work on a blurred concept that does not inspire them. Or has no genuine background. Tech co-founders have their preferences and won't deal with a project that doesn't match their interests. Specifically when they can have a great wage somewhere in Google or Facebook. If you have trouble with attracting a tech cofounder and no one responds to your idea, start without them. You can work with a CTO or a software dev business for a start: write documentation, create an MVP - something to get individuals thinking about your project. In this case, you must have a basic budget to cover software application development expenses.   Have a great idea but don't know where to start? Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! Get Prepared to Deal with the paperwork Founding a company with cofounders indicates more paperwork and higher risks. Specifically if you're starting a company with a few cofounders and splitting equity becomes a problem. If your startup has a lot of cofounders, you may end up being a victim of jagged partners. A couple of colleagues may unite to topple your position. After the initial financial investment round, your sponsors may take their put on the board of directors, leaving you with even less equity. Anything can happen, so you have to select both tech-founders and investors wisely. Simply to avoid being eliminated from your own task. That's why some individuals prefer to work with CTOs who are regular workers of the company. They don't make life-changing decisions concerning your business, and they're less headache to fire. Where to Look for a Tech CoFounder? Looking for a tech cofounder could take months. Obviously, if you do not have a bunch of tech-savvy good friends with a company background who are ready to action in. There's a bunch of things to check, consisting of cofounders portfolio, know-how in service, and interaction abilities. So to find the ideal individual, you need to spend lots of time and effort. Here are some popular methods to do that. Networking Start with individuals you already understand. It might be your colleagues, school or university friends, and even member of the family. There's an opportunity to discover the ideal person among the people you already understand, and social media networks are excellent for calling them. If you have a large network of individuals on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter, perhaps it's time to look through your contacts. If you do not have a vast network, it's time to fix this - you're going to require social presence quickly enough.   How do I know if this is the best fit? When you finally have a certain person in mind, ask yourself "is this person an energy gainer or energy drainer to me?". Can you see yourself delight in being around this person nearly every day for the next 5 years or more? Do they make you feel stimulated and encouraged or indifferent and slow? Nothing is more important than your chemistry. A lot of teams learn more about each other for many weeks or even months. But you can make things easier by talking through the challenging concerns early on. Are we gonna work weekends for the very first year? Are we gonna take wages? How do we employ individuals? How do we pay them? Are you going to hang out with your kids/partner? What's your motivation to develop a company? Talk through your individual values and your long-lasting vision for your business. The earlier you have the answers to these questions, the better for the future of your company. Besides that, if whatever looks perfect in theory, however, you are still in doubt, listen to your suspicion. It is frequently the very best indicator. We help our founders build strong co-founding teams and validate their business idea As we’ve been on the digital market for more than 10 years with lots of startups, we felt their anxiety and doubts during the development cycle. For that reason, we have developed a technological flow that can potentially cast all of your worries away, and it starts from the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation where your team and ours will create a general plan covering the future product cycle and an action plan with high-level features for your first steps. Got interested already? Leave your short project description, and we’ll be in contact with you within 24 hours. Launch your startup with Jetruby!   ### What is application security, and why 90% of Mobile Apps are vulnerable? Application security is the process of finding, fixing, and preventing security vulnerabilities. Much of this takes place during the development phase. However, it consists of tools and methods to protect apps once they are released. This is ending up being more critical as hackers progressively target applications with their attacks. Application security is getting a lot of attention. Hundreds of tools are used to secure various elements of your applications portfolio, from locking down coding modifications to assessing unintended coding threats, examining file encryption alternatives, and checking permissions, and gain access rights. There are specific tools for mobile apps, network-based apps, and for firewall programs developed especially for web applications. What types of mobile apps can be attacked? Native Apps: These apps are native to a specific platform like iOS or Android. And as they are optimized for a particular platform, they work effectively and offer a better user experience. Nevertheless, due to their structure, it is rather tough to maintain them. Web Apps: These apps work on web-hosted servers. Normally, CSS, HTML5, or Javascript are used for their development. Moreover, these apps can't access much of the native gadget's functionality like contacts, camera, or location. However, as they are open to web servers, prospective security threats are constantly inevitable. Hybrid Apps: these apps consist of a mix of the functions of native and web apps. They can be downloaded from app stores. They can also enjoy device features and at the same time, they depend on HTML and web servers too.   Why 90% of Mobile Apps are vulnerable? The majority of the time, mobile apps have privacy and security gaps in code functionality. Apps are permitted access to more data points than needed and this opens more opportunities for dangerous stars to sniff into the system. Using unapproved APIs and untrusted libraries present comparable problems too. In several instances, an absence of appropriate encryption also exposes delicate user data to hackers. Another typical phenomenon that makes mobile apps more susceptible to attacks is the possibility of reverse engineering. In the later part of the blog site, we will see how it deeply affects the security of mobile apps. But before that, let's analyze the types of attacks that are common when it comes to mobile apps.   All Types of Attacks on mobile apps can be divided into four types: Browser-Based Attacks: Ranging from phishing, clickjacking, and data-caching to man-in-the-middle attacks, browser-based attacks occur over the web servers. In the case of these attacks, hackers inject malicious scripts into app elements that are served via web internet browsers. Phone or SMS Based Attacks: When it comes to phone/SMS attacks, hackers target mobile devices by distributing malware by means of unapproved messages. Moreover, other phone-based attacks like baseband attacks have a place to be. In these attacks, threat actors might gain control over the device's digital baseband processor and manipulate cellular activities. OS-Based Attacks: OS-based attacks aimed at the mobile phone's operating system. Typically, adjustments like Android rooting and iOS jailbreaks lead to these kinds of attacks. Weak passcodes and encryption might also cause these attacks. Application-Based Attacks: In these attacks, hackers utilize the vulnerabilities in the mobile app itself to access private user data. Inappropriate SSL injection, weak encryption, and unwanted authorizations may lead to application-based attacks.   How to Build a Completely Secure Mobile App?  We analyzed how various types of mobile apps are vulnerable to various kinds of attacks. Now, we should take into consideration what must be done in order to prevent such attacks from occurring. According to The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) coding checklist, there are numerous ways of reaching this. Generally, a developer can alleviate most of the security vulnerabilities and effectively maintain mobile app security while coding. The list below highlights some of the secure coding practices which developers need to follow in order to develop an entirely protected mobile app. Nevertheless, despite all these procedures, there is still some margin or error. Luckily, there are some strategies that effectively eliminate the possibility of any remaining mistake. Let us see how.   Have a great App idea but don't know where to start? Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time!   How Code Obfuscation and Remediation Assist in Mobile App Security? Once any app goes public, so does its source code. Being a developer, you would never ever desire any hacker to review your code and begin damaging your application. They might even repackage the app with some malicious code. In order to avoid such problems, use the strategies of code obfuscation and remediation. These 2 techniques keep hackers from reverse engineering your app and understanding your app code. They also erase the possible loopholes in the code to ensure your app's security at all times.   What is Code Obfuscation helps to secure the code? Code obfuscation is merely the approach of modifying the source or machine code in order to make it hard for hackers to check out or understand it. While the performance of the code stays the exact same, obfuscation helps coders in concealing the reasoning and function of the code successfully. Typically, coders use a tool called an Obfuscator to carry out the obfuscation process. It simply transforms the original code into some program that performs the exact same functions however makes it almost difficult for hackers to check out or understand the reasoning of the code. Code obfuscation might likewise be carried out manually. Some standard steps in code obfuscation may consist of: Encrypting some part of, or the whole code. Changing the class or variable names to some unclear labels. Placing some useless or unutilized code to the application binary. Hiding or removing possibly delicate metadata.   How does Code Obfuscation Work? The procedure of code obfuscation includes some basic however trusted techniques. Together they can develop a strong layer of defense and protect your code from attackers. Below you can see some standard obfuscation strategies and also described how they work: Renaming Obfuscation: Renaming obfuscation, as the name suggests, alters the aliases of the key methods and variables. Without modifying the program execution, this strategy makes it harder for any human to understand the customized code. Even if hackers try to analyze the logic of the source code, they may need to be incredibly attentive while looking out for aspects and variable names. The modified names may have specific different calling schemes like a mix of letters, numbers, or even unprintable or invisible signs. This code obfuscation technique is widely used for mobile application security while coding by a majority of Java, Android, iOS and.NET developers. Control Flow Obfuscation: This form of code obfuscation simply entangles the control flow of the application code. In control flow obfuscation, a valid executable logic is produced using the traditional branching, conditional and iterative constructs. But, upon decompilation, the code would yield non-deterministic semantic results. This technique makes it rather hard for the hacker to break the logic of the decompiled code. Nevertheless, utilizing control flow obfuscation might also result in degraded runtime performance Instruction Pattern Change: In this method, the basic compiler guideline patterns are converted into particular various or unclear constructs. Usually, these instructions are suitable for machine languages and map less easily with high-level languages like C# or Java. This strategy is really frequently used throughout short-term variable caching. Using this, overhead transient variables are eliminated from Java or.NET runtimes utilizing their stack-based nature Dummy Code Insertion: Another way of code obfuscation is dummy code insertion where some dummy code is placed into the executable. This insertion does not have any result on the logic or the execution of the program and makes the reverse engineering of the code actually tough. Removal of Unused Code and Metadata: Reducing the number of details that can be extracted from your code might restrict the activities of the opponents. This obfuscation method does the exact same. Here, pieces of unused code, debugging info, and unneeded metadata are eliminated from the source code. Apart from guaranteeing security, this strategy also enhances the runtime performance of the mobile app.   What is Remediation?  As the name suggests, remediation is simply the act of damage control. In mobile app security, remediation basically consists of some reliable techniques that developers can implement to prevent attackers from infiltrating into their apps. Generally, hackers gain insights into a mobile app through reverse engineering. Applying proper remediation techniques will make your app more complex and pose hardships for hackers to crack its code.     How does Remediation Work?  A number of remediation strategies can enhance the complexity of your code and make reverse engineering challenging. Usually, if your app manages high volumes of user data, you must consider applying anti-debug methods. In Android applications, you can do this by utilizing JNI (Java Native Interface). As for iPhone applications, you should prefer writing code portions in low-level C to prevent reverse engineering.  There are other secure code practices as well: Restricting Debuggers A hacker’s ability to engage or disrupt an application's runtime may be decreased by avoiding its attachment to any type of debugger. If this is made sure, an attacker must first figure out the debugging constraints before breaching right into the app to a reduced degree. To add this intricacy to your mobile app, you might carry out several methods. In Android apps, designers ought to set 'android: debuggable="false"' in the application manifest. This would certainly protect against runtime interactions as well as also malware injections. 'PT_DENY_ATTACH' might be utilized when it comes to iOS apps. Trace Checking If you are concerned about mobile application security while coding, you should consider the trace checking technique. It is feasible for a mobile app to inspect whether or not it is being tracked by a debugger or any other debugging device. There are several ways of identifying this, like assessing the moms and dad procedure, checking the return value of 'ptrace attach', contrasting timestamps on various circumstances of the program, examining procedure status flags, or blacklisting debuggers. After looking for debuggers, the app may perform numerous defense activities like alerting the webserver admins or disposing of file encryption type to protect delicate customer information. Conclusion  In the upcoming years, security will play a key role in distinguishes one mobile application from the other. And that is why following secure coding practices focusing on the elements of security becomes a necessity. Before any mobile application goes public, it has to be made sure that it adheres to the fundamental safety demands. Strategic coding methods like obfuscation and remediation also have their own value as they safeguard the core logic and purpose of the application's code. When combined with each other, every one of these coding rules will form an unyielding arsenal that will never allow your mobile app to get hacked.    Want to develop a secure application but don't know who to contact? If what you’ve read is just like that, then JetRuby has something for you. As we’ve been on the digital market for more than 10 years with many startups, we felt their anxiety and doubts regarding security during the development cycle. For that reason, we have developed a technological flow that can potentially cast all of your worries away, and it starts from the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation where your team and ours will create a general plan covering the future product cycle and an action plan with high-level features for your first steps. Got interested already? Leave your short project description, and we’ll be in contact with you within 24 hours.   ### Brainstorming your startup. Step by step guide to brainstorming Suppose you are trying to develop a brilliant new idea for your startup or looking for new ideas to raise more revenue in your existing business. In that case, brainstorming is a great way to generate ideas. In business, brainstorming is often done in groups, and however, even as a solo entrepreneur, you can use brainstorming sessions to generate valuable ideas. Brainstorming has a double benefit: it will not only help you to generate ideas that might not have otherwise been considered, but it can also help you better understand the strengths and weaknesses of your business and where you need to focus your time. There are several brainstorming techniques that you can do on your own that can help you to broaden your horizons to new ideas and strategies for your business. You can use one, several, or all of these techniques to spitballing new ideas. Moreover, in this article, you will find rules for maximizing brainstorming success, as well as helpful tools.   The right questions are the first step to success A simple way to generate new ideas is by answering a question. If you’re looking for a business to start, a question might be asked what business will help you meet your goals. For example, if you dream about travel around the world, your question might be, “What business is flexible and portable enough for me to travel the world?”. If you are thinking about how to attract new clients or customers, a question might be, "What is the one thing my customers or clients want the most?”.   Apply a Mind Map Many successful entrepreneurs have used a mind map. It’s ideal for people who are visual thinkers. You can use different mind map programs for digital devices or just a piece of paper and a pencil. Here are the steps to mind mapping: First, write down a word, question, or image in the center of the page. Add a related word, question, or concept, then connect it to the first word with the line. You can specify as many of these next-level ideas as you want. Continue to develop ideas by adding sub-topics. Draw more lines add words related to the sub-topic. Continue to draw lines with related keywords once new ideas come to you. For example, you’re trying to work towards a startup business development idea. You can have as your center topic “My business startup.” Next, you can have spokes out that include “Business idea,” “Customers” and “Business model.” From your “Customers” spoke, you can have “Target market” spoke. From your “Target market” spoke, you can have a “List of target customers and users” spoke.    Use Word Map A world map is another way to brainstorm things related to your business.  For example, you can write down all the words associated with your business or business goals. If you want to start an IT business, you might write “app development” or “bot development.” For each word, write down related words that come to mind. In our example, you might write “Augmented reality app,” “ tracking app,” and “Uber-like apps.”   SWOT Application If you've written a business plan, most likely, you've already done a SWOT analysis. The SWOT isn’t just valuable for your business plan. It also can serve as a great brainstorming technique. First, scribble a four-square grid by drawing a line vertically down the middle of a paper, then a line across the middle horizontally. Put “Strengths” in the upper left box and the upper right box “Weaknesses.”  In the lower-left box write, “Opportunities,” and in the lower right box, “Threats.” Write down corresponding words, ideas, and concepts that come to your mind in each box. For example, you’re trying to decide if you want to launch a mobile application. Under “Strengths” you can list all the positive aspects of your application idea, as well as your strengths, such as “It’s low cost to start,” “I’m an expert on the topic,” etc. You want to do the same for “Weaknesses,” such as “I’m not tech-savvy,” “It can take time to generate a good income,” etc. Under “Opportunities,” you can specify “There are many ways to generate income from with app,” and under “Threats” you might write, “Lots of competition.” Once you’re done, use your SWOT analysis as input for developing or further refining your Product Development Strategy. It should help you focus on priority goals and initiatives. If you need some guidance with this process, then JetRuby has something for you. As we’ve been on the digital market for more than 10 years with many startups, we felt their anxiety and doubts during the initial launch stage. For that reason, we have developed a technological flow that can potentially cast all of your worries away, and it starts from the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation where your team and ours will create a general plan covering the future product cycle and an action plan with high-level features for your first steps. Got interested already? Leave your short project description, and we’ll be in contact with you within 24 hours.   Read more: How Your Business Can Fail Without Proper Competitor Research   Take a look at your future business through your customer's eyes It's essential to analyze and make decisions from a business owners’ perspective only. The best ideas will be those that resonate and attract clients and customers, and the best way to do that is to take a look at your business through your customer's eyes. Don't think about product features, focus on your customer pain points and how they can be resolved. To do this, you can interview your customers. Working through your marketing, sales, buying, and customer service based on customer feedback will help you generate ideas to make the experience better for them.   Read more: Why Can’t You Skip The Business Plan For Your Startup?   Use Five WS questions  While brainstorming, you’re seeking answers to questions, but sometimes you’re not sure what questions to ask or asking the wrong questions. The 5 Ws conception includes who, what, why, when, where, and how can help you generate ideas to improve your business. You can just list these questions, but you can sketch them similar to a mind map, called a starburst, if you’re a visual person. When starbursting, you draw your main idea in the middle and then connect it with your basic questions of who, what, why, when, where, and how at the end of each point.  Using each of these basic questions, brainstorm more questions related to your main idea. For example, let’s say you want to make money by creating a mobile entertainment app to earn money. You’d put “entertainment app” in the middle. The “How” can contain the questions like “How the entertainment app can be promoted?” In the “Who” section, you can ask, “Who is the ideal user of my application?” Write as many questions to each spoke that come to mind. Once you come up with the right questions, you can generate answers that should lead to ideas and help you focus your development business tasks.   Tools for Brainstorming When it comes to brainstorming, a piece of paper and pen or pencil is all you need. With that said, because it’s a creative endeavor, you need the tools that will help you generate the best ideas in a way that you can assess and use later. Here are a few tools you can use: Brainstorming session notes: Keeping your ideas all in one place is a great way to refer back to previous brainstorming sessions. Then, once you finished the brainstorming session, you can continue to keep notes with you to jot new ideas as they spring to your mind. Pen or pencil:  you can use several pencils of different colors, which can help you sort out and organize your ideas. Mind map apps: There are many mind map apps online that you can use on your devices. Whiteboard or piece of big paper: This is often used in group brainstorming sessions but can be helpful even if you’re alone. Large writing surfaces can help you avoid the constraints of writing in a smaller space. Sticky notes: sticky notes can be easily moved around on a larger surface. The goal of brainstorming is to generate as many different ideas as possible to decide which are best for your purposes. The human brain has a specific feature - it filters, judges, and evaluates arguments. There is a high probability that you will not write down some pictures because you think they are dumb or unattainable. But this is a big mistake. Here are the rules you need to follow to have efficient brainstorming sessions.    Rules for Brainstorming The goal of brainstorming is to generate as many different ideas as possible to decide which are best for your purposes. The human brain has a specific feature - it filters, judges, and evaluates arguments. There is a high probability that you will not write down some pictures because you think they are dumb or unattainable. But this is a big mistake. Here are the rules you need to follow to have efficient brainstorming sessions: Rule number 1. Write down all ideas, whether you like them or not.  Rule number 2. No evaluation. Brainstorming is simply the generation of ideas. Whatever the idea, write it down. Brainstorming is not the time to evaluate ideas. Evaluating ideas comes later.   Validating and Scoring your different Ideas For some thoughts on how you might want to validate or score your different ideas, try the following starting points: Are well suited to this particular opportunity. Do you have some unique domain insight or technological background that makes you uniquely well suited to tackle this opportunity? Is there strong enough customer motivation (pain in the case of a B2B sale) to get the customer to buy and use your product? Market size: are there enough customers that have this strong motivation to make a big company? Competition: are there entrenched competitors who would be hard to dislodge? Does this product truly solve the customer problem (without introducing some new issues in the process of adoption)? Are there substantial barriers to entry that can be sustained over time? (Ideally, the differentiation should be strong enough to allow you to beat significant players who may decide to copy your idea and benefit from their brand, distribution, customer base, etc.) Can you build a viable business model around this idea? (Specifically, is it going to be possible to acquire customers for less money than the profit you can make from selling to them?) How long and how much capital is required to complete the solution? How significant are the risks involved? You may also wish to add your validation/scoring ideas to this list.   Read more: Why Can’t You Skip The Business Plan For Your Startup?   A common problem: Technology without an exact customer It is pretty common to see entrepreneurs with technical backgrounds figure out some very cool new technology and want to start a company around that. They have only one of the two requirements for a successful startup idea. To be successful, they need to get very specific about which customers have pain that this technology can solve. They should then allow those customers’ needs as a group to drive the definition of the product. That is also why so many of the startup schools recommend a team of two founders: one with the business brain to figure out who will buy, what they want to buy, and how they will buy, and the other with the technology brain.   Want to be next on the list of unique ideas but are afraid to choose the correct tech pattern?  Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and call JetRuby today! We are an experienced and professional digital agency that supports and assists various healthcare startups. We guide them through the development process from point A to point B—breaking down every step. Our team discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what’s holding you back? Leave a short description of your unique idea or a project on our first and free development step: Product Development Strategy Session. And we’ll contact you in no time!   ### What is Growth Hacking? Growth is the make-or-break metric for startups; either they grow quickly or whither within 5 years. This is why startups often look for creative, inexpensive, and innovative methods to fast-track their company’s customer base. The main goal, in short, is to acquire as many customers as possible while spending as little as possible. Growth hacking is all about low-cost, creative solutions that help your brand gain new customers and engage with the ones you already have. The term growth hacking was coined back in 2010 by Sean Ellis, the founder and CEO of GrowthHackers, and he also was the first marketer at Dropbox. And he is the author of one of the first and most complete growth hacking book: Hacking Growth: How Today's Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success. With growth hacking, new growth opportunities are explored systematically in any part of the customer journey, from awareness through marketing to brand ambassadors by optimizing the product.   Who is a growth hacker?   A growth hacker is someone who uses these creative, low-cost strategies to help businesses acquire and retain customers. Sometimes growth hackers are called growth marketer, technical marketeer, data-driven marketer, head of growth or VP of Growth. Anyone involved in a product or service, including product managers and engineers, can be a growth hacker. Growth hackers tend to be obsessive, curious and analytical: Growth hackers focus solely on strategies related to growing the business. They hypothesize, prioritize and test innovative growth strategies. They analyze and test to see what’s working. A growth hacker sets the goal above the means; growing his ‘North Star Metric‘ is his main goal, and which channel, technique or tool is used for this is secondary. That is why it is crucial that a growth hacker has a broad set of knowledge and skills. The ideal growth hacker knows how to set growth priorities, identify channels for customer acquisition, measure success, and scale growth. Companies like Uber, TikTok or Shopify have their own VP/ Head of growth and dedicated growth hacking teams.   The differences between Growth hacking and marketing   Many assume that growth hacking and marketing are one and the same.  However, there are subtle yet important differences. Growth hacking, like marketing, has the ultimate goal of customer acquisition or encouraging more people to use a particular product or service. However, because of its start-up community origins, growth hacking relies heavily on optimized tactics such as online automation that don’t involve a big budget that larger businesses have access to. Typically, growth hacking combines marketing and optimized cost-effective automated marketing on a small budget.  For example, automated notification emails, simple sign-up forms or sign-up driven homepages, or streamlining onboarding for new customers. More differences between Growth Hacking and Marketing   A growth hacker focuses on new growth opportunities, while marketers focus on day-to-day marketing and branding.  The Growth hacker focuses on the Entire funnel( AAARRR aka The Pirate funnel), including retention and referral, whereas marketers focus on awareness and acquisition. A growth hacker conducts small data-specific experiments( the G.R.O.W.S experiment), whilst the marketer works on more robust, long-term projects. Growth Hacking is data-driven, while marketing might not be Growth hackers have more technical skills, such as programming, tooling, automation etc. Growth hackers are heavily involved in the product and thus pay more attention to the retention of active customers.   How to start growth hacking   Growth hackers should work fast and independently, as the goal is “to acquire as many customers as possible while spending as little as possible”. To growth hack, you don’t need to be an expert in all the steps involved, but you need to understand the basics to execute the technical skills to hack your growth. To become a growth hacker, you need to know: How to build landing pages How to build websites Design and understand colours, fonts, branding, etc. How to Run ads on channels like AdWords, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Basic HTML and CSS  How to Implement tracking tools like Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Hotjar, etc. And many more concepts/techniques, like app store optimization, conversion rate optimization, growth hacking tools(link to another article?), Artificial Intelligence in marketing, web scraping, chatbots, API’s, etc.   Important rules of thumb Speed > Perfection: It’s better to see quickly if something has potential versus building it from start-to-end, only to find out that you misinterpreted your customer. You see this come back through the experiments and the less-talking-more-doing mentality. Make data-driven decisions:  By using data, you can positively improve your effectiveness. Where to focus your time and resources for the most significant impact? What improvement would bring the most growth based on data from our experiments? Which type of users is most valuable? Always be improving (both in business and personal):  There is always a new bottleneck in your business’s growth to tackle. And in personal terms, you learn to have a high level of “Learnability”: If you don’t know how something works, you just start to Google it to find out. Before you start Ask yourself the following questions: Do I have Product-Market-Fit? If not, focus first on improving your product to have a sizable audience that is enthusiastic about your product. Growth hacking can’t fix a bad product. Check out our Product Development Strategy session, where we will help you with building a good product. Have I set up my analytics? Do I speak to customers regularly? Without data/feedback, you can’t hack growth: You need to know what is slowing down your growth and how best to improve it. Do you have the skills/knowledge to set up some simple growth strategies? Your business won’t grow from just analyzing data or coming up with strategies because nobody knows what will and will not work. You have to execute and grow from there. Also, you might want to check on How to Build a proper MVP.   Examples of Effective Growth Hacking Techniques Automation and repetition are the keys to growth hacking success. Use different software and free tools to help you do your job faster and effectively. See what works and then streamline it.   Abandoned cart emails. If you run an e-commerce business, consider setting up emails to send to users who abandon their shopping cart. Users don’t finish checking out for a variety of reasons, including simple distraction. These cart reminder emails are great for getting shoppers back on track.   Get a niche with social sharing. Naturally, you want to share your content online, and you’ll toss your post to the usual social media gauntlets like Facebook and Twitter. However, there’s so much more you can do. Find a narrow subreddit related to your topic (there’s a subreddit on every subject under the sun) and post there, rather than to larger, more general subreddits. Also, share your stuff on Quora, forums, and in the comments of other blogs (so long as what you’re sharing is relevant to the discussion).    Test everything. Testing is the best way to carve away at your site until it’s a sleek, efficient, and high-performing piece of perfection. Test anything and everything! Some well-known examples of successful growth hacking campaigns include: Dropbox, which rewards existing users for inviting new ones with additional storage Hotmail, which appended a line to each outgoing email encouraging people to sign up for a new account Airbnb, which used Craigslist to find and market to people looking for affordable accommodation   Benefits Of Growth Hacking Provable ROI – By using data to inform every decision you make and tracking the performance of the growth hack accurately, you can easily see which of your growth hacking strategies are performing as you’d hoped and which aren’t. Continue with those that show promise for customer acquisition; discard those that don’t. Low-cost – By its nature, growth hacking is designed to use whatever resources you have in as economical a way as possible. This means using tactics like ensuring landing pages are leveraging SEO best practices to rank highly in search engines for important keywords. Also, writing impactful content such as case studies and then sharing broadly on key social media channels is a great tactic. Extensive and iterative A/B testing can be powerful as well to quickly gather user data. Although the testing process may be fairly lengthy before hitting upon that golden nugget, growth hacking doesn’t have the traditional costs associated with it that other methodologies such as content marketing or advertising do. Low-resources - Growth hacks are often developed and implemented by a single person on the product or engineering team and don't require an entire marketing team to execute.   In conclusion   Growth hacking is an innovative way for startups to fast track their growth. It’s all about quickly testing and validating hypotheses with little resources used. That is why we here at Jetruby created a startup development methodology that allows you to launch and grow your startups fast and efficiently, with the support from our team of experts. Describe your idea, and we will guide you through our quick and free Product Development Strategy session to help you create a roadmap and determine and shape your vision for a successful start.   ### Best Startup Organizational Structure A startup's organizational structure is critical to its performance. This is especially true for the development team, which is a necessary component of any startup. A poor startup organizational structure can result in miscommunication, decreased efficiency, and workflow disruption. As a result, it is critical to invest time and effort into designing the most successful startup organizational structure ever. Below, we have outlined the preferred structure for a young and technological startup. A Common Startup Organizational structure A Common Startup Organizational Structure There are two critical positions in a startup business: the Chief Executive Officer or founders and the Chief Technology Officer. These two important positions of a startup are located at the top of an organizational structure and are responsible for two distinct areas of responsibility. As a result, the development team has been divided into four mini-teams, each with its own set of responsibilities. Below, we'll dissect each of these teams, startup positions, and titles in detail. UX Team A user experience team is a critical component of almost every startup. It is responsible for providing users with the best possible experience through intelligent and aesthetically pleasing design. Additionally, it collaborates with other mini-teams to accomplish the assigned tasks. The UX team in our proposed model will consist of the following startup team members: UX researcher UX designer Frontend developers Team leader Specific individuals may be unfamiliar with the UX researcher position and may be unsure of what it entails or why it is essential. Successful examples such as Airbnb and Google demonstrate the critical role of UX research in ensuring a positive user experience and product performance. As a result, recruiting talented UX researchers will significantly contribute to the success of your startup. A customer experience researcher analyzes user behavior and offers valuable insights based on that behavior. These insights enable the rest of the UX team to create an efficient and successful user experience that users adore. Backend Team Almost everybody in the IT industry knows what a backend team is and what they do. This team is critical to software development as it is responsible for developing the application's core logic and interacting with cloud providers. As well as interacting with the front-end through API Endpoints. The typical startup organizational structure for the backend team is as follows: Team lead Middle stack developers Backend engineers The team lead is responsible for supervising backend developers and coordinating teamwork and workflow. Some readers may wonder why middle-stack developers were included. They significantly contribute to improving the relationship between the frontend and backend developers, as middle stack ones act as the missing link between the two. This enables both front-end and back-end developers to concentrate on their core tasks without thinking about the intermediate layer or API Endpoints, for example. DevOps Team The DevOps team's primary role is cloud infrastructure management. They are accountable for adding new code to the repository before each new version's deployment and thoroughly checking the new code. The DevOps team's primary goals are to reduce marketing time and to provide an optimal user experience. Typically the DevOps team consists of the following team members: Team lead Cloud architect Site reliability engineer (SRE) System administrator The lead is responsible for managing the DevOps team, allocating roles and responsibilities within the team, and overseeing the workflow. Cloud architects are in charge of developing and maintaining cloud technology. The SRE specialists ensure that applications and systems run smoothly and without interruption. The system administrator is accountable for managing and supporting the cloud. QA Team The quality assurance team is responsible for checking the application during its active development to ensure that it is free of bugs and errors and operates at a consistent and reliable level of operation. As such, it encompasses the following constituents: QA Lead QA Analyst Testers The QA lead is responsible for managing and supervising the QA team. He or she establishes quality metrics and expectations for the product being built and ensures that they are met. The QA lead is responsible for ensuring that all questions are answered promptly. Other duties include developing research plans, scheduling, and assigning tasks. The QA Analyst is responsible for developing, managing, and executing test plans for manual and automated testing. He or she creates the required documents during the testing process and designs unit tests. Finally, testers conduct and run checks. They review and evaluate system requirements, run test scripts, analyze the performance, and report to the analyst and quality assurance lead. Types of startup organizational structures Types of Startup Organizational Structures Apart from the structure that we have described earlier, other startup organizational structures are popular among young entrepreneurs. So, let’s review the 5 major ones and see how they look. Functional A functional organizational structure divides a business into distinct divisions or teams. They are often organized around particular administrative roles, such as sales, marketing, information technology, finance, and human resources. A well-functioning organizational structure like that can significantly improve performance and productivity. This is because the organization's resources, such as personnel, expertise, skills, budget, and equipment, are organized around a particular purpose. The functional framework has the downside of adding layers of bureaucracy. It can stifle creativity by requiring approval from several people in command for adding new ideas or decisions. Divisional Divisional structure classifies teams or units into larger divisions. This is frequently achieved geographically or by product line. Leaders create separate business divisions for a specific product or service line in a product-based system, each with its manager. For instance, a clothing company might establish a product division for women, men, and children. Each of the three lines will have its marketing, distribution, design, and customer service teams. This is frequently preferable for product growth. However, this method can result in decreased performance. With different design teams in each division, the cost of sourcing various fabrics and trims can increase. A more cohesive structure can result in cost savings due to negotiating for larger quantities of materials. Geographic Companies with geographically defined systems establish divisions according to the regions or countries they represent. For example, a business could find it more cost-effective to be located near a particular material source. This means that a regional arrangement makes more sense in terms of practicality and economics. A disadvantage is that regional divisions tend to decentralize large businesses. Each location becomes self-contained and begins operating independently of the others. This can result in perplexing thought and strategy. A more unified brand front can fit the company's needs and objectives better. Matrix The matrix structure, which resembles a grid, organizes a clear reporting line between workers and superiors. For instance, staff with similar skill sets may be assigned to distinct divisions or departments but collaborate on a single project. Employees can report to multiple supervisors as a result of this arrangement. This startup organizational structure has the potential to become perplexing and complicated. Multiple lines of command will amplify the likelihood of conflict. At the same time, stability can breed drudgery over time, while its lack can breed anxiety and frustration. Network The network organizational structure is most often associated with businesses collaborating with other companies or outsourcing their activities to contractors and freelancers. It establishes a link between different locations and external or third-party entities. Visually, it can resemble a functional structure. This strategy is most effective when the business depends on outsourcing or joint venture partners. The layout more closely represents current on- and off-site workflows and processes. It is not always the best option if your business employs a small number of freelancers or contractors or if development is carried out almost entirely in-house. How to assemble your startup team? Recruiting the ideal members for your startup organizational structure is not always straightforward. Essentially, you have three choices here: Local team Partial Outsourcing Full Outsourcing Whichever choice is best for you is determined by your preferences, objectives, and unique circumstances. Let’s examine each of these alternatives in detail. Local Team One of the more traditional approaches is to hire a full-time team of local developers. At first glance, it seems to be the most rational choice, as you will retain complete control and handle the team quickly. But, hiring full-time workers incurs extra expenses such as payroll taxes, employee insurance, and so forth. Additionally, keep in mind operating costs such as office space, supplies, and so on. Finally, all of these expenses will significantly increase your total costs. As a result, while an in-house team can be the optimal solution in many situations, it is almost always the most expensive choice for startups. Partial Outsource Combining an in-house team with partial outsourcing is a common choice for startups. Outsourcing is a process in which a startup chooses a specific area of their business where the outsource team will do their job. The latter performs all tasks, including project management. The startup merely specifies and requires technical specifications. The other side of this scenario: a startup identifies unique full-time roles for recruiting remote workers. It engages a recruiting firm to locate and hire remote developers for the startup. The new remote hires become an integral part of the team but operate from the staffing company's headquarters. The latter acts as the remote developers’ official employer and is responsible for all employee-related obligations, such as paying salaries, paying taxes, and offering various employee benefits. You can recruit several remote developers and organize them into dedicated development teams using this model. Full Outsource Finally, some entrepreneurs might wish to experiment with full outsourcing and abandon local production entirely. Another possibility is to employ a specialized software development team. Compared to partial staff recruitment, which involves hiring remote developers for a few key roles, a dedicated team will handle all development work. This team is almost similar to the local one, except that they are located overseas and operate at the staffing company's headquarters. Typically, this model results in considerable cost savings and effective results. In Conclusion The proper startup organizational structure is critical to the success of every entrepreneur. Delegating roles correctly is essential to a startup, especially within the development team or any vital situation. Especially if you are new to the whole startup thing and just trying to get around your new business. Suppose you have already established your first startup organizational structure, but you don’t know the proper product development steps and accomplish them successfully. What happens then? In that case, we can provide a direct specificity of your product development process. Over the past 10+ years, we have been involved in numerous startups and entrepreneurs that have been actively engaged in developing unique digital products. All of them have been successfully raised to a solid stage when they can efficiently labor productive results. How did they accomplish that with us? Everything has begun with our technological flow or, more precisely, with the Product Development Strategy Session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours. ### How does your startup hiring plan look like? Developing an efficient team is one of the most challenging tasks a startup owner can face. You may have a vision for the future of your company, but that is insufficient. Without a strong team behind you, your vision will never become a reality. However, how can you recruit the best talent? To answer this question and to assist you in developing a recruiting plan for startups that will propel your company to success, gain an insight into the startup hiring plan breakdown process. When should you start building your startup hiring plan? It is never too early to start! Ideally, founders and CEOs should begin to plan their recruiting strategies before they have the funds to pay for a pool of talents. This way, they can prepare or collect additional funds to offset potential burn rates. Many investors prefer pitches that involve a recruiting strategy because they know where their money will go and which critical positions or vulnerabilities will remain unfilled. However, suppose you come to this realization later in your company's history, after you've made your first Talent/HR hire. You'll also need to grasp the process to assess your team’s work and coordinate your efforts. Three core steps you need to take for your startup hiring plan Steps of a Startup Hiring Plan Step 1: The approval You need to institute a standard approval process that happens every time you open a role. This process should apply to all departments and positions at all levels, including full-time, part-time, and temp positions. This process should account for budget and resources for someone responsible (e.g., founder, executive, recruiter, hiring manager, or agency) to work on the role while defining the role and responsibilities. Initiating a hire The hiring leader discusses any new processions needs whenever a department needs to: Open and recruit for a new position Rehire for a position after a layoff or firing Hire a freelancer, contractor, or other temporary staffers. The person who makes these approval calls could be the CEO or CFO, depending on your org structure. Approving roles Here’s a brief outline of how you need to launch the startup hiring plan. Remember that your recruiter, hiring manager, head of HR, and even founder could all be the same person depending on your team size. The hiring manager emails the decision-maker to request a new open position — this is called a requisition form. You can make this an easy-to-access template and post it on your wiki for all hiring managers to access. This should include: New, refill, or temp position Title Seniority level Reporting person The basic scope of the role/responsibilities/skillset required with JD attached Compensation benchmarks The decision-maker approves or rejects If approved, the requisition form is sent to HR (if you are a small team, this step may be handled by finance). It’s helpful to attach a job description at this point if it is available. HR/Finance reviews the requisition form to verify that the job’s responsibilities, necessary skills, and compensation match the role and suggests edits if necessary. Once approved, HR/Finance updates the compensation benchmark spreadsheet with the new role’s compensation bands and shares it with the hiring manager and CEO/Finance for final approval. The recruiter is given all relevant information and begins working with the hiring manager to launch the recruiting process. Step 2: Headcount and capacity Regardless of the uncertainty, it is critical to maintaining both a short and long-term startup hiring plan and document your recruiting progress each quarter. Investors and board members appreciate seeing these quarterly updates in your quarterly reports to them. Suppose you are fortunate enough to have someone other than the founder (like lead talent acquisition). In that case, it is critical to provide them with guidelines in the form of a headcount plan and forecast (your recruiter, people operations, or HR team). Like sales employees, recruiters frequently manage pipelines and relationships with job candidates over time; providing them with insight into future hiring needs enables them to cultivate the right connections. There are three critical points to consider: headcount planning (determining which new employees to hire), the approximate timeline, and capacity planning (determining how many roles your recruiter can take on any given time). Planning for headcount Budgeting for additional headcount typically begins in the early Q4 of your first year. All new positions are discussed and are subjected to the annual budgeting process for planning and approval. Sometimes, the circumstances dictate the need for additional headcount outside of the previously approved roles. In this case, a discussion should be held to justify the new approval and ensure that the team understands why the position is prioritized over previously planned roles. The recruiter's entire team must know that they will not be expected to work on or source candidates for roles that have not been approved. The executive team should establish a hierarchy of roles to determine which three to five you'd like the recruiter to focus on first. And which higher-ranking roles will follow later on. Additionally, it's a good idea to develop a plan for handling backfill if an existing team member leaves. Prepare scenarios where you may need to adjust your headcount plan in response to runway fluctuations or unexpected cash crunches. Consider the following points when developing your headcount plan and forecast: Which individuals do you require today, in two quarters, a year from now, or even later? If you're looking to hire primarily executives in a short period, you'll probably want to work with external recruiters. If you're looking to hire a few key individuals, an in-house recruiter should be able to assist you. How much do the roles in your short and long-term plans pay? Additionally, determine how much budget you should allocate for agency fees or referral bonuses for each position. How long do you anticipate hiring for each position? When is the anticipated start date for each role? Planning for capacity You must establish a reasonable workload for your recruiters to avoid burning them out. This is why it is beneficial to develop a framework for defining the degree of complexity associated with roles. Roles that are easy to fill or already exist and require little setup can be labeled “Tier 1”. Roles with higher seniority levels or require specialized skills should have the highest scoring, like “Tier 5”. Because recruiters typically fill around 3 to 4 people per quarter, this approach can establish alignment around priorities and realistic expectations. You’ll want to measure or at least estimate your recruiting ratio. This is defined as how many candidates you will need to source and move through each phase of the interview funnel to reach your hiring goals. Step 3: Positions to fill Consider the big picture when deciding who to hire with the following factors: the composition of your company and the experience distribution you require. Each management meeting should include a discussion of upcoming hiring needs. These discussions should then be incorporated into the company's annual hiring plan to ensure that growth targets are met without jeopardizing the budget. When the hiring manager and recruiter are ready to consider individual roles, they should collaborate to create a detailed job description. We frequently recommend that hiring managers articulate their approval process requirements first and then revisit them with the recruiter at the start of the search. The following questions should serve as a guide for these discussions, both at the executive and hiring manager levels: Why are we creating this position? Which way will they steer the company? Why are we currently hiring for this position? How will this position work in conjunction with current leadership? How will their success manifest itself in the first six months? The initial year? Which companies have unquestionably recruited top talent for this position? What is the prior experience required of the ideal candidate? 5 Core Aspects of your startup hiring plan Aspects of Startup Hiring Plan Try to Outsource The workload associated with early-stage companies is often daunting. To alleviate the burden, you can expedite the hiring process and make incorrect decisions. This can be a time-consuming and expensive error. Try collaborating with the outsource companies instead. These agencies will assist you with meeting all of your business needs: from software development to marketing and customer service. By collaborating with agencies, you can understand the skills and qualifications that a candidate must possess to be a promising recruit. Understand your candidates Not only work-related skills decide a candidate's performance. Another critical factor in one's personality. Are they culturally compatible with the organization? Otherwise, it can harm their ability to do quality work. Ask personal questions during the recruiting process. What interests and extracurricular activities would the candidate have? The responses provide insight into a person's personality and social abilities. Consider sending the members on an enjoyable outdoor adventure to assess their problem-solving skills. You'd be shocked at the perspectives that an escape room or treasure hunt experience can have. In summary, when recruiting for strategy positions at startups, you should consider the candidates' response (or reaction) to pressure and the extent to which their problem-solving abilities assist them. Share your Hiring Unless your startup is hugely well-known, you would almost certainly need to advertise job openings. Here are a few cost-effective and innovative ways to do so: Promote your business on famous email newsletters in your field. Substack or Twitter are great places to look for such newsletters. For entry-level and internship openings, contact local universities. Make contact with recruiting firms that specialize in your field (more on this below). Upgrade to Recruiter Lite on your Linkedin account. The Recruiter Lite free trial is available for the first month. The service costs $105 a month after that. Post in your target group's local slack groups (developers, UX designers, SEO experts, etc.). Do not Overhire Two things will happen if you overhire. For starters, you'll pay more people, which means you'll run out of money faster. Overhiring will cause you to slow down rather than develop more quickly. Once you have people on board, you will be pressured to assign them tasks, eventually resulting in more functions than you need and a loss of concentration. When you recruit lots of people, you slow down and miss important deadlines. As a result, you will not only burn through capital quicker, but you will also make less money. Spend a lot of time considering the recruiting strategy. You will develop the company and meet your goals faster if you nail it and make the right hires. Make Fast Decisions The startup world is a fast-paced environment. This is frequently reflected in the recruiting process. Before establishing an HR department, the startup founder is the one who is responsible for hiring. However, since an organization is only as powerful as its weakest connection, this phase should not be rushed. Split the hiring process into three rounds - (A) an introductory meeting, (B) a deep dive into the applicant's expertise and experience, and (C) a test assignment - is the bare minimum you can do to qualify a candidate. Begin with short-term employment of 1-3 months. You will gain a greater understanding of a candidate's success and team spirit during the probation period. Don't wait too long if the nominee isn't performing as intended. The sooner you let them go, the sooner you will start searching for someone who is a better match for you. In Conclusion All great businesses began as a small group of visionary entrepreneurs. Although seeking exceptional workers is not easy, it is a critical component of future success. The information in this article should assist you in identifying and hiring top talent in your field while also outsourcing tasks before you reach that level of expertise. Bear in mind that each startup's recruiting plan will be based on its unique needs. However, what if you are a complete beginner in all this startup hiring plan processing? You might get confused quickly on how you should with your hiring process. Furthermore, suppose you already own an excellent funding amount. In that case, it could be more troublesome not only for your hiring process to be executed but also for your product development to be constructed. To avoid such complications, JetRuby has developed a technological flow with one core priority: understanding how your digital product can be correctly developed. The very first step of our technological development flow is called a Product Development Strategy. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours! ### What's missing in your Startup Marketing Plan? Creating an effective startup marketing plan does not have to be expensive. Nothing more than your time, effort, and creativity are required. These are just a few suggestions to get you started. Why spend a fortune on marketing when you can brainstorm your way to a winning startup marketing plan. The best marketing ideas are straightforward and affordable, but they do not appear in the form of an unconventional, innovative thought process. Always keep in mind that developing your brand is a continuous process, so begin with the right mindset. Here we break down the steps that you can take to succeed at your startup marketing plan. Steps to achieve your perfect startup marketing plan Startup Marketing Plan Steps 1. Set your aims In the early stages of your business, your goals might vary depending on how you define success. But for many startups, plans often fall under 1 of 2 categories: raising brand awareness and acquiring new customers. And while both types are essential in the development of your startup, it can be helpful to prioritize the goals that make the most sense for you. Raise brand awareness When starting a new business, it’s essential to introduce yourself to your potential customers. You have to tell people who you are, what you do, and what sets you apart from everyone else. If you prioritize brand awareness, your goals and startup marketing plan might revolve around your target audience. Thus, they have to recognize your brand name, logo, or products. Acquire new customers If you choose to make acquiring new customers, your goals might include getting new people signed up to your platform, encouraging them to become active users of your product, or converting existing leads into paying customers. To reach these goals, you’ll need to develop a startup marketing plan using effective design, creative content, and compelling calls to grab people’s attention and make them want to engage with your business. Understand your audience needs Without the right prospects, what can you possibly accomplish? Regardless of how effective your marketing strategy, product, or service is, customers are critical to the success of your small business. However, who are these clients? It is vital to define your target customer so that your startup marketing plan can be structured to meet their needs. Three suggestions to get you started: Determine your target audience’s basic demographic information, such as their gender, age, and location. Analyze your audience's personalities and/or purchasing behavior to determine how to relate to them. Develop your brand's message - These suggestions will assist you in focusing on your target audience and determining their needs to ensure that your offering satisfies them. Understand your budget A startup's marketing budget is influenced by various factors, including operational costs and revenue projections. However, regardless of the available capital for startup marketing plan, it is critical to spend it responsibly. Consider your objectives and allocate your marketing budget to the channels that will assist you in achieving them. Never be afraid to adjust your strategy along the way or try something new if a particular channel fails. As your business and budget grow, you can always increase your marketing budget and reach previously untapped audiences. 2. Reach your audience on the social channels Startup Marketing Plan - Social Channels Websites Traction Websites are handy marketing tools that work around the clock to connect you with your audience and help you grow your business. If you're not ready for a complete website or simply want to encourage visitors to take a specific action, start with a landing page. Landing pages are an excellent way to collect email addresses, sell a product, or give visitors a quick overview of your business, new products, or services. As you create your website, keep the following points in mind: Purchase a domain name: Your domain name serves as your online identity, so it's critical to choose a memorable name that fits your brand and which is easy to remember. While you're considering your options, be sure to check each potential domain name's availability on social media. Using the same name across all of your channels, you can create a consistent brand identity and expand your reach. Create Google Ads: Google Ads enable you to keep your business at the forefront of people's minds by displaying targeted advertisements to people who visit your website. These advertisements are an effective way to increase traffic and recapture lost sales from customers, regardless of where they go on the web. Don't forget SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) helps you increase your website's visibility (and traffic from) search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo. As a startup, you can incorporate a few essential SEO elements into your website to boost your search ranking, such as keywords, title tags, meta descriptions, internal links, and high-quality original content. Pick a social media channel of your choice Numerous startups understand the value of low-cost social media marketing. However, only a few understand the critical nature of social media channels. Each channel has a distinct set of personalities and demographics. And these people constantly interact differently with each channel. As a result, it is entirely up to you to decide what works best for your startup. Several channels and their associated behaviors include the following: Facebook is the social media industry's powerhouse. This platform is likely to cater to all audience types. However, because you are not in business to serve everyone, you must determine how to locate and contact your customers. Instagram is an excellent platform for native advertising. Because the algorithm is optimized for valuable content, you're likely to gain a natural following from your target audience if you provide high-quality content. Twitter is another excellent social media platform. Here, consistency is critical for establishing and maintaining a sizable audience. The ultimate goal should be to provide your audience with content that is relevant to them. You should evaluate and test each channel. You can invest a small amount of money in a sponsored campaign and be assured that your efforts will bear fruit sooner rather than later. Content & Email Marketing Email marketing is a highly effective method of developing a relationship with your audience and maintaining their engagement over time. Include a form on your website (or landing page) to collect visitors' email addresses. Then begin sharing updates about your services, content, and products, as well as anything else that may be of interest to them. If you decide to go a step further, you can always request additional information from your new contacts. By requesting information about your audiences, such as their date of birth, interests, or location, you can create even more personalized, relevant content. On the other hand, content marketing focuses on creating (and sharing) content for your target audiences, such as blog posts, articles, videos, podcasts, and infographics. Unlike other forms of advertising or promotional messaging, this one is not solely about selling; it should provide relevant, valuable information that people care about. Over time, content marketing can prove to be a cost-effective strategy that results in significant business benefits. Not only can it assist you in attracting (and converting) new customers, but it's also an excellent way to establish yourself as an authoritative source of information in your field. 3. Assemble your Marketing team Talented people with marketing abilities are critical for any business. However, teamwork takes it to the next level. To create effective startup marketing plan, you must assemble the right team. Consider the following factors when deciding whether to hire a professional marketing team on a contract basis or as employees: Determine the roles that must be filled to accomplish your end goals. Determine whether you require contract employees. Interview each candidate to ascertain their strengths, abilities, and experience. Conduct regular assessments of your team members. Given the limited resources available to startups, the suggestions above may prove challenging to implement. However, you can explore other options. For instance, is your partner an expert in social media? Do you have an intern who is a coding expert? Utilize available resources until you can gradually expand your team. 4. Understand the success rate of your startup marketing plan Success Rate of your Startup Marketing Plan Startups frequently have a finite amount of funds and resources available, so your results must be both tangible and measurable. Here are three strategies for incorporating data into your startup marketing campaigns. Define your marketing KPIs KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are used to track your progress toward marketing and business objectives. If your goal is to increase brand awareness, choose KPIs such as website traffic, social shares, and new contacts to track audience growth. If, on the other hand, your objective is to increase customer acquisition and revenue, compare your KPIs to daily or monthly sales and conversion rates. Test and understand your customer feedback Whatever type of startup you run, you must always listen to your audience. Even if they only communicate with you via click-throughs, page views, and conversions tracked in your reports. Be prepared to make changes if something does not work. If you're considering incorporating email marketing into your startup marketing strategy, A/B testing is an excellent way to discover how small changes can have a significant impact on your results. In Conclusion Creating an effective startup marketing plan does not have to be expensive. Nothing more than your time, effort, and creativity are required. Concentrate on providing one-of-a-kind solutions. By being innovative with your service, you will quickly discover that your target customers will open their wallets for you. A good marketing strategy is just one core part of a typical startup and is treated like a tool that supports the main idea. Thus, you should think more carefully about each part of your product development process (including the marketing stage) and seek the best possible business partner out there. But if you have tried and so far you have nothing in your browser bookmarks? Then JetRuby might have exactly what you are looking for. Over the past 10+ years, we have been involved in numerous startups and entrepreneurs that have been actively engaged in developing unique digital products. All of them have been successfully raised to a solid stage when they can efficiently labor productive results. How did they accomplish that with us? Everything has begun with our technological flow or, more precisely, with the Product Development Strategy Session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours! ### 10 Best ideas using AI in 2021 Artificial Intelligence is the fastest-growing field now. According to fortune, the hirings for AI specialists have grown by 75% over the last 4 years. Artificial Intelligence is considered the "Most popular" job of today’s generation. The demand for competent AI specialists is growing quicker than ever before. Requirements and open positions for professionals in the subfields of AI like machine learning, deep learning, computer system vision, stats, and natural language processing are surging each day. What could be a better time to launch a startup of your own? You could be a self-made startup founder with some Artificial Intelligence skills and knowledge. Thanks to all the buzz, there merely just can't be a much better time to launch your extremely own startup in AI. However, this requires some fact-checking and digging up. So let's check the 6 finest startup choices for AI in no particular order.   AI healthcare startups Advanced x-ray scanning, advanced screening and medical diagnosis of harmful diseases, retinal scans, identification of different symptoms for specific conditions - Artificial Intelligence is being thoroughly utilized in medical research and science. Medical startups with artificial intelligence innovations are acquiring exceptionally high popularity due to the accuracy and accuracy of forecasts. The advancement of high-quality designs, specifically in the field of medicine and medical science, is essential. This is since a person's life could be on the line with each prediction. This is one of the primary factors the need for these startups is rising each day. This is the best startup concept for you if you are interested in helping individuals and innovating devices in the medical industry. Read more: How To Develop A Healthcare App In 2021?   AI marketing startups Marketing is a complex and challenging market. It needs a lot of effort and time to be invested in gaining experience and understanding. This helps online marketers produce the highest possible ROI for their clients. You will constantly find a lot of marketing agencies trumpeting their successes. Nevertheless, you won't discover any that can truly ensure the same outcomes time and again. An AI-driven system can precisely determine a marketing efficiency utilizing its experience gradually combined with advanced analytics. Because of this, such a system could provide prospective clients a baseline performance warranty. This alone would likely be a substantial competitive advantage in the marketing world.   eLearning startups and AI-based learning apps A few of the top AI startups also have to do with eLearning. The very concept of AI and ML apps has accelerated the power of composing text. Humans can't read as quickly as machines. They can't form mental pictures and map data with the rapidity of artificial constructs, either. For that reason, ML and AI startup companies which can quickly read and understand life science short articles are incredibly appealing for certain company entities. Such apps can assist researchers in speeding up the discovery of treatments for diseases and the development of brand-new medications and treatments.  As fast as AI can learn, it can also teach people based on personalized lesson plans. It has been developed that individuals know better and much faster when they are taught based upon their distinct capabilities and attributes. Through testing, an AI app can figure out how best to create individualized lesson strategies to allow people to hold several tasks to improve their work. There are insufficient human instructors in some circles to instruct trainees who are falling behind in their studies. AI start-ups are being developed to display customized discovery in several walks of life, both in expert settings and academia. By identifying the design in which each trainee finds out best, AI can prepare people for the obstacles currently holding them back. Start-ups based around this idea must be scalable and profitable in the future.  Companies that are bold sufficient to see the capacity could effectively see unbelievable revenues if they can mass-market the concept in a manner that is extensive for those who are not especially tech-oriented. An AI education start-up may well deserve gambling on if you have investor capital with which to work. Read more: 5 Trends In Educational Technology Disrupting The Market!   Energy and cost-saving startups AI start-up financing to reduce energy usage and the cost of drilling operations is another area that you must think about. Problems involved with the transportation of petroleum and natural gas and the storage and refining of oil are constantly emerging. Many manufacturing markets have been taking a look at these concepts and set up the facilities to make them a reality. AI applications can now find out and anticipate the future energy load at granular levels for particular mixing activities. This opens up a complete series of opportunities to lower both waste and expenses.   AI-driven IT services and cybersecurity startups An AI startup for technology in the security market could be another way to go. Leveraging AI and artificial intelligence start-ups for IT solutions, network facilities, and security are areas to which many companies commit financial resources at the start of this brand-new decade. For instance, you can construct conversational interfaces on AI platforms to power voice assistants and next-generation talking apps. AI and ML can also be contributed to hyper-converged infrastructures. Companies of all sizes are carrying out new IT services and security that can balance the different work of computing systems. AI can work automatically to discover abnormalities that suggest that a physical threat to a protected area is imminent. Because of this, costly information breaches will reduce. AI and ML can be utilized with both cybersecurity and more conventional security. AI and ML applications can predict with remarkable accuracy where vulnerabilities in the software application will occur. Businesses can then support these weaknesses before hackers benefit from them. Staying ahead of attacks will increase investor self-confidence in services, enabling higher profit margins, quarterly projections, IPOs, and so on. Within an AI start-up cycle, financial investment opportunities occur typically. Getting in on the ground floor with an expert system and the cybersecurity industry might settle huge for you.   Have a great idea but don't know where to start? Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time!   AI logistics and supply startups A few of the leading machine learning startups are those in the areas of supply and logistics. Supply chain management is a growing industry, and some of its most significant issues are increasing fuel and transport costs. At the same time, there is a greater need for free shipment. Because of this, companies need to come up with ingenious ways to decrease expenses while still satisfying customer demand. An AI-driven supply chain manager can oversee a business's whole supply chain by keeping track of new orders and integrating it with existing infrastructure. It can include 3rd celebration services, too, like sophisticated path optimization with Optergon. This guarantees that whatever from the warehouse to the client is handled and optimized to increase efficiency and lower expenses.   Fintech start-up AI hardware startups that are based in fintech are on the rise. Fintech is an emerging market that posits that innovation can improve the accuracy and profitability of numerous sorts of monetary activities. AI fintech companies utilize artificial intelligence to enhance expert regimens through practices such as automated data entry and reporting. Accountants are not the only monetary industry specialists who can benefit from this emerging technology, though. The entire monetary services industry is adopting automation. For example, those speaking with services and scam detection can use AI-built data models to encourage their customers better. AI can help with such things as deal support and financing management also. It can compare consumer behavior by utilizing a vast network of historical information. Those who are seeking to get involved with a fintech startup would be a good idea to use AI in such a way that concentrates on personal financing management and wealth building. This is a location that interests many companies, but investment-minded people in the economic sector would likewise likely have an interest in such an endeavor.   AI entertainment startups Startup AI companies in the entertainment industry are another area that you may want to look at. Leisure AI-enabled apps that feature voice and image recognition are ending up being more widespread. Artificial intelligence that can cause the construction of more smart voice assistant functions and chatbots has also become more accepted. These sort of voice AI start-ups were once considered unique. However, they are quickly ending up being more prevalent. Discussion interfaces driven by expert systems can address your most important concerns as you browse within home entertainment apps. Such an app could help users with concierge services in hotels or provide info about items offered for purchase.   AI-based retail startups AI can be used for a range of functions within the retail industry. Think about personalization within shopping apps. AI can be utilized as a virtual assistant for picking products a client might like based upon their previous purchases. Facial acknowledgment in retail would be another location where this sort of tech enters play. Customers regularly drop tips about the kinds of things they desire and like, in addition to just how much they are willing to spend for them. Savvy retailers can collect that information through sources like IoT sensing units and social networks. They can also use deep knowledge combined with AI to make the shopping experience as easy and customized as possible. Statista provides us the example of Chico's utilization of SAS for advanced retail analytics. It let the business combine omnichannel customer data in 2 hours instead of the originally estimated 17. This enabled speedy delivery of prompt deals with a minimum of stress on their infrastructure. These sorts of stories reveal why retail businesses require investing in AI retail start-ups and analytics.   AI home manager startups Within the past years, home automation has become progressively popular. At this moment, countless smart home devices are being used and purchased every day. The concept behind AI-based startups that feature house automation is to make home management easy. Such start-ups are tailored toward allowing homeowners to manage what is happening with their property with a couple of button presses within an app. They can do so whether they are at house or midway throughout the world. Home automation infused with AI has much greater capacity than those apps and programs that do not feature it. A home management system with AI can be for properties that self-driving performance is for standard lorries. The more you look at AI, the more you can see how utilizing it in start-ups makes financial sense. And the top AI startups and companies show this. There is a factor to think, though, that AI in 2020 will be even more significant.   Decided on an idea? Think over all the development stages  Want to be next on the list of unique ideas but are afraid to choose the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and call JetRuby today! We are an experienced and professional digital agency that supports and assists various healthcare startups. We guide them through the development process from point A to point B—breaking down every step. Our team discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what’s holding you back? Leave a short description of your unique idea or a project on our first and free development step: Product Development Strategy Session. And we’ll contact you in no time!   ### Common startup problems and how to solve it Every startup founder understands from the beginning that developing a startup from scratch is not easy. However, they can still show up without warning - whether that's because you simply didn't expect them, you're not sure of the best method to react, or you don't yet have the resources you need to resolve them appropriately. The world of startups is a tough one. There are 150 million startups worldwide today, with 50 million new startups entering the market every year. Usually, there 140,000 startups are emerging every day. These are huge numbers by any requirements. But the concern stays, how many startups tend to survive the violent waves of change that have completely transformed the very nature of today's startups? Yes, there is a substantial paradigm shift. That shift has challenged the full functionality of startups. Obstacles are everywhere. Here are some of the primary concerns to watch out for, so you can plan and understand what to do if when they crop up. Lack of planning It's fantastic how many startups falter since they "forgot" to plan. Or maybe they developed a strategy, but they simply didn't cover all the bases. Key areas like sales, development, staffing, and funding aren't afterthoughts. They should all included in your business plan right from the beginning. Not just that, but you need to plan for the things you can't prepare for, too. That is, even if you can't prepare for every scenario, you need to know what you're going to do when (not if) occasions take an unexpected turn. If your service plan is all optimism and stops working to allow for surprises, then you're heading for big trouble. As the saying goes, "if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail." So do not leave the details to later. Have a great idea but don't know where to start? Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! Finding the right people Specific skills are crucial not just for your startup to survive but also for it to grow. Understanding specific skills you need - and how to get those essential people on board - might be the determining factor in how well your startup prospers. Delays in discovering the right personnel are expensive. For a small team, the recruitment process eats up important time that could be invested in other locations of the business. However, on the other hand, not having the right people can develop severe hiccups and stall the rollout of new services and products. These are hold-ups that no startup can manage, specifically in the early days. And, as your company grows, you may find yourself facing another tricky personnel issue: understanding that you've hired the wrong people. (Or the right people in the bad roles.) These uncomfortable realities can be revealed when a startup expands, and the cracks suddenly appear magnified.   That's why it's so essential to make it a priority to lay out your hiring strategy right at the start. Then, when you're clear about what you're trying to find, plan crucial hires and think carefully about each role fits in with the goals you want to achieve. Read more: How To Built Or Choose Your Technical Dream Team Dealing with Competitors When managing competitors in a similar industry, you may feel out of place. It tends to be threatening, particularly on the off opportunity that you are opposing yourself with businesses that have been around for a very long time. Try to find assistance and counsel from the experts. Threats and difficulties of starting a company can be alluring. You will soon understand that you should not stress over your competitors. Focus on what you do and let individuals in general - customers, shoppers, customers, the crowd - select who they may want to assist. Consistency and regular administration can be the two elements that can represent the crucial moment in the business. To conquer the competitors, new businesses need to look into and break down their specialties. They should be remarkable and distinct in approach; and ought to have the choice to make, actualize, and track their service and advertising plan. They ought to be flexible and centered towards keeping their qualities unblemished. Read more:  How Your Business Can Fail Without Proper Competitor Research  Time Management According to a Statista report, 90% of startups stop working, but you do not necessarily need to be part of that club. In the new startup business, there will never enough opportunities. There are a million and one options to be made and just 24 hours in a day. So start by getting rid of or limiting interruptions, anything that hinders keeping your business. Mobile app development services are only successful when the time is managed. Manage your time and vitality on the most efficient things. Ask yourself: what is substantial and what can be delayed till tomorrow? What is stopping your company’s development? Those are the proper responses you should handle today. Likewise, when you're trying to set needs, get an idea from the previous competitor and ask yourself: will this trigger the pontoon to speed up? In other words, will this choice or activity have noteworthy, measurable, favorable results that will assist you with striking your objectives?  New businesses should be skilled at making creative showcasing plans, putting advertisements, and telling people the value of their items or administrations. To lay it out clearly, an excellent showcasing technique has vision, important, service objectives. It ought to have the option to clarify the position and task of an organization’s products or administrations in the market. Poor management One thing which is absolutely unacceptable for startups is ineffective management. A management team that worked well in the initial stages might face difficulties as the startup scales, as they're tested by anything from bad sales to market conditions. You need to have the right people to make the right decisions. So as you building your leadership team, you need to do two things. (Actually, you need to do lots of things, but for this specific point, let's focus on two). First of all, you need to be sure that your team is working well together. To be efficient, you need to keep everybody on the same track. One way to ensure transparency in your management team's decision-making process is to ensure that everyone knows how critical decisions get made. Second of all, you need to make sure that your team is working well, period. Be upfront about what is and isn't getting results, and if you spot any underlying longer-term problems, address them as soon as possible before they become significant issues. It might lead to some uneasy discussions - maybe even some unpleasant decisions - however, having strong management is vital to guiding your startup in the right direction. Lack of mentorship You may have a terrific product or concept but lack the necessary guidance, market experience, or knowledge to take it to the next level. That's where a mentor can help, with the wisdom and confidence to assist you in clearing those underwater rocks that are holding your startup back. According to Statista, 33% of tech company creators who successful business owners mentor-led performers. Having somebody, you can lean on when significant choices have to be made, or even just when you require a sounding board who has already been there and done that, is very helpful. But not everybody will have access to mentors. If you do not, seek out wisdom from inspirational founders you admire from other sources, like books, short articles, or podcasts. And in the meantime, concentrate on building out your professional network, which can be just as important. And after that, when you make it to the top, pay it forward and share your hard-earned wisdom. Now, after we've learned a few startup top difficulties, we'd like to hear about your start-up journey. Ask yourself the following questions: Has your startup faced any challenging barriers? How did you handle them? Let us understand in the comments below. Read more: How Your Startup Mentor Can Change Your Startup Need a tech mentor for your startup? Want to find a great startup mentor to help you with specific issues? We here in Jetruby will help get your startup or side project where it needs to be. We have developed a technological flow that most of our clients undergo during the past 10 years of constant collaboration and cooperation with various startups. The first one of which is called a Product Development Strategy session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours! Scale With Caution Growing or scaling your startup is a positive action, but just if the timing is right. Attempting to grow a business too soon can ruin it. One example of premature scaling is inducing many brand-new specialists before you have enough work for them to do. Spending excessive funds on marketing and advertising is another example of premature scaling. It is essential to wait until the time is right to promote growth in your organization. Nevertheless, the primary reason that many startups go under is that there simply isn't an adequate need in the market for what they offer. Companies frequently go under because their offerings have actually been developed to fix a problem or fill a need for which the market is tiny or for which there are already a lot of great services out there. Everything comes back to the demand for a product and services that differ from those currently offered to consumers. Indistinguishable Products Offering good services or products isn't enough to make a startup successful. There needs to be something special about it that sets it, and thus your business, apart from the rest of your competitors. When writing your strategy, do the following: Ask yourself what makes your service or product different from those of the competition. Acknowledge what the competition does better than your company. Know that failing to differentiate your product or service from the others is the same as failing to create a brand. Marketing This is an essential investment. And if it's not spent in the right way, they can be challenging to handle. Few get the correct quantifiable profit (ROI) on that spend. Before you hire app developers to ensure a task, be sure that you understand marketing value. According to the research done by CBInsights, 45% of businesses fail for this simple reason: marketing. Advertising should be information-driven. Toward the day's end, comprehend your company channel and tweak it. Whatever the scenario, situations allow re-appropriate to work with others no matter whether you can do it without anyone's help. Some of the time, you might find that your market can't develop answers for routine issues. Some are just cheerfully confronting the present matters. By assigning errands and re-appropriating, you can concentrate on the most important things to do. Continue teaching your objective market and never surrender. Continue refreshing your advancement up until your incentive in a company is boisterous and clear. Read more: What’s Missing In Your Startup Marketing Plan? Financial Management You should always keep in mind that when earnings increases, the expenditures likewise increase. There is no doubt about it. One of the most significant challenges that startups face today associates with financial management. It is a fact that small startups rely heavily on monetary backups from the so-called investors. Sometimes, when there is a money increase, small companies, most notably startups, tend to find it challenging to handle their financial resources properly and bog down against the pressure. To address this type of scenario, start-ups need to play a safe and careful hand by keeping all the cards near their chests. Taking assistance from a reputed financial consultancy firm may assist in handling economic crises facing today's startup companies. Read more: Top Startup Financial Challenges To Avoid In 2021 Facing unrealistic expectations Startup challenges intensify when they do not set realistic expectations following another business’s flourishing success. Before setting goals, it is essential to evaluate where you are right now and what resources are available. These ought to equate to setting realistic expectations that inspire the group to work towards. When it comes to developing a startup, sustainability is the name of the game, and that requires consistent effort. Having high-however controlled expectations, keeping a view of the marketplace factors, and the level of growth potential can help you prosper in a competitive business world. Conclusion As a startup founder, realizing this one insight is important for keeping a calm head: your rivals deal with the same problems as you do. Everybody, despite the market we remain in, is basically in the very same boat. How you react to these difficulties will change the "game" - as you become more successful, thus leaving your rivals by the wayside. It is very important to keep in mind that these difficulties are simply that-- challenges, and people do overcome them. Before you hire software developers, you should see all these guidelines. We hope that this article has provided you with all the insights into what you require in the businesses and gives you information about it. If you have any doubts relating to the following subject, then they can write to us. The experts would see and supply assistance for the same.  ### Global Software Developer Shortage There are nearly 500,000 software developer jobs available in the United States at the moment. Another half a million are expected to retire over the next few years. This means that the United States will face a shortage of one million software developers. By the end of 2021, it is estimated that there will be a shortage of 1.4 million software developers and only 400,000 graduates. Between 2018 and 2028, the employment of software developers is projected to grow at a rate of 21%, significantly faster than the average for all occupations. With an average annual salary of $99,500, software development is a lucrative career path. Demand for software engineers is increasing, but there aren’t enough skilled engineers to meet that demand. Here comes the question: what are the current challenges blocking the gradual increase in the talent pool? And is there going to be a change anyway? Let’s look at this problem in more detail in our new article. The current state of US tech talents Software Developer Shortage - Current Status As the introduction goes, we already do know how serious and how bad the situation is. It is also well known for the employers who get to see the current state of hiring without looking at any statistics. However, let’s look at the data on some concrete and raw facts that will prove our theories. According to ManpowerGroup's latest US software developers shortage statistics, 69% of US employers struggled to fill positions in 2020. Technical jobs are among the top ten most difficult to fill. The pandemic harmed the American technology market. It fuels the country's digitization efforts, which exacerbates the software developer shortage. With the rapid advancement of machine learning technologies and the fact that 92% of organizations are increasing their cloud workloads, the IT software developer shortage continues to grow. Employers who cannot fill technical vacancies assign additional responsibilities to current employees, which results in burnout and harms local business development. Over 30% of respondents to Indeed's survey admit that this issue contributes to increased staff turnover. You may believe it's all about location, but it's no secret that Silicon Valley is exploding with new job opportunities daily. However, this is simply not true: 4 out of 5 large technology companies in the United States are located outside Silicon Valley, confirming the country's nationwide engineer shortage. Thus, as you can see, the state of the IT talent pool is not as uplifting as we wish it to be. However, let’s not take all of our hopes away. Let’s look at this situation from the other side and understand where it comes from and how exactly one can solve it. Top Challenges faced by Employers A global software developer shortage of software engineers and developers makes hiring difficult for employers. But that is only a portion of the entire story. Employers tend to get caught up in the hassle of sifting through the labor pool for qualified individuals as the talent pool for reliable software developers shrinks. There are numerous reasons why software developers may lose an employer's consideration for a project, but five stand out in particular: Lack of Experience Lack of Technical Skills Lack of Soft Skills Lack of Formal Education High Salary Demands The more frequently these issues arise, the more difficult it becomes for employers to find the appropriate software developer. Absence of Soft Skills Soft skills are the bread and butter of technical skills. You could find the ideal candidate with all the necessary technical skills and still be unsuccessful due to their lack of soft skills that make them a match in their workplace. You certainly need to assess how well they collaborate, communicate, work, and how adaptable they are. The ability of a software developer to collaborate with coworkers and superiors is a strong indicator of their effectiveness in the workplace. And since humans are diverse, businesses frequently encounter software developers who lack the necessary soft skills to function effectively in their company environment. Absence of Technical Skills When hiring new software developers for your business, you will frequently discover that they lack the technical expertise required to complete the work. A software developer who is proficient in one area may be deficient in another. Depending on the nature of your project, he may perform admirably on their current assignment but will be unable to complete the following two. You'll need to put these individuals through tests, have them speak with the human resources department, and generally spend a lot of time trying to find the right person who will match up with your project’s current requirements. Absence of Required Education Education is the primary factor that can assist in resolving the talent shortage problem. Simultaneously, education is the country's immediate challenge - far too few school graduates are prepared to pursue tech careers, as only 13.2 percent of schools offer computer science courses. 77 percent of jobs in the next decade will require technological skills, and educators are already aware of this fact. 88 percent of teachers believe computer sciences are necessary for students' future success. The primary reasons for any computer basics in primary schools are a lack of educational programs and insufficient funding. Absence of Experience Regrettably, the majority of current software developers are still relatively new to the market. We can all empathize with this statement, as most IT vendors have all been in it at some point in their lives. As rewarding as it may be to assist a new software developer, it is implausible to expect consistent and solid experience from someone who lacks a good portfolio. Without a reputation and portfolio to back up their abilities, software developers are frequently a gamble. There are instances and circumstances in which inexperience serves as a springboard. In some cases hiring a software developer for a small project can be more affordable, or you can employ one that got recommended by a highly trusted contact. However, these are exceptional circumstances when considering the consistency of your company's projects. There are numerous developers without the necessary experience, and it can be difficult to weed them out and find the right one. High Salary Demand Due to the talent shortage, the relationship between organizations and their software developers is inaccurately executed, as the practice shows. With less competition for their jobs, the current pool of software developers can ask for a premium salary for their services. While developers should be fairly compensated for their efforts, businesses should feel confident that their investments will pay off. You do not want to pay a high price for an employee who wants a high pay but can’t back it up. With all of these points in mind, the tech talent shortage puts businesses at risk of hiring underwhelming developers at prices out of their budgetary lines. How can an Outsourced team save you during this time? Why outsource team can help you? To assist and somehow hide away the problem of local IT talent shortage, there are outsourcing companies. They are the ones who are primarily responsible for developing your digital product and getting it deployed live. There are lots of reasons for each entrepreneur to be going for an outsourced team. The most common and widespread reasons why so many startups and companies prefer to address their issues to the outsource are: The ballpark estimate is fair (compared to hiring local developers) The pool of talent is larger You can focus on other significant tasks. Let’s look at each point a bit closer. Affordability You can expect to pay lower rates if you outsource development rather than hiring locally. You won't have to pay for equipment, maintenance, training, workspace, or employee benefits in addition to the hourly rate. In most cases, outsourcing entails only paying for what you require and nothing more. Larger Talent Pool The best talent isn't always in your city or even your country. With the Outsource team, you're gaining access to a larger pool of talent by going remote and opening those positions to developers outside of North America. Not to mention the significant financial benefit of hiring developers from Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, where median salaries are lower. Because they earn more than the national average, software developers from those regions are typically highly motivated to work with North American clients. Work Efficiency You won't waste time on training because you'll be looking for someone who specializes in a specific area right away. Instead, the experts you hire will be able to get started on your project right away, speeding up the entire process. In Conclusion Not to be dramatic, but the United States has a severe software developer shortage on its hands. A four-year college diploma is no longer sufficient; applicants must possess a diverse set of skills and the ability to work as part of a team. Thus it is a serious matter that most f developers and startupers must look into. But what if they have tried so much that it feels already nauseous from browsing all digital agencies in your browser and feel distrust towards them? Then JetRuby might have something you’ve been looking for so long. For the past 10+ years, we’ve been on the digital market, working alongside various digital startups and building over 100+ unique solutions for each of our partners. To do this, we have created a particular technological flow that starts with the Product Development Strategy Session. It is the very initial and fundamental step towards your project’s success. We will produce a general plan with the future product lifecycle during our free business consultation and create an action plan with high-level features for the first step. If you’re interested, leave your project description today, and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.     ### Concise Guide: How to make a fitness app? Developing a fitness application is currently at the peak of its popularity. With an increasing number of people focusing on their health, fitness apps have become a standard feature on nearly every smartphone. COVID-19 has only pushed this trend further, strengthening it. With practically no open gyms and in-person fitness halls available, people turn to virtual classes to keep fit and stay active. Consider a mobile fitness app like MyFitnessPal. In 2021, their product gained over $2.5 million while staying on track to become the highest-grossing fitness app of all time. Subsequently, lots of people will ask: "How to develop a fitness app like that?" or, more precisely, "How to make a fitness app that everyone will love?" To answer all of these questions and cast all of the doubts away, we prepare this article. A small but concise guide on how to make a fitness app of your dream. What are the core functions of a fitness app? The core features of a fitness app Just as every single application has a particular set of functionalities and features. The main goal of which is to benefit both the client and the owner. To do this, you need to comply with the application features for fitness centers. Here is what is recommended to consider: Registration and authorization - Every user should register his profile, while authorization should be simple and straightforward. Registration allows users to access personal data, statistics, and personal workouts. It is a direct opportunity for a fitness app to keep a database of clients, understand their needs, and establish communication. Personal cabinet - Includes personal data, access to the application functionality, and its features. A personal cabinet can reflect individual workouts, indicators, statistics, and other personal data. Third-party Devices - Fitness apps should connect to third-party devices, such as smartwatches or fitness bracelets. Such a feature will provide comfort and enjoyment to users, benefit owners by increasing loyalty, customer interest, and retention through enhanced features. Tracking user activity - An important addition that provides tracking and monitoring of physical exercise or results. This is one of the primary app motivators that convinces the client to use the app and continue exercising. Geolocation - An essential function for fitness apps, as the app can show you what kind of routine you have traveled through while making users feel as if they have gained a new achievement. Notifications and reminders - Another important motivator is daily physical sessions, meals, and other tasks. Notifications significantly increase engagement and increase the time spent in the app. Set of Goals - Every mobile fitness app should be able to set goals. Proper visual design with an additional motivation quote or a video will make the app more exciting and attractive. Monetization model - Of course, every fitness app should generate a generous amount of income for its owner. Depending on the chosen monetization model, developers offer options for implementation. The most popular choices are the one-time paid version and subscription model. Types of Fitness Applications There are several types of apps, each filled with purpose, value, usage, and meaning. To stress out and highlight the most popular ones that became significant trends in recent years, we summarized all core fitness apps. Workouts and Exercise Apps This type of app includes workout plans, workout techniques, sets of pre-made workouts, and so on. The primary purpose of such a fitness application is to show users how to do correct exercises and keep track of the progress of all their workouts. Nutrition and dieting Apps Suitable for an audience that wants to lose weight, gain mass, and change body shapes. A good nutrition control app should be able to "adjust" to the users’ needs, identify achievements and statistics of results while having lots of other tools. Among them are a calorie counter, recipes, nutrition tips, and interaction among other app users (social media sharing). Personal Trainer Apps An excellent solution for pandemic times, when fitness centers are currently closed. You get a fitness application with a personal online coach. Interaction with clients increases, attracting new users to online gyms. You can publish streams or video workouts, seminars, and other content in the app, providing the opportunity to pay for classes. You can also sell the services of a personal trainer who will monitor the results online. Multifunctional Apps The application combines several fitness and workout functions, from practical workout techniques to a personalized online coach for your flexible time. But the cost of development is higher due to the volume of extensive functionalities involved. For the customers, however, the advantage here is that every single function from different fitness app types is combined in one digital product. They can control their workouts, nutrition, trackers, personal achievements, and lots of other features. FBusinesswners will get a flexible monetization system, implement paid functions, and increase audience due to versatility. Tracking Apps Relatively simple applications whose task is to count the user’s actions. Calories, speed, distance, time - it doesn't matter. The app uses the cell phone’s accelerometer or connects to third-party devices, like a heart rate monitor, fitness bracelet, and so on, to execute its purpose. Wellness Apps This is a category of apps designed for unconventional fitness styles. Yoga, meditation, Oriental practices, and other methods of exercise are included here. Such applications implement the function of demonstrating audio and video content, motivational content, and timers for unique fitness techniques. What are the steps in making a fitness application? Steps to develop a fitness app When you are trying to make a fitness app, there are lots of factors that are taken into account. Here is a breakdown of these complex steps consisting of several stages. Evaluation Here, the primary goals and objectives are defined. Will it be an iPhone app only or an android app? Can it be a cross-platform app for both operating systems? The market is assessed, the details are studied, and the cost of the application is determined. The main task is to understand what the result should be and how it should look like. The planning stage The market, competitors, and target audience are thoroughly studied. Information about the analog products is gathered, the proof of concept is developed. During the planning stage, analytical work is carried out, up to the promotion methods. The main task is to understand the target audience and attract customers so that your business model can function. Development and testing A designer works out the design layout, fulfilling the first part of the question "how to make a fitness app", taking into account the user experience and interface (UX/UI design). Then a prototype is created, and after its approval, the developers start writing code. The application is developed with your chosen tech stack, after which it is necessarily tested and checked for any errors or software bugs. As a result, a stylish and practical product is created. The main task here is to follow the previously outlined plan and make a fitness app that fully meets customers' needs. Release and post-release support After the development and testing phase, an app release is conducted. The app is then uploaded to digital marketplaces. For Android, it is Play Market. For iPhone, it is App Store. The marketing plan, which was created during a planning stage, is then implemented. Along with that, further support includes creating updates, fixing bugs, handling customer feedback, and improving the fitness app versions. The main point here is to improve the user experience by considering various behavioral factors of the target audience. In other words, doing everything to make customers want to use the fitness app and constantly promote it. Monetization Models There is no doubt that building a fitness app is just one side of your startup. While building a real fitness business with a high adoption rate is a more significant part of both the technological and business sides. And one of the things that require attention from both angles is a fitness monetization model. Let’s review the most popular ones and see how exactly you can improve your business model. Pay-to-Use Users pay to install the app under. This revenue model generates an immediate profit, but it does not cause a large amount of revenue than other monetization models. Given the expense of maintaining a team of developers that develops new updates and fix bugs, the app price should be sufficiently high to cover these costs. In this case, users may choose not to purchase the unknown app, which is quite expensive. This strategy makes sense only if you have a simple fitness app with no serious plans. You can set a low price to cover development costs while still attracting an audience. Later on, you can incorporate additional revenue streams into this project. In-App Purchases You create a fitness application and distribute it for free using this strategy. The free app version includes a basic set of more than sufficient features to ensure a seamless experience. However, the app consists of some premium features for a fee. Users are not required to purchase them, but in most cases, if they genuinely enjoy the concept of your app, they will buy features that enhance its core functionality. Almost all fitness applications include in-app purchases. MyFitnessPal and LifeSum both offer an optional subscription that unlocks additional features. Ads If you choose this strategy, you will display advertisements from your partners within the app. There are numerous types of ads. You can integrate advertisements promoting products into the app's various menus. Another option is to use video advertisements in response to specific actions (after a successful workout, for example). It is critical to avoid the overuse of ads, as users dislike them. Consider the ad layout in advance of your app development. In-app advertisements are popular among the fitness industry's major players. Combo You can combine multiple models to maximize your revenue. For instance, if your app displays advertisements, users can get rid of them through a paid subscription. As a result, you'll profit from both unsubscribed and premium users. Ichallengingcult to find an application that does not make use of the combined model. The primary benefit of a paid subscription is that users are free of advertisements. Almost every business understands it and employs it to its advantage. What is the cost of developing a fitness app? Cost of a fitness app The cost of a fitness app depends on many factors. Functionality, type of platform, additional or backlog features. The price is mainly calculated based on the required time for the mobile app development process. Based on our experience, project preparations take around 1 to 2 weeks, design and concept - from 150 to 190 hours, development - from 800 hours or more. To make a much more definite estimate, we invite you to go ahead with our technological flow and take the Design and Discovery Phase. This is an essential preparation step for any startup or a company to identify all of your core mobile app features and avoid common and critical mistakes. If you’re interested, leave your project description, and we will contact you within 24 hours to make a more definite estimation, according to your requirements. An excellent mobile fitness app is an investment in your clients' health. A satisfied and healthy client is a monetization model for the app. If a person sees precise results, he is willing to pay for further promotion, motivation, and support. The target audience for such apps is highly energetic and motivational active people from 25 to 40. In conclusion All in all, the development process of a fitness application is either not an easy one or complicated too. The thing is you need to carefully examine what kind of fitness application you want to develop and to whom you want to sell it eventually. However, what if you have searched all along, but you haven’t found the right technical specialist to implement your app? And now you’re too afraid to choose which one might be suitable for you? Then JetRuby might have just what you need. We have developed a technological flow that most of our clients undergo during the past 10 years of constant collaboration and cooperation with various startups. The first one of which is called a Product Development Strategy. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours! ### Why do you need a startup customer journey map? Customers are treated to a seamless online/offline experience from the moment they associate with one of the aforementioned famous brands, regardless of whether the engagement starts in a retail store location or on the company's website. Thus, the question remains: how can bootstrapped entrepreneurs and smaller businesses that do not sell expensive goods or services learn to build these holistic, omnichannel consumer experiences? You might be asking yourself, "Where do I begin?" As a digital agency that specializes in raising startup products, we took an opportunity to tell you the details of a customer journey app. So, sit back, relax and let’s roll into the article. What is a customer journey map? What is a Startup Customer Journey Map? A consumer journey map is a visual representation of how your customer interacts with your company and its product. It serves as an assistant that allows visualizing customers as traditional flow charts, but you can add layers of information with this one. Customer journey mapping does not have to be a complex technological process. It can be as straightforward as making an order at your favorite pizzeria. The critical point here is to get the data out of your team's heads and visualize it. When should you implement a customer journey map? In a nutshell, as soon as possible. The sooner you will determine your offering, and who your potential customers are, the better it is for your business as you can already start working on it immediately. Consider creating your first startup customer journey map as part of the concept validation process. It's an opportunity to visualize how your concept would work before investing time and money in its growth. It lays the groundwork for more effective, reliable, and deliberate product creation. Often modern startups are sticking to the instinct "create first, ask questions later". However, pausing early on to ask the right questions will save you and your team a lot of grief. Additionally, a well-designed startup customer journey map is an excellent opportunity for getting you and your team to ask the right questions. With this in mind, don't be surprised if your startup customer journey map may look significantly different at launch than it did six months ago. As our relationships with consumers are not static, neither should our approaches stay the same way. A consumer journey map should be a living, breathing document, something you can change. What’s the point of a customer journey map? It brings the team together When you work together daily, it's natural to believe that everyone understands what you're constructing and how the pieces fit together. Once you've created a customer journey map, you'll immediately know if you're on the same page with your team because the page will be right in front of you. You want everyone to have the same understanding of the process and intent and to avoid misunderstandings. A well-designed consumer journey map enables you to accomplish precisely that. It assists you in identifying issues It's simple to detect when something isn't working correctly in your company. Your team is under pressure, your customer service line is exploding, or your sales have plateaued. What's more difficult is determining the source of all the commotion. A company is like a human body, it is a complex organism. And, as the body begins to ache in one location, the cause may lie in some damaged organ in another area. A customer journey map is similar to an MRI of your company. It enables you to see past the symptoms and determine what is broken. Is your sign-up page lacking a prominent call to action? Are consumers having difficulty upgrading their accounts? Are they fleeing because there is nowhere else to go? A well-designed startup consumer journey map will assist you in identifying these and other issues. It compels you to examine your preconceptions. One of the essential functions of a startup customer journey map is to help you see beyond your preconceived notions about your product and customers. You must be acutely conscious of your prejudices and obsessive in your pursuit of feedback. The greatest danger to the consumer experience is making decisions solely based on visible metrics: clicks, sales, or whatever the metrics are. By definition, a customer journey map is an antidote to this myopic view of data since it contextualizes all. Steps involved in creating a customer journey map? What steps do you need to take for your Startup Customer Journey Map? Regardless of the number of divisions or goods or services offered by your brand, you must have an excellent customer journey map if you wish to influence the customer experience. Thus, how do you even begin, or where should you start from to create a customer journey map? Customer Tasks and Activities To begin creating the customer journey map, you must observe your customer's journey by asking questions and using their input to direct your mapping. You'll want to investigate the customers' actions and track their experience. This phase can include the use of personas, interviews, observation, and surveying. It is accomplished by consumer interviews or market analysis with individuals who suit your target demographic and customer profile but have not yet purchased from you. If you are unable to perform interviews due to various factors, you can arrange a meeting with your customer service and sales staff to see if they can fill in any of the holes with their current expertise. Bear in mind that this is a cross-functional collaborative process that aims to fully map the diverse paths that your customer's journey can take. Another thing is that you must determine which activities or tasks your customers attempt during their interaction with your product or service. If we take a retail store example, a customer might have their first encounter with your store simply by walking past it. This is where you analyze and gain a comprehensive understanding of all experiences or touchpoints your consumers have with your brand through all channels. Perhaps you discover that not all consumers interact with your online store at first. Maybe some customers learn about your company after receiving your "New Store Opening" snail mail flyer, an email, or even a magazine advertisement. You're interested in knowing this stuff, and you'll want to capture and record it in your customer's journey log. Customer Thoughts and Feelings After you've completed the initial framework of a customer journey map, you're able to begin associating emotions with it. This is referred to as the "thinking and feeling" process. It might seem odd for you to consider this feely section to make educated guesses about your customers’ thinking or feeling. However, keep in mind that you should have surfaced and maintained their feelings or reactions during initial surveys or interviews. Therefore, let us not underestimate the value of asking questions during customer interviews that elicit any of these emotions. You can discover a simple, cost-effective method for managing your customers' expectations and ultimate satisfaction with your brand simply by identifying one or two common gripes or objections shared by the majority of your customers. Tell a couple of customer stories or re-invite your customer support or sales representatives to a meeting and ask them to express different feelings and opinions about your customers' sales processes or journeys. The most effective method of capturing this information is to document the data from your interviews and surveys in collaboration with your customer service departments. Additionally, going through this phase will provide you with the direction you should approach or interact with your future or new customers. Notice that your customers are confused or concerned about taking the next step toward buying during one of the sales to funnel phases. Your reply tone should be reassuring, and your explanation should focus on the features and benefits of purchasing your product. Customer Touchpoints Along the conversion route, touchpoints are connections points between your potential customers and your brand, goods, or services. These encounters occur at specific points in the customer's path (which happens more often in the digital world) and are motivated by the meaning of the interaction. Typically, the step purpose is to help your potential customer fulfill a particular need that your product, service, or brand might, can, or should satisfy. If your brand conducts all business online, you will typically set up an attribution model to credit marketing touchpoints along the conversion paths for purchases and conversions. Whatever touchpoints you discover, ensure that you find a way to strengthen them. If your startup is attempting to sign users up for a free demo or trial, take a look at the process; may you reduce the number of fields needed to complete your forms or reduce the number of steps required for them to begin using it? During this step, you can notice that common issues emerge and standard terms or phrases used by customers to characterize experiences. All of these comments and opinions should be documented in your customer service chart. These recurring topics can provide significant insights into how to eliminate bottlenecks and improve the efficiency of your customer acquisition funnels. Customer Journey Segmentation This last step is ideal for taking action and taking a nice, long look at the entire customer journey. What are your observations? Continuing with the narrative analogy, you're likely to notice several chapters at the beginning, middle, and end. This is a natural segue into the next phase in the journey process - segmentation. Like chapters in a good book, this exercise assists you in better charting the customer experience so that you can identify which phases need the most focus in terms of progress and improved customer service processes. Consider if any stages are failing to convert prospects to the next funnel level. You may categorize these troubled areas as opportunities and observations and give brief suggestions or solutions to test each one. This move transforms the customer journey map into something more than an experience; it changes the entire process into a strategic sales tool. In conclusion Your startup customer journey map begins when your clients engage with your product or service for the first time. The experience mapping process documents the customer's journey through touchpoints and describes their actions, thoughts, and feelings. Through the prism of your customer, your organization can find several previously unknown or missed opportunities and strengthens a customer-centric approach within your organization. But let’s suppose that you have collected enough to start your company and prepare to build your product, but here’s a thing: you don’t understand how to effectively use it to gain the most productive result both for your customer journey map and the product you want to achieve. More than that, you’re entirely new to it, and you require assistance, then what? In that case, we can provide a direct specificity of your product development and customer journey mapping processes. Over the past 10+ years, we have been involved in numerous startups and entrepreneurs that have been actively engaged in developing unique digital products. All of them have been successfully raised to a solid stage when they can efficiently labor productive results. How did they accomplish that with us? Everything has begun with our technological flow or, more precisely, with the Product Development Strategy Session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours! ### Top best startup ideas to try in 2021 Ever before had searched for an excellent idea for a technology startup? You understand the very best means to begin a technology service market is to get a concept. Yet, the year 2020 had not been that fantastic for many companies because of the pandemic circumstance. Nevertheless, any crisis can draw out the ideal organizational remedy; all you need is the right idea to listen to the situation. As an instance, look at the sales businesses made by offering facial masks and also sanitizers.  The post-Covid world will mainly rely on the power of the web, and also for the same factor, the majority of businesses are rapidly moving online. Over the past numerous months, you could have witnessed exactly how the pandemic had forced countless small and large companies to move online. This vast online movement of small and massive companies unfolds brand-new opportunities for tech start-ups to develop distinct designs for these companies. So why we don’t spend time with each other investigating some encouraging new technology start-up ideas that could aid you to build your service realm in 2021? What are the Best Technology Startup Concepts to expect in 2021? One point is without a doubt: the development of modern technology over the last few years shows that unless businesses are adopting the latest offered technology out there, they will get eliminated from the market. With an increasing number of new tech startups emerging and receiving funds for their distinct company models, many new possibilities are developing for them in the middle of the Covid-19 at rampage. Allow's get straight right into the comprehensive list of promising technology startup ideas that have actually influenced 2020 and also will have tremendous potential in 2021. Here is the list of 2021 Tech Trends that every entrepreneur should look into: Artificial intelligence Telehealth and Virtual Medical Services Remote Working Online Course Platform Biotech Startups Robotic Delivery eCommerce Online coaching  Agriculture App for Farmer Fitness App Health Monitoring App Artificial Intelligence For the past decade, AI has been getting a lot of focus, as well as there's no doubt AI would certainly evolve even further. In 2021, most mainstream organizations will be geared up with AI, thus opening up countless tech startup opportunities. Nowadays, AI can review for us, talk, compose, listen to, see, and analyze things in terms of video clips and photographs. Every one of these is transforming companies as well as helping them re-imagine and improve their business processes. With the increased infection rates and bio-lab situations because of the pandemic circumstance, AI plays a critical function in analyzing those overwhelming quantities of data. From medical care to IT solutions and cybersecurity, startups have many locations to be discovered. And in 2021, the demand for them is only going to increase. Telehealth and Virtual Medical Services The one thing that changed a lot in the health industry during the past year is tech's significant medical services participation. For this situation alone, lots of technology firms are simplifying their solutions for the health care market. Recent research studies have revealed that telecalling individuals could solve 80% of the critical clinical focus required. Moreover, healthcare facilities can enhance their online medical care system with the aid of digital clinical solutions. These services open up a wealth of tech start-ups opportunities to contend with versus even more famous players within the very same industry. The need for such services is increasing every day as an increasing number of start-ups discover their advantages. Read more: How To Develop A Healthcare App In 2021? Remote working  As the COVID-19 pandemic has hit worldwide, "Work from home" abbreviated as WFH, has gained appeal across the tech sector. But as months passed, we know precisely how things escalated promptly. Issues began occurring as increasingly more companies started switching over to a remote functioning model. This problem gave rise to tech solutions like personal remote procedure automation. With the help of RPA (Robotic Process Automation), making use of software programs and apps makes the regular jobs of employees easy to carry out and makes remote working safe, constant, and efficient. Read more: Step Guide: How To Create A Video Conference App? EdTech Startup If you are searching for a tech start-up idea that might increase your B2B advertising, after that aiding hundreds of businesses to handle their remote-working workers would certainly get the job done for you. The sector that obtained the most attention throughout these uncertain times is the education and learning sector. Investors are more than happy to spend high on EdTech startups. With all those schools, establishments, and various other academic facilities taking their service entirely online, startups save funds and expand as COVID-19 continues. Many companies have currently taken initiatives in making a suitable online educational program even in the post-pandemic world. The increasing need for online training companies also shows how substantial the possibilities for technology start-ups are within the EdTech industry. Biotech Startup Many biotech startups emerge each year together with the rapid development of innovation. Such startups gain publicity and support from angel financiers and federal governments since biotechs are essential to enhancing human life’s top quality. Most of these firms draw in entrepreneurs, executives, and financiers because the benefits can be significant when innovations are made. Nevertheless, the challenges faced are difficult, either. Suppose great deals of caution, as well as innovative suggestions, proceed. In that case, you can have a massive opportunity as a tech startup to excite capitalists and obtain multimillion-dollar investments and draw in the media and acquire some fame. Read more: Emerging Trends In Healthcare Startups Of 2021 Robotic Delivery It is not a straightforward task for entrepreneurs to run robotics start-ups. Yet, the variety of robotics start-ups servicing groundbreaking innovations is growing in numbers. Robotics have been fast-growing for the past few years, but the current pandemic circumstance accelerated its growth also better, providing every start-up an opportunity to up its game. The impressive effectiveness that robotics execute in restricting human-to-human communication has aided in battle the of infection. This adds a higher need for robotics in upcoming years where independent robotics are offered many businesses' cutting edge. Read more: Saffron Cooks: Success Story Of A Food Delivery App eCommerce Developing an elementary internet site along with a mobile app is all you need to build your eCommerce service. Discussing the eCommerce service now is the very best time to begin one. In almost every field, the eCommerce sector is expanding. It needs to all work from running a premier on the internet fashion store to selling old items. The purchase habits of individuals have changed a whole lot ever since Covid-19 has struck the globe. Individuals delight in the convenience of internet shopping as well as the websites providing bargains and price cuts. Despite a thousand even more technology start-up owners arising under the eCommerce industry, there are still plenty of opportunities arising daily. You have to find the appropriate particular niche to start your organization. Conversely, you can be the shovel seller instead of mining gold. This implies you can begin providing different solutions for those that are new to the eCommerce business. In any case, there's no much better time for introducing this company than today. Read more: E-commerce app development  Online mentoring A few of the best organizational concepts are about inspiring other individuals, not just selling services and products. If you're that sort of person, this concept is for you. Self-improvement is constantly in style. If you can offer a service like fitness, life, or job mentoring, now is the time to discover clients. You'll need to be an expert at the work, whether you're an individual trainer or a material advertising master. A lot of coaching customers are professionals looking for a high-impact service. If you want to start an organization training others, consider carving your specific niche by developing detailed programs or self-publishing a guide. This is an excellent inexpensive online service concept that you can start from residence. People agree to pay for self-improvement, so set up a glossy site and write your company strategy. Agriculture App for Farmer Farmers usually make every effort to connect with merchants and also customers. Beyond that, there is too much manual work performed at the ranch. So an agricultural application can assist keep essential details about pets or crops. The implication of AI, machine learning, and IoT modern technologies can boost productivity and minimize expenditures in time and cash. The app can monitor the entire range of ranch procedures, market items and enhance total farming success. Read more: Emerging Trends In Agricultural Technology Of 2021 Fitness App A fitness application can do a lot more than an exercise application as it will certainly not just give a set of workouts yet will have the ability to track healthy and balanced behaviors under the control of wellness experts like nutritionists or health and wellness coaches. The application can track such factors as weight, sugar, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen degree, and many others. A customer can have meal dishes, a collaborated plan of workouts, and nutrition for every day. Besides, customers can have assessments with wellness specialists with an application. Read more: https://jetruby.com/blog/move-shanghai/ Health Monitoring App Specialist treatment of a person needs to track their state and to collect all the critical data in one place. A health and wellness tracking application can manage all the symptoms, suggest medications, and analyze outcomes concerning each individual. In case of an emergency, a user can get in touch with the medical professional instantly. The app can keep and reveal all the call information of a client consisting of personal records, loved ones' call information so the medical center can save time on search and give the essential aid instantly. Such applications remain in great need nowadays and are highly valued by both patients and also medical professionals. Read more: FibriCheck App: A Story Of An Innovative Medical Startup How to choose the right business idea for you So many good ideas were mentioned above - exactly how do you understand which organization to start? Well, that's to you. If this lengthy listing of business concepts has actually influenced you, yet you're still unsure whether to open a shop or deal cleaning services, right here's just how to work it out: Find your passion - A small business can be affordable to begin yet demanding to run. Ensure you're pursuing company concepts and consumers you'll like. Know your strengths - Beginning a company needs know-how. Excite people by developing a small business, you understand. Determine your funding - There are plenty of low-cost service concepts available, but you could need to spend cash to earn money. Conduct marketing research - Make sure you're supplying services or products that people want. Only go after small business suggestions that remain in demand. Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Put your sorrowful worries away and call JetRuby today! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different tech start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Strategy Session. And we'll contact you in no time! Conclusion There's no doubt a successful service does offer you financial freedom. With the above list, We have provided you with some of the best technology startup concepts to build your business in 2021. However, you need to know that everyone does have some ideas. Even though pictures are great, they alone could never make a successful startup. Your priority is to determine whether the vision you have within you is worth turning into a business. Always remember, it's not an easy task to run a tech startup company, so don't refrain from asking for help. Having someone to guide you is better than failing alone. We at Jetruby help startups build their businesses from scratch, show them by giving free Product Development Strategy Session, and most importantly, help them achieve financial freedom by developing their idea into a business model. Now that you have these ideas, which one of the tech startups do you think is the best for you to build your business on? Let me know in the comments below. ### How to develop an eCommerce app? With the growth of online sales, the eCommerce industry sees the fastest growth in mobile app development, driven by the need to satisfy customer desires. Consumers require the ability to purchase goods and services at any time and from any location, including traveling. As a result, more online shoppers prefer mobile eCommerce applications over websites, owing to their superior speed, convenience, and adaptability. It is now simpler than ever to understand how to develop an eCommerce app. Thus, in this article, we will address the development process architecture and other critical information necessary to understand how to develop an eCommerce app. Where should you focus while building an eCommerce app? Where do you put your focus when developing an eCommerce app? Tight Security All eCommerce apps are designed to enable users to purchase merchandise simply by tapping on their smartphone screens. The first and most important factor to remember is the protection of the user's personal information. eCommerce applications contain a significant amount of sensitive information during the purchasing process (like shipping and billing addresses, credit card numbers, CVV codes, and emails), protecting that information from stealing must be the primary concern. Personal data leakage is one of the most vexing problems currently facing the entire IT industry, and the development of eCommerce applications is no exception. The security features of a software product dictate its marketability. If you fail to convince users of the complete security of their personal information, you risk an app’s eventual doom. Modern encryption technologies allow the development of very secure eCommerce applications. The amount of money business owners determines the protection level of any mobile application are willing to spend on firewall protection against intruders. So, the protection can be quite costly during the development of an eCommerce app, but it is still worth doing. Scalability Scalability refers to an application's capacity to accommodate an increasing volume of traction. When an application grows in popularity, it acquires additional users and requests to process. When trying to understand how to develop an eCommerce app, it is hardly fair to restrict its technological capabilities in scalability. It is preferable to have any unnecessary variety upfront than to endure a frozen application later. The scalable application's performance can be maintained or even improved as load increases. Stability Instability and crashes are unacceptable features for a mobile eCommerce application. Stabilizing the app should be a top priority if you want to spend your capital correctly and increase revenue volumes. Most users tend not to waste their time on inconsistent or unbalanced applications. Of course, making a flawless product without any difficulties or glitches is difficult. It is essential to conduct quality assurance checks, collect customer feedback, release bug fixes, and gradually develop the app. This is a standard sequence that operates for any company involved in a professional eCommerce mobile application creation. Numerous iterations can be time-consuming during the development stage. But a well-crafted product will relieve both owners and consumers of any headaches. After all, this is about delivering a smooth user experience, which is worthwhile of the developers' time and effort. Core Features of an eCommerce app Core things to consider when developing an eCommerce app To ensure that all development goals are met during the app development process, close collaboration between UX design, product development, and the sales team is needed. The first and most critical aspect of an excellent mobile eCommerce application is its functionality. You need to remember the essential functions that the mobile app must have for users to accomplish their objectives. For that reason, here are the core functionalities that any type of eCommerce App should have: Registration - Users must register to gain access to your application and begin making purchases. To keep your operations easy, all users should have an account, which allows them to configure their profile, use the shopping cart, and utilize the payment-checkout feature once signed in. We suggest making the registration process as simple as possible to expedite the whole process. Reviews and ratings - Enable customers to leave honest reviews on the products and services they purchase through your eCommerce application. By encouraging users to leave feedback and rate your app, you will increase your brand trust and product sales. Additionally, you can dramatically boost purchases, raise revenue, and eventually enhance the user experience. Wishlist - This is a list of products that customers have requested. By creating a wishlist functionality, you provide customers with a simple way to acquire items they want later. Plus, you’ll allow customers to save and view their favorites, gaining a deeper understanding of their customers' needs. Voice search - The voice search feature is one of the biggest IT trends that can significantly improve the customer experience for your eCommerce app users by finding information that they are looking for quickly. In eCommerce, voice search is forecast to boost revenue to $40 billion by 2022. Payment System - Integration of one or more payment services is typically associated with back-end growth. Your customers are rarely aware of the amount of work required to create the payment section. Nonetheless, consumers still appreciate payment options that operate without interruption. As a result, developing a payment system is critical throughout your journey of "how to develop an eCommerce app". Customer Online Support - Users can become perplexed by size charts, delivery methods, or simply have difficulty placing an order. To help the app, an online chat or call center is needed. Additionally, chatbots can be deployed to prevent customer service from being overburdened with easy and repetitive requests such as signing in. The steps towards developing an eCommerce app Here we want to cover some steps for developing an eCommerce app. Pretty much everyone knows that the methods used to create such apps are very close to any popular eCommerce store out there (like eBay, Amazon, AliExpress). We'll walk you through the process of developing a mobile eCommerce application that succeeds in today's business environment. Choose your market niche The initial step in the question of "how to develop an eCommerce app" is to choose a niche. Your market can encompass various factors, like the goods you want to sell or the categories you plan to create virtual stores. For instance, you may prioritize essential grocery items such as rice, butter, milk, and eggs for your online eCommerce food store. In that case, you need to reorganize your secondary parts to accommodate additional items such as clothes, shoes, and books. A detailed market analysis should follow the niche of your company. Market research is similar to fortifying your business idea against all potential market risks. A thorough market study will inform you of all critical market data, such as opportunities, audience behavior, expansion opportunities, and the business's future. Keep in mind that reliable data will always assist you in driving your business in the right direction. Write down your core features The development of eCommerce apps continues with the mapping of critical features. You must recognize that users are becoming increasingly mobile-dependent. As a result, it is crucial to provide them with as much comfort as possible through app features. For instance, an eCommerce application with disorganized goods would disengage and repel users. Several critical components for any innovative mobile application focused on eCommerce include the following: If the critical features have been clearly defined, the next step is to begin developing the app. Produce the Design Assets One of the defining characteristics of successful eCommerce applications is their user-friendly interface. A design that reads the user's mind and offers intuitive keys and buttons will win customers' hearts. The wireframing of the app, the placement of critical elements, and the simplification of check-out processes are all essential considerations of design. However, these features should be discussed with clients because they can affect the cost of developing an app. Simplicity is achieved by high-level functions such as a cart, simplified menu, and wishlist. A minimum amount of product information is provided upfront, with additional information available to those who need it. A minimal graphic style, a single color, and an easy-to-use GUI help keep things tidy and straightforward. Additionally, during this step, you can develop your brand identity and plan a logo or name that matches your design aesthetic. Core Development The next move is to decide which platform your eCommerce mobile application, whether it is iOS, Android, or a Progressive Web App (PWA). Although most on-demand services are Android-based, the iOS app store is brimming with creative and innovative applications. It is widely accepted that iOS applications perform well in North America and most of Europe, with a few notable exceptions. A modern mobile app development company will determine this during the market research stage, giving the mobile app development process a philosophical direction. Deployment and Further Support Finally, the time has come to deploy your eCommerce application. The first deployment stage provides a good amount of information about the marketing efforts necessary for the final app launch. Like social networking advertising, Google Ads, video ads, and various other tactics that will help the app reach the right audience. The way an eCommerce business handles and reacts to its customers is what propels it forward. Therefore, be prepared with creative and compassionate customer notifications daily to please and engage them. Following all of the above measures deftly will ensure that your app is unique and hits the road to success in weeks. Cost of an eCommerce App Development Cost of an eCommerce App Development With everything being said, purchasing a pre-built eCommerce application is not a good idea. To gain popularity among your users, an app must provide customized experiences. Thus, you should always consider the cost factor while developing an eCommerce app. When it comes to mobile eCommerce, it is advised to go for native app creation rather than a hybrid approach, as you’ll be able to connect with your potential audience. Your project team will be composed of UI/UX designers, iOS or Android developers, and customer service engineers. You can optionally augment a team with a project manager and full-stack web developers. You must also determine whether you want to create an MVP and build iOS and Android app concurrently or separately. Additionally, you should decide whether you wish to outsource your application development or hire local software engineers. Most of the things that we’ve just mentioned are directly related to the eCommerce development costs. In most cases, according to our data, most of the time, it takes from 600 to 900 hours depending on the number of features you want to develop or create. In comparison, the price range varies from $30,000 to $200,000 as it all depends on the level of the app’s complexity and the vendors who are to be developing it. In Conclusion People are becoming more reliant on online shopping, so if you have an idea that can develop an eCommerce app that will simplify their lives, go for it! You can just bear in mind that the competition level in the eCommerce industry is intense. So it is critical to provide unique customized experiences to consumers and make online shopping as transparent as possible for them. But what if you have an intense desire for your product, but you just don’t understand how to estimate the development cost? Or even more, what if you can't say how to effectively gain the most efficient digital product out of your capital? Then JetRuby might have just what you need. We have developed a technological flow that most of our clients undergo during the past 10 years of constant collaboration and cooperation with various startups. The first step of which is called a Product Development Strategy. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours! ### How your business can fail without proper competitor research Can you recall, when was the last time you ran a competitive analysis for your business? And most notably, do you understand how to do one effectively? Suppose the previous "analysis" you ran was a quick perusal of a rival's website and social media presence. In that case, you're most likely losing out on essential intelligence that might help your business grow and increase the risk of failure of your business. Competitive analysis can help you learn the ins and outs of how your competition works, allows you to avoid mistakes made by your competitors, and determine possible opportunities where you can out-perform them. It also enables you to stay top of the market and ensure your product consistently fits market standards. Let's dive into a couple of more advantages of conducting competitive analysis. It helps you identify your product's unique value proposition and what makes your product different from rivals, which can notify future marketing efforts: Allows you to determine what your rival is doing right. This detail is vital for staying pertinent and ensuring your product and marketing campaigns surpass industry standards. It tells you where your rivals are failing, which helps you identify opportunities in the market and test out new, unique marketing methods they haven't benefited from. Learn through consumer evaluation of what's missing in a competitor's product, and consider how you might add features to your product to fulfill those needs. Supplies you with a benchmark against which you can measure your business growth. Convinced, yet? Next, let's dive into how you can carry out a competitive analysis for your own company and avoid mistakes made by your competitors.   What actions should I follow? There are several steps that you should follow to get all the necessary information about your competitors.   Identify your competitors Who are your competitors? You might be able to call one and even two of them off the top of your head. However, there are most likely other companies that don't appear like threats now, but with a couple of adjustments could chip away at your customer base. Make a list of all of the companies providing similar products and services or targeting similar markets. If this is your first time doing rival analysis, narrow the list to the 4-5 companies that provide the most significant hazards to your business. How to do that? Divide your "competitors" into 2 categories: direct and indirect. Direct competitors are businesses that offer a product and services that could pass as a comparable alternative to yours. On the flip side, an indirect competitor provides products that are not the same but could please the same client’s need or resolve the same problems. It appears easy enough on paper, but these two terms are frequently misused. When comparing your product, you must just concentrate on your direct competitors. This is something many brand businesses get wrong. Keep these businesses on your radar, considering that they could shift positions at any time and change over into the direct competitor zone. This is also one of the reasons why you'll want to run a competitor analysis regularly. The market can and will shift at any time, and if you're not continuously scoping it out, you won't know these changes till it's too late. As you go on, you might also select to go into the marketing strategies of businesses that aren't your direct competitors, like similar organizations throughout the country. Although your consumer base may not overlap, their methods might provide some great concepts.   Identify what your competitors offer Any company has an outstanding product worthy of attention. You'll want to analyze your competitor's product and the quality of the service or products they're providing. You should also take note of their pricing and any discount they're offering to the clients. Some concerns to think about include: Are they a low-cost or high-cost business? Are they working generally on volume sales or one-o purchases? What is their market share? What are the attributes and requirements of their perfect customers? How does the business highlight itself from its competitors? How do they distribute their product or service? The study of competitors is just part of the overall development strategy of the company and product. Breakthrough solutions creation is impossible without thorough research of your product development and business strategy. This is why we here at Jetruby created a startup development methodology that allows you to launch a startup with minimal time and cost losses. Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Strategy Session. And we'll contact you in no time!   Study your competitor’s sales tactics and result Running a sales analysis of your competitors can be a bit difficult. You'll wish to find the answers to questions such as: What does the sales procedure look like? What channels are they selling through? Are they scaling up or down? Do they have partner reselling programs? What are their consumer's factors for not buying? What are their incomes each year? What about total sales volume? Do they regularly discount their service or products? These helpful pieces of info will provide you an idea of how competitive the sales process is and what information you need to prepare your sales representatives with to compete during the last buy stage. For publicly held businesses, you can find online annual reports, but you'll have to do more deep investigations to find this info from privately-owned companies. You could find a few of this information by searching through your CRM and connecting to those customers who mentioned they were considering your rival. Find out what made them pick your services or product over others out there. To do this, run a report that reveals all prospective deals where there was a determined competitor. If this information is not something you presently record, talk to marketing and sales to execute a system where potential customers are questioned about the competitors they are considering. Essentially, they'll need to ask their leads (either through a kind field or during a one-on-one sales discussion) to recognize who their present company is, whom they've used in the past, and who else they are considering during the purchasing process. Once a competitor is identified, have your sales team dive much deeper by asking why they are considering switching to your product. If you have already lost the deal, make sure to understand why you lost to your competitor. What services or features attracted more customer attention? Was it about price? Or because of your sales process? If they've already made the switch, learn why they made this decision. By asking open-ended questions, you'll have truthful feedback about what clients find appealing about your product and what might be turning clients away. As soon as you have addressed these concerns, you can begin scoping out your rival's marketing efforts. Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and call JetRuby today! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different tech start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time!   Take a look at your competitor’s pricing, as well as any sales promotions they offer Several significant aspects go into correctly pricing your product - and one significant one understands how much your competitors are charging for a comparable product or service. If you feel your product offers superior features to competitors’ products, you might think about making your product or service more pricey. Nevertheless, if you do that, you should ensure your sales reps are ready to explain why your product is worth the additional expense.  Additionally, maybe you feel there's a gap in your industry for affordable products. If that's the case, you might intend to charge less than rivals' and appeal to potential customers who aren't looking to break the bank for a high-quality product. Obviously, other elements go into correctly pricing a product, but it's critical you remain on top of the market to ensure you're pricing your item in a way that feels affordable to the customers.  Furthermore, take a look at any benefits your competitors offer and how you might match those promotions to complete. For instance, possibly competitors provide a significant recommendation discount or a month-long free trial variation. These perks could be the factor you're losing clients, so if it feels sensible for your business, consider where you may match those advantages - or offer some unique benefits of your own if rivals' do not provide any.   Compare one competitor to another You wish to compare each competitor to your business, however, it also helps compare them. After all, this business might be vying for your clients, but that does not suggest they run the same way. As soon as you have collected all the information you can about these companies, compose detailed profiles that allow you to see how they run the business and how significant a threat they may be. The easiest method to do this is with a side-by-side comparison. Include the products and services they offer, business categories, locations, target audiences, distribution channels, unique capabilities, and anything else that would make one product stand apart from the rest. Save one space to compose a profile of your own company. This will help you with the following action.   Identify your unique position Despite all the apparent resemblances between you and your rivals, there must be enough difference between each business that there's a unique market position for everyone. What will yours be? Thanks to competitive analysis, you have a much better idea of what your competitors provide. Now it's time to find out where you stand in relation to them. Using your profiles and SWOT analysis, identify what you do that others don't, or perhaps what they don't do as well. This could be a unique product or an extensive series of products. Whatever it is, make sure it's a clear assessment based on your rivals’ research and analysis.   Perform a SWOT Analysis to learn your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats Customers are continuously looking for new places to get what they want. Even if they're loyal to your business, they're still looking at it in the context of other businesses. Online competitor analysis permits you to view your business as consumers may see it, revealing its strengths and weaknesses in addition to the future opportunities and threats to its presence. These are precisely the details you'll require to perform your SWOT analysis. Using the profiles of your business and its competitors, recognize the following: Strengths: What does your business do well? What do you provide that the competition doesn't? Weaknesses: Are there areas where rivals perform better than your company? Opportunities: Are there any new trends or changes in competing businesses that could benefit your company over the long term?  Threats: Which trends or competitive activities could trigger a disruption in your business?  This analysis will identify areas you might need to improve, in addition to places that you can use in future marketing and branding efforts. Once you’re done, use your SWOT analysis as input for developing or further refining your Product Development Strategy. It should help you focus on priority goals and initiatives. If you need some guidance with this process, then JetRuby has something for you. As we’ve been on the digital market for more than 10 years with lots of startups, we felt their anxiety and doubts during the initial launch stage. For that reason, we have developed a technological flow that can potentially cast all of your worries away, and it starts from the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation where your team and ours will create a general plan covering the future product cycle and an action plan with high-level features for your first steps. Got interested already? Leave your short project description, and we’ll be in contact with you within 24 hours.   Learn what technology stack your competitors' use Understanding what types of technology your competitors' use can be critical for assisting your own business to reduce friction and increase momentum within your company. For instance, possibly you've seen positive reviews about a competitor's customer care - as you're conducting a research study, you find out the customer uses effective customer service software you haven't been benefiting from. These details should provide you with the opportunity to outperform your competitors' processes. Alternatively, you may think about taking a look at rivals' job listings, particularly for engineers or web developers. The job listing will likely point out which tools a candidate requires to be familiar with - a creative way to discover the innovation your competitors' usage.   How do you stack up against your competitors? No marketing strategy can exist in a bubble. You need to understand what your rivals are doing so you can develop a plan that makes you stand out. The Internet has made this info much easier to discover, however it can still be difficult if you're new to competitive analysis, specifically if you are a newbie entrepreneur who is still finding his method around your first startup while selecting a technological partner who might potentially raise higher than your competitors.   Take action! Now that you've analyzed your competitor's behavior and what's going on in the market, you should have a good sense of the best course of action for your business to require to make money from your competitor's activities.  When your competitor deals with a failure, it's essential to keep in mind that this isn't an automatic win for your business but a unique chance to learn from your competitor's mistakes without suffering the same consequences. By seizing the opportunity, comprehending your competitors, listening to the marketplace, and taking the best strategy, you can be strategic and quickly make money from your rival's failures. If you’d like to get an in-depth look at what others in your industry are doing and use that information to improve your strategy, Jetruby can help! Contact us today to speak with a strategist about how our Internet marketing team can use competitor research to help your business grow. As we’ve been on the digital market for more than 10 years with lots of startups, we felt their anxiety and doubts during the development cycle. For that reason, we have developed a technological flow that can potentially cast all of your worries away, and it starts from the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation where your team and ours will create a general plan covering the future product cycle and an action plan with high-level features for your first steps. Got interested already? Leave your short project description, and we’ll be in contact with you within 24 hours. ### HIPAA Compliance? Why do you need it? Since 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has sought to "prevent healthcare fraud, guarantee the security of all 'safe health records,' and limit access to health data to designated individuals." Historically, this law was enacted to facilitate the transformation of the healthcare sector from paper records to digital copies of patients' health information. Since then, HIPAA has been an instrument in streamlining several administrative health functions. Additionally, HIPAA compliance ensures the safe sharing of confidential health information. If you got interested and want to find out further more about HIPAA and what kind of rule do you need to follow, then keep reading this article! We’ve prepared a lot of useful information regarding HIPAA compliance and the implementation practices tips. What is HIPAA? What is HIPAA Compliance? HIPAA is a legal action made by the US congress, which all healthcare organizations must incorporate into their operations to safeguard the privacy, protection, and dignity of protected health information. Before we continue, three additional acronyms that are connected with HIPAA should be highlighted: PHI is an acronym for Protected Health Information. HHS is an acronym for the Department of Health and Human Services. OCR is an acronym for the Office for Civil Rights. The HIPAA regulations established the legal basis for the use and dissemination of protected health information (PHI). Compliance is regulated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and enforced by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Decoding PHI If HHS and OCR are self-explanatory, PHI is not. PHI is a term that refers to the combination of an individual's identifying information, such as their name or address or any health-related data obtained from a healthcare professional or facility. PHI is described as information that contains both personally identifiable information (PII) and health information about the patient. For example, if we know that Max Powers is diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, that’s PHI. Why? Because it contains PII - Max Powers, and also health information - obsessive-compulsive disorder. Max’s PHI will, therefore, be covered by HIPAA. Why HIPAA is so important? There are countless reasons why HIPAA is considered so significant, but the main takeaways are these: it helps to protect privacy and confidentiality; it gives patients access to their healthcare data and prevents fraudulent activity. So it all comes down to data protection. For healthcare organizations, HIPAA offers a mechanism that protects the owners of the personal information and those can view specific health data while limiting their access permissions. Any company dealing with PHI must have physical and network security measures. HIPAA exists to protect individuals and to ensure everyone has complete access to a copy of their medical records. It is essentially a civil rights concern. It mandates privacy protection for anyone who produces, stores, transmits, or uses personally identifiable health information. All healthcare entities and companies which manage, store, retain, or transmit patient health information are required to be in full compliance with the regulations of the HIPAA law. HIPAA Violations Inability to comprehend HIPAA regulations or deliberate violations of security protocols would result in significant fines and mandatory institutional reorganization. Unknown Violation: from $100 to $50,000 per record if the provider was unaware of the infringement or may not have known about it. Fair Cause: $1,000 to $50,000 per record whether the provider knew or reasonably should have known (like repeat violations) Willful Neglect: $10,000 to $50,000 per record if the provider behaved willfully and promptly fixed the issue. Unresolved: $50,000 to $1.5 million if the provider behaved willfully and failed to remedy the infringement within 30 days. Each of these breaches carries a maximum annual penalty of $1.5 million. Additionally, consider that HIPAA was created to increase the focus on protection in healthcare and to keep people safe. If avoiding a fine is an insufficient incentive to safeguard your records, consider the people behind the numbers. The more steps you take to protect your records, the safer your patients will be. 7 Major Aspects of HIPAA Compliance 7 major aspects of HIPAA 1. It isn't optional Unlike any other digital applications or products that are being created monthly, any company that comes into contact with PHI must implement HIPAA compliance measures because it is the rule. The HIPAA Security Rule, HIPAA Privacy Rule (revised), and HIPAA Breach Notification Rule are all examples of laws that all healthcare entities must follow to protect patient privacy. 2. It won't rob your wallet Implementing a safe communications solution, performing risk assessments, and educating workers to use HIPAA compliance are all far less expensive than most people think. Initial set-up costs will naturally vary depending on the size, environment, and nature of a company's business. 3. Fines The Omnibus Final Rule, which went into effect in 2013, increased the statutory fine for a single HIPAA violation from $25,000 to $50,000 per corrupted patient record. This suggested that if some private hospital had accidentally released the unsecured records of 6,800 patients on the Internet, the fine for violating HIPAA may have been as high as $340 million. 4. It doesn’t hurt workplace productivity It is living nonsense that implementing HIPAA-compliant communications would reduce workplace productivity. When effective secure communication solutions are adopted for HIPAA compliance, the ease and speed of communication can be preserved or even improved. While healthcare organizations can keep their BYOD policies if they are updated to cover staff use of the secure messaging solution. 6. Administrative Requirements HIPAA-compliant connectivity is more than just putting up a safe messaging system and forgetting about it. All protected agencies must have written policies and procedures, and staff must be educated on these policies and procedures, according to HIPAA's administrative criteria. The top priority for any company should also be notifying the appropriate parties in the event of a PHI breach. 7. Company’s reputation. HIPAA violations may not only result in financial fines, but they can also damage the healthcare practice's or organization's brand image. Breach of PHI and subsequent OCR investigations will break the trust between a medical facility and its patients, which is essential for the medical facility's continued success. One of the most certain ways of retaining loyalty – and your clients – is to implement HIPAA-compliant steps. What can you do to follow the HIPAA Guidelines? The most effective method of avoiding HIPAA violations is to understand how they relate to your organization. Health plans, health information clearinghouses, and healthcare facilities that exchange health information electronically are all impacted. So here are a few steps you need to take to comply with HIPAA guidelines. Encryption Services: Data encryption is a technique for safeguarding data by converting it to a format that can be read-only by the individual or device that possesses the encryption key. Employee Education: Educate your employees about digital security and embed it in your company's policies. Recognize the Laws: HIPAA, HITECH, and FACTA are three federal laws that require strict adherence. Cloud-Based Data Storage: Using a cloud-based data storage service protects your data more than ever before, starting with the scanning of your records into electronic health records. Electronic Health Records: Electronic health records (EHR) ensure compliance with HITECH and HIPAA with all of the patients' records. Conclusion Although all of these are relevant, we suggest focusing on the need to approach the privacy and protection of PHI holistically, by reviewing and improving processes, policies, and procedures, and training regularly. For example, Amazon's HIPAA-compliant cloud services compliance policy would not be the same as a multi-specialty physician practice's compliance program. At the end of the day, though compliance with HIPAA regulations can seem tedious, we all need to practice proper security hygiene to protect ourselves in today's threat landscape. The consequences of failing to do so are far too serious to disregard. So if you’re one of the startups that have an incredible idea connected with the Healthcare industry and HIPAA compliance, but you can’t find the right specialist or you don’t understand how you can implement it, then JetRuby might be your choice. Over the past 10+ years, we have delivered numerous working and successful digital products for various startups. During this time, together with our development team, we created a technological flow, that we stick to and that can guarantee a solid startup launch. That’s why we start our development with the Product Development Strategy. It is a free business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below and we will contact you in under 24 hours! ### How to develop a healthcare app in 2021? Despite the rapid growth of the healthcare industry, the market is still far from its complete saturation. Moreover, the structure of the industry itself is changing now: for example, a few years ago the vast majority of applications were inclined towards an active lifestyle about sleep, exercise, and nutrition. Now a good share of services that allow you to communicate with doctors, monitor your physical condition, and analyze symptoms is actively growing. And researchers note that the niche of mobile applications for people diagnosed with "diabetes", "overweight" and "depression" is still yet to be occupied. So as the gap continues to enlarge, lots of entrepreneurs continue to ask: "How exactly can I develop a healthcare app?". With that being said, all of these circumstances attract a huge number of entrepreneurs to the Healthcare industry, who compete for users' attention. Since the competition is enormous, every detail is important for the success of the app: sales, marketing, and, naturally, the technology on which the project is based. In this article, we want to share the rules and principles that allow any business company to confidently develop a healthcare app without any hesitations. Types of Medical Applications Different types of healthcare apps Before diving into specifics, it is important to understand what kind of product you want to develop. There are several types of health apps for different purposes and end-users, including medical professionals, labs, and patients. The type of application affects its functionality, some integrations, and the level of data security required. Clinical Communication Apps This app type is used to enhance clinical decision-making and communication with specialists in any private or specific hospital. These services include text and voice chat, file sharing, and electronic medical record systems. Halo is a good example of such an app along with its main features: Sending lab and PACS results to doctors and nurses. Integration with electronic health records (EHR) for real-time editing of patient records. Data storage on Amazon Web Services cloud platform. Barcode Scanning Apps This app allows patients' electronic medical records and medication barcodes to be scanned using the smartphone's built-in camera, which saves the clinic money by not having to spend money to purchase specialized scanning devices. An example of such a service is the Epic Rover app. In addition to scanning medication barcodes, Epic Rover also has the following features: Messenger to communicate with patients and other medical personnel. Visualization of patient and progress information in the form of charts. Integration with electronic medical records. Patient Communication Apps Patient Communication apps increase patient engagement and loyalty to the healthcare provider and provide greater transparency between doctors and patients. A prime example of this is the EASE app, which offers its users the following features: Sending pre-prepared messages to patients and their families. Inviting the patient's relatives into the app's network, keeping them informed of the patient's current condition and treatment. Providing HIPAA-compliant texts, videos, and photos for viewing, which self-destruct after 60 seconds. Medication Dosing Apps Medication Dosing apps are used by physicians to calculate individual medication doses based on a patient's current condition, age, weight, and other personal information while avoiding time-consuming manual calculations, spreadsheets, and complex tools. That's exactly what the DoseMeRx app does, which in addition to drug dosage calculations also has several other useful features: Integration with electronic medical records, where the physician can leave notes on the patient's condition, treatment history, medications, and dosage. A function for the attending physician to set reminders for patients so that they do not forget to take their medications (medication names and dosage). Dose optimization function that uses Bayesian dosing methods to optimize doses based on clinically validated drug pharmacokinetic patterns, patient characteristics, drug concentrations, and genotype. A function for predicting treatment outcomes. Medical Chart Applications Medical Chart apps simplify patient record management. They collect data on blood pressure, doctor visits, checkups, prescriptions, and other information to track a patient's treatment progress. Medical Records is an example with the following features: Making appointments with a specific doctor. Recording video of procedures instead of text messages. Search for patients by ID. Risk assessment apps Risk assessment apps are used to track the health status of patients in real-time through integration with EHRs and various health monitoring devices that users carry on them. Another good example would be the FHR 5-Tier app for obstetricians, midwives, and nurses who use electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) for women in labor. Some of its features include the following: Interpreting fetal heart rate (FHR) recordings to help make real-time decisions about further treatment of the patient. Automatic notification to physicians if monitoring devices detect a threat to the health of the patient (mother and/or fetus). What are the steps to develop a healthcare app? Healthcare development Steps Consider whether your medical app will solve the current problem The market offers thousands of solutions starting from healthcare automation systems and ending with medical services. But not all of them "survive" on the market. The reason is simple: some of them are created to misunderstand the true wishes and desires of users. A product must always solve a real problem, not an imaginary one. This is a basic condition for its development. For example, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, many fitness centers worldwide have temporarily closed. Experts immediately noted a surge in the popularity of apps offering home workouts. These programs help people monitor their health and fitness and do not spend large sums of money, so they are very popular. And if an app were to come out now that dealt with the plague or smallpox, would it be in demand?  We highly doubt it would. To make sure the app finds its fans, determine which target audience you are developing it for. When creating a portrait of users, you must answer the questions: What problem will the app solve? Who will use it and why? What characteristics (gender, age, education) distinguish this audience? Are there ready-made, similar to yours, successful solutions on the market? Try to focus on one problem that will be solved with the app, rather than all at once. Don't try to create a one-size-fits-all program with many features. Take care of data security in your medical app The secure storage of personal medical data is vital to Healthcare institutions. Disclosure of this information is considered a serious violation of the law. Besides, it can cause harm to patients whose safety has not been ensured. Data storage and data management in the healthcare industry follow strictly regulated rules. This is especially true for documents that are labeled as “doctor-patient confidential”. Your future application must comply with the international and national privacy requirements that define the rules for handling medical data: HIPAA, ISO/TS, GDPR, and others. For example, HIPAA is a guide to the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. These rules protect "sensitive health information" interests, especially data that is held or forwarded by companies in any form. Thus, when developing your application, pay close attention to secure information storage standards. Design Another core thing you should take note of is the healthcare app design. Not many people actually pay much attention to the design and outlay of the app, but rather the security and functionality. Of course, a healthcare app does help users to monitor their medical condition, set fitness goals, schedule hospital visits, etc. But today, the demand for such apps is growing. And so does the visual appeal clearly impact the overall app design. That’s why you should always keep these things in mind to make sure you are creating a high-quality product. We've put together some design tips that can inspire you. The psychology of color. Did you know that app colors can easily give patients the wrong message? Even though white is associated with cleanliness, you can't design your entire app in white. You need to add a few accents, such as icons and a logo. According to the survey, blue is the most commonly used color in medical design. It is a clean color that is often associated with a sense of relaxation or a clear sky. Accessibility Some medical app users have special needs that prevent them from making full use of the app's user interface. Therefore, you need to make sure that you use contrasting colors relative to the background. Avoid color combinations that users with visual impairments won't be able to distinguish. For example, blue-gray, blue-green, or red-green. Fonts. Sans serif and sans serif fonts are recommended. These fonts are proven to be easy to read and perfectly adaptable to different platforms. Easy navigation. Users don't have to waste time trying to figure out how to use the app. We recommend using large buttons, large fields, tabs, etc. Choose your main app functions Quality app development services have become quite popular in recent years. However, the success of any app depends on the set of features it offers too. The main goal of a web-based healthcare app is to make life easier for patients and hospitals. Here is a list of basic parameters that are important for any process that involves the "how to develop a healthcare app". Video conferencing - It would be great to take advantage of telehealth solutions. Such healthcare applications give their users the ability to make virtual appointments or monitor patients remotely. User/Doctor Profiles - You would need these options and they should be easily accessible and simple for the user. Filter search - A basic feature to filter the user searches. Listing - Shows a list of search results. Booking - Any healthcare app should have this feature. It allows users to book virtual appointments and provide consultations online. Activity Feed - Fitness apps usually have this feature, where the most trending or popular app options are displayed there. Online Prescription - Option that improves doctor-patient communication. The ability to send online prescriptions and check the availability of needed medications in the local area. Dashboard - This option is heavily used in healthcare apps. With this feature, users can easily track their activity and their medical scores. Share Progress - This is a must-have feature in fitness apps that allows users to share their workout results. Checking symptoms - This feature makes users feel more comfortable. Users can track symptoms and find out what problems they may be associated with. Entrust product development to reliable performers Creating a viable product is a team effort. Take care to find a competent team that will complete tasks on time and stays within budget. An experienced partner helps to minimize mistakes at the project start, quickly implement the MVP-version, and in the long run to save money and get a high level of service. Support of the product after the release is as important as the development. Its parameters are fixed in the SLA, service level agreement. If you’re one of those startups who has already got enough funding on their hands but doesn’t know how to effectively utilize them to gain major success, then JetRuby services are exactly what you’re looking for. Over the past 10 years of constant work with various healthcare startups, our team has developed a product for those who are looking for the correct and meaningful development approach. And that is the Product Development Strategy Session. During this free business consultation, our experts will examine your product and produce a general plan with the product lifecycle and create a high-level action plan for your first steps. If you’re interested in it, be sure to leave your project description and we’ll be happy to contact you within 24 hours. How much does it cost to develop a Healthcare app? Cost of Healthcare App Devleopment As a digital agency that has had several major projects in the healthcare industry, we have our estimation for developing and producing a high-quality healthcare product. However, it is difficult to make predictions about the exact cost of developing a healthcare app, because of various factors depending on the design and feature set of the app. However, on an average basis, we can estimate that it takes about 1500 hours to develop an MVP healthcare app. The design part takes around 160 to 180 hours, the development part takes about 1200 hours, and testing takes 300 hours. There are also lots of minor issues and bugs with healthcare applications, where we can identify early on and it will save time for the concrete development. Therefore, the total development time is up to 2,000 hours or even more. The cost of creating a mobile healthcare app ranges from $150,000 to $190,000. Conclusion There are a lot of nuances for business founders to develop a healthcare app, but that doesn't negate one of the main rules of a startup: you can't delay the release of an app. Creating a viable product is a team effort. Take care to find a competent team that will complete tasks on time and stays within budget. If you have already looked into the list of all the potential technology partners and you are too afraid to trust your project to them, JetRuby might be the right place. As we have walked through a 10-year journey and implemented tons of various healthcare digital solutions, we do know all the basics that we want to share with you. To do this, we have created a special program called the Product Development Strategy Session. It is the very initial and basic step towards your project’s success. During our free business consultation, we will produce a general plan with the future product lifecycle and create an action plan with high-level features for the first step. If you’re interested, leave your project description today and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours. ### How to build a strong startup brand identity? Startup development and creation of brand identity involve various marketing activities that ensure the construction of a coherent working concept of the brand, its strategy, and the creation of an appropriate visual and communicative image. As a rule, the creation of a new brand takes place in several successive, interconnected stages, the strength of the connections between which determines the integrity of the entire future brand strategy. To illustrate the processes that involve in the creation of a startup brand identity process, we prepared a simple breakdown of each major point every startup should know. So take care tips and let’s see how you should start developing your first startup brand identity. What are brand and branding? A brand is a set of perceptions, associations, and emotions in the mind of a consumer. Branding is a marketing strategy, the main purpose of which is to form the necessary perceptions, associations, emotions in the consumer's mind. The strategy includes the creation of a name, a slogan, a logo, and other design assets (for example, certain symbols and color palette), which will distinguish a company from its competitors. The main goal of brand development is to increase customer loyalty. Loyal customers are people who become attached to a company’s certain services/ products and buy them on occasions, and who recommend them to their close ones. At the same time, a loyal consumer will choose a product from a company he is familiar with, despite the availability of analogs. How to attract attention to the brand To attract attention to your startup you need to develop a memorable and recognizable brand advertising campaign. Try to be as dynamic as possible in presenting the business and its unique advantages over your competitors. It's important to treat branding as the first date. When trying to make a good first impression, everyone chooses the best combination of clothes, all while changing 10 times. So, it's important to stay friendly, have manners, listen, and say appropriate things yourself. Your company logo is also important just as the shirt you choose to wear. You can grow your consumer base through the quality of your products, their particular preferences, functionalities, and affordability. Stages of Startup Branding Steps of Startup Branding 1. Follow your Roots Go back to the beginning of your journey and describe your personal story as a project founder. Think back to when you first thought of starting your venture, what principles guide you, etc. Maybe you were influenced by the place where you were born or the institutions you attended. As you "dig" deeper, you will understand the truth behind your motivation to start a business in a particular niche. 2. Form a slogan. Once you've thought about your story, isolate the key factors that will become the main company slogan and brand voice. The easiest way is to write down every word that comes to mind as you think about yourself and your business. It can be "quality," "integrity," "money," "people," "family," or any other thought. After writing out all the words, pick out three keywords that comprehensively describe the atmosphere in the company. Consumers should be able to feel the spirit of the company. 3. Choose a company name There are several important factors to consider when naming a company: Spelling simplicity - There are many examples of founders naming their businesses in a variety of complicated names. Eventually, customers didn't remember the right brand name and couldn't find information about it, which affected reputation and search engine rankings. Memorability - Similar to spelling, people may simply not remember your brand name. The name should be short, concise, unique and, preferably, instill certain associations. Scalability - Choose the brand name that can be modified and expanded. For example, the name "Nuts of Athens, Ukraine" might be the perfect descriptor for a business now, but what if you expand and want to change the flagship product? Imagine if Jeff Bezos called his business "BooksOnline" instead of "Amazon." Accessibility - The easiest way is a quick Google search followed by a domain name analysis. If the ".com" domain for the name you want is already taken, it's worth considering a better name option. 4. Company Mission The mission is a core element that influences the internal culture and future promotion strategy of the company. Your product, tagline, values, and aspirations should be directly related to the mission. For example, Facebook's mission is "To empower people to build communities and bring the world closer together"; Google's mission is "To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"; Sony's mission is "To be a company that inspires and satisfies your curiosity." 5. Assemble a mood board Create a folder of images that you associate with the project. It may not be the most logical move, but it'll come in handy down the road. Alternatively, you could create a mood board on Pinterest and search for images using keywords that relate to your business. By collecting about 50 different images, you'll already have a general idea of what your brand will look like. 6. Decide on colors. The same mood boards we talked about in the last point will help with this one. Take the inspiration from the colors that dominate the images in your folder. If let's say, it's dominated by blue - there should be some shade of blue in the palette. To speed up the process of finding a color palette, use Adobe Color (it's free). You can upload images to this platform that convey the mood of the brand, and Adobe Color will automatically create an appropriate color palette. 7. Create your Logo The logo should be associated with your brand key slogan and match the color palette of the brand. For example, Airbnb used keywords in a very interesting way to create their logo. Any logo is a personality, which should meet 3 criteria: simplicity, relevance, and uniqueness. It is better to involve an experienced person (we advise involving an experienced outsourced agency) to create a logo. Test the logo this way: let the person look at it for 5 seconds and give him a piece of paper to redraw what he remembered. If the logo passes such a test, move on. 8. Choose your typography. Before you choose the right font, you'll have to go through dozens or even hundreds of options. That said, don't rely on intuition. There are two key decision factors that one should pay attention to. The feeling of the startup brand identity. Suppose if it's friendliness, consider rounded and easy-to-read fonts. If the company projects confidence, you could try working with compressed fonts. Functionality and context. Depending on purpose and context, use different fonts. At a minimum, headline and paragraph styles should differ. At some points, you can use all capital letters or use the font as a part of your startup brand element. 9. Form a brand identity Now, with all the bits and pieces you have put together, you assembled everything into a unified brand identity. This is a necessary and obvious step on the road to brand building. All of the previous steps to forming a brand book will become a style guide, a bible for everything you do going forward. 10. Be consistent Even though the brand book is already formed, the process of developing a company's brand doesn't stop. To be honest, its development will not end in principle. The key thing here is to stick to the brand's formed brand identity in everything you do. Create any other things that will be associated with your brand like the website, business cards, packaging, investor presentations, merch, etc. Everything has to fit the startup's uniform style. By creating a quality style guide for your startup, the future design challenges will be solved in the same breath. When you think about creating a sales website, flyer, or business card, you'll already have a logo, color palette, fonts, and examples of how to use it all. Startup Brand identity Frameworks Constructing a brand identity for your startup can be puzzling. However, there are numerous frameworks, canvases, prisms, and other resources available to assist company owners in developing effective startup branding. This section will discuss three widely used strategies for developing a brand strategy for your company. Brand strategy framework The first framework we'll discuss focuses on brand identity, personality, psychology, and equity. According to this framework, brand identity is the visual language you use to communicate with your customers. Choosing a logo, colors, and overall design is a critical first step in branding the startup. Brand Strategy Framework Another important factor is the personality of your brand. The majority of consumers are loyal to your brand because of its personality. A compelling brand personality can bolster purchasing decisions and forge an emotional connection between seller and buyer. Psychological aspects are also important. Understanding your target audience's tastes and habits provides invaluable insight into how to construct your brand effectively. Brand equity is the way customers perceive your brand, and it is directly related to the brand's market position and financial performance. Kapferer Brand Identity Prism The Kapferer Brand Identity Prism is the second framework in our article. The Kapferer Brand Identity Prism assists companies in developing a long-lasting and recognizable brand. The prism's central concept is based on a synthesis of the following elements: physique, personality, culture, relationship, reflection, and self-image. Kapfer Brand Identity Prism Brand identity canvas This is Jeff Whitlock's canvas for developing a workable brand plan. This structure is very comprehensive, and it enables you to establish the purpose and vision of your company. It encompasses all aspects of branding, from identifying the brand's meaning to selecting the appropriate colors and tone of voice. All you need to do is fill this brand identity canvas from left to right, as the categories on the left direct the categories on the right. You should begin with the essence of your brand. Choose one word that best defines your brand. Then continue by filling out the “Characteristics and Antonyms” parts with the characteristics of your brand's personality. The words "Voice," "Messaging," and "Stories" all refer to how your brand expresses itself and interacts with customers. The following categories – “Visual”, “Color”, “Typography”, “Form”, “Line”, “Texture”, and “Space” – are all about the visual language and design of your brand. Conclusion All in all, the process of developing your own brand identity is not an easy one and requires a lot of attention. Depending on the startup type and the digital product you want to establish, you need to adjust various factors that determine your brand identity. However, what if you have enough capital to raise your product development process and configure the right brand identity, but you don’t understand how to gain the most effective result out of them If you have stumbled across such a thing, then our service is just for you. For the past 10 years, the JetRuby team has developed a specific product development technology, called a Product Development Strategy. Which is a first step towards the construction of your potential MVP. During this free business consultation, our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development life cycle and an action plan with high-level features. So, if you are an entrepreneur who is looking for a correct methodology and wants to understand his project development process, then leave us your project description. We’ll contact you within 24 hours after our experts will receive your inquiry. ### How to retain employees in a startup Discovering terrific staff members is not enough. You also need to keep and keep them. It is currently hard to find fantastic and dedicated team players, however, keeping them can be even more challenging, specifically as a young startup. If you are just beginning, you typically can not complete on income or benefits with the big corporates out there. At the same time, it is an amazing and committed group that accounts for the most significant part of a startup's success. Hence, for startups, the subject of keeping the top and determined workers is a lot more important than for any other type of company. As a young startup, you merely can not afford to lose the most valuable possession: your winning team players that make up your business. In this article, we will talk about 7 reliable strategies you can utilize to increase every year’s attention in your starter. Why Startups Struggle With Retaining Employees Why do startups have a more difficult time keeping employees than other companies? Some factors are obvious, others more minor. It is clear that startups generally do not have the upper hand when it pertains to money and salaries. Resources are limited, organization models in some cases not even proven yet, and stable incomes, not insight. Under these circumstances, it is not reasonable to pay salaries at a level similar to giant corporations that make consistent incomes and have pockets full of money. Additionally, start-ups can't manage to have appealing benefits and bonus offer packages. Other reasons can include an absence of work-life balance due to long working hours and unbalanced workloads or dealing with weekends, or a distinction in mindset between enthusiastic entrepreneurs and paycheck-interested employees (though employing them was the issue in that case). The Real Cost of Worker Turnover For beginners, any business ought to appreciate employee retention because it saves a considerable amount of money. If retention is lacking, worker turnover ensues, and an individual quitting their task can cost up to 2.5 regular monthly wages up until a beginner has been hired. The expenses are most likely even more significant when you consider other elements: each worker leaving your company suggests a loss of essential know-how and information. This is specifically real about implicit knowledge that your worker has discovered on the job and isn't recorded anywhere in your files or CRM. Another crucial factor is, naturally, the time and resources invested into training an employee that is no longer in your group. And the time it takes for a new team member to come up to speed and contribute considerably. Even the most extraordinary talent isn't usually a great entertainer from the first day. No surprise there, how should they be? They do not know the company's custom-made regimens, procedures, and organizational culture yet. Then there are the costs related to finding a brand-new employee to replace the old staff member with. After all, these working with costs are caused by the old one leaving. Hiring expenses encompass such aspects as a plus chance cost for the time it takes until a brand-new worker has been discovered and signs up with the team. Bear in mind that discovering staff typically needed in tech startups, like DevOps, software application engineers, etc., can be especially difficult. Retention starts with recruiting It might sound odd, however, if you wish to boost employee retention in your start-up, your efforts must currently start in the recruiting phase. Put differently, many times, the reasons for resignation can be traced back to flaws and errors made in the recruiting process. For example, a significant factor for disappointment and subsequent resignation might be big pledges and statements made in job advertisements that end up being far from true. Yes, put your best foot forward and highlight what makes your business terrific. But don't promise what you can't keep-- it is just going to backfire. It has been stated that "every addition to the reality subtracts from it." Likewise, be sure to screen for the right prospects. This might be less about their official certifications or previous experience but about their flexibility and determination to find out. Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but have no idea who should be a part of your team? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Business Development consultation without business analysts. We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different tech start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! Offer Involvement and Involve Your Workers in Choice Making As a start-up, you have to deal with what you've got. One method in which startups have a benefit compared to corporations is that they have flat hierarchies and can use staff members to participate and be involved in decision-making. That does not mean that you entrust important decisions to your team members. Nevertheless, it does mean that you listen to them and inquire for their input on important company decisions. Especially if the team member has been with you from the early stages, they probably understand more about the field than you do (yes, that can be hard to confess!). Feeling that they are being listened to and that their viewpoint matters to the business's leadership can make your employees feel appreciated and appreciated. However, staff members who sign up with startups are typically not those searching for the most significant income but delighted by and passionate about the company's mission and vision. They are driven by the desire and the opportunity to have an impact. So having them take part and being associated with decision-making gives them a sense of significance and enables them to feel that they contribute to the distinction your business is making. Invest ongoingly into group building and strengthening Read more: How To Built Or Choose Your Technical Dream  As crucial as startup founders are, developing a fantastic startup business is a group sport. In your role as founder, there are simply many jobs and duties you require to manage that having an excellent and self-coordinating group is a prerequisite for success. The stronger the team spirit in your workforce, the more powerful its ability to accomplish and be successful. Hence, you ought to invest in group structure ongoingly. Take care, though, about how you set about it. Too often team-building exercises have been dull, dull, or lame. Everyone is tired of the "Trust Fall" and rope pulling (just to prove the point "we are more powerful together"). Keep it enjoyable and light. Or taking into consideration your organizational culture - you may wish to be imaginative and spice it up a bit. Also, as a basic guideline, team-building workouts should take place outside of your office and may preferably have an entire day dedicated to them. Suppose your team remains in a different context for a specific time frame. In that case, the experience will be more extensive and lasting instead of getting lost in the everyday office hypnotic trance. Construct organizational culture from the first day Organizational culture is not something that only worries mid- or large-sized corporations. It concerns startups at least as much, if not a lot more. Why is that? Well, here's the truth: you may not have considered it so far. However, your startup currently has an organizational culture! Every organization has a culture. Unless it is consciously designed, kept, and guided, possibilities are it might not be a very positive or success-promoting one. As a founder, you and your style of work (un)purposely produce and figure out an organization's culture. You will attract workers in tune with your work method; however, you will see the talent that prefers a different work method. A few of the most significant business success stories began with start-ups that had distinct and enticing company cultures filled with the popular startup spirit. Have you heard about the famous "Wear Your Pyjamas To Work Day" at Google? Believe it or not, this when non-traditional idea has caught on so well that every year, hundreds of companies and, thousands of staff members celebrate this yearly celebration on April 16th.                        Provide Time Off & Work-Life-Balance Work law, obviously, provides standards as to the number of days of leave per year your staff members are entitled to. But you need to go one action beyond that. In a start-up, days and weeks can get long, often dealing with weekends may be essential to meet turning points or pivot on the previous knowledge. If your workers have registered for a startup journey, the possibilities are they do not have the 9-5 mentality anyway. Nevertheless, they will appreciate it if they have adequate time off to relax psychologically and physically. This will, in turn, likewise benefit you like the company as they have fresh minds and enthusiasm to come back to work. Another essential part here is work-life balance. Specifically, suppose your staff members have household or other commitments. In that case, they might want to work from home in some scenarios as possible to much better coordinate with their loved ones and errands. E.g., you could consider providing 1-2 days of home office per week-- consumable regarding the previous arrangement. Offer Learning and Growth Opportunities Suppose you are familiar with the classical hierarchy of needs formulated by 20th-century psychologist Abraham Maslow. In that case, you will likewise remember that the most significant market all human beings have is a requirement to grow and actualize themselves. While it is not necessarily possible that every human can actualize themselves in their task (nor should it be an objective), you must aim to allow your workers to end up being more and grow in their task. The best way to do this is by supplying appealing knowing and growth chances. How can you provide such? One obvious way is to use the training and academic courses. However, such activity can be pricey and break the minimal spending plans that most startups generally have. Yet, training does not require to be so costly. When you think about online and e-learning courses used by a few of the most distinguished universities on the planet, there may be one or the other relevant system for your worker. You can motivate such training by integrating its completion with a future increase in earnings. However, there are likewise other great methods of supplying employees with growth chances for imaginative startup entrepreneurs. One, for instance, is to institutionalize a regular monthly or biweekly TED talk with inspirational content that you or one of your team members found practical. However, if you have seen an inspiring speech, why not share it with your workers? You might even want to institutionalize this treatment with and in between your team members. For instance, you could introduce that every second Friday, one of your workers ought to shortly provide a TED-Talk that they have come across, which has motivated them. This is not simply an opportunity for your and your team to find out, but it also promotes sharing and communication between your team members. Conduct exit interviews to identify reasons for employee turnover You are a startup, so opting for extensive exit interviews may feel like going overboard. Yet, there is a reason exit interviews have established themselves in the middle- and large-sized corporations: they use valuable insight into motives and intentions a staff member chose to quit. You do not wish to formalize it as much as in more significant business. But some structure helps to make sure you are not neglecting any of them actually vital questions. Some concerns you should certainly ask are: What did you like about operating in our business? What would make this company a better place to work? To what extent is the reason for you leaving us the recruiting/job interview? For instance, through false guarantees, a wrong description of the job? Some concerns you might wish to ask-- given that you know the employee all right and can be optimistic of receiving an at least "honest-enough" answer are: We want to learn from your resignation. What can we enhance, and how? What good memories will you have of our business? And which will be the most unfavorable and frustrating memory? Also, take care, however, not to ask particular concerns that would cross personal or ethical borders. Such items consist of asking for specific reasons a worker chose to stop, asking a staff member to reevaluate their decision, or attempting to formulate conditions under which the staff member might reassess their choice. Keep in mind also, of course, that there may be legal guidelines that restrict you from asking specific concerns. Conclusion Employee retention is a massive difficulty for many startups. Yet, it is even more essential than for any other kind of business. Hence, it needs to be observed and managed from "hire one" (or "day one"). Implement these most acceptable practices and actions. Nevertheless, likewise constantly be tuned and see what works best for your company. Every startup and culture is remarkable, and a few of these methods may work even better for you than others. If you have stumbled across such a thing, then our service is just for you. For the past 10 years, the JetRuby team has developed a product development technology called a Product Development Strategy. Which is a first step towards the construction of your potential MVP. During this free business consultation, our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development life cycle and an action plan with high-level features. So, if you are an entrepreneur who is looking for a correct methodology and wants to understand his project development process, then leave us your project description. We’ll contact you within 24 hours after our experts will receive your inquiry. ### How your startup mentor can change your startup Recruiting a startup mentor is a move in the right direction for your startup. As a company founder, you need a startup mentorship to provide you with an essential resource in developing a solid foundation for your business. Launching a startup can be difficult, more so if you're doing it alone. It takes considerable commitment and innovation skills to build a startup from scratch. The bright side is that you do not have to be on your own on this journey. Discovering the ideal support system is essential to assist startups in scaling. A remarkable coach comprehends your business objectives and can help you reach them with attempted and tested concepts and expertise specific to your industry. So, how do you find a business mentor? Read on as we provide some valuable insights on finding and sustaining a solid relationship with a mentor. What is a startup mentor? What do Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg have in common? Apart from them all becoming successful entrepreneurs, they were supported and guided by their business mentors. Typically mentors have trusted figures with extensive career, entrepreneurship, investment, or industry-specific experience. They guide their mentees to discover their perspectives and take their ideas into action. In the world of startups, having a startup mentor can bring a remarkable difference in setting your dreams into motion. They guide startup owners on how to understand and use their skills to capitalize on their target markets.   Why are startup mentors important for scaling your business? For the sake of simplicity, let's call mentors with the proper knowledge, vision, and expertise to help early-stage businesses as startup mentors. These mentors help business owners effectively grow their early-stage startups. According to Statista, nonprofit supporting high-impact business owners worldwide, many founders of top-performing IT startups in the US had solid mentoring relationships with leaders of other effective businesses. For instance, Etsy's Chad Dickerson has been respectively mentored by Flickr's Caterina Phony and AppNexus's Brian O'Kelley. According to Statista, 33% of mentored creators went on to lead highly effective startups themselves. This is over 3 times much better than the efficiency of other US tech companies. A product mentor can be essential for the PM being coached and for the company that he/she works for. For the company, an product management mentor can assist in growing specialists and turn the product and business, but, most significantly, avoid expensive mistakes or missed opportunities. Product management is an exceptionally high-leverage function in a software application company, even more so as seniority increases. In a product-led business, sales sell what product builds, marketing tells the story of what development makes, engineering creates what product management pictures. The cost of wrong business decisions in product management can be huge. Not only because of the value of engineering time (frequently the crucial constraint) but because of the high opportunity cost of having them not working with an essential issue. Consider that in the earlier stages, the company (or business line) is the product. Asking an inexperienced product manager to figure it out on their means "learning the hard way" with the whole company on the line. All the top Silicon Valley investors comprehend the importance of product management regardless of its ambiguity and varied definition across companies. Almost all the VCs and PE companies desperately search for ways to infuse expertise into their portfolio companies and support efforts - both at the individual and business level - to bring external product expertise into their portfolio companies where they (and their CEOs struggle) is how to find it.   What should you look for in a startup mentor?   Top-rated industry experts With their obvious absence of experience and understanding of the business, new entrepreneurs have a lot to acquire from a mentorship. A startup mentor who comes from the same industry can fill in your specific niche’s knowledge gaps. They help you better understand the market and how to meet its requirements. We recommend that you go for industry-specific mentors. A general mentor typically gives general suggestions that might not target the particular subtleties of your market. Try to find a startup mentor who is indispensable at completing the blanks, one that has to tread the same path as you and can expertly guide you to navigate your startup’s challenges. If what you’ve read is just like that, then JetRuby has something for you. As we’ve been on the digital market for more than 10 years with lots of startups, we felt their anxiety and doubts during the development cycle. For that reason, we have developed a technological flow that can potentially cast all of your worries away, and it starts from the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation where your team and ours will create a general plan covering the future product cycle and an action plan with high-level features for your first steps. Got interested already? Leave your short project description, and we’ll be in contact with you within 24 hours.   Innovative Problem Solver What makes a startup mentor great? They know how to find creative and efficient solutions to issues encountered by startups. An учзукшутсув mentor lets you see the various angles to solving numerous pitfalls, depending on a startup's situation. They are also visionaries. They can foresee company trends and market changes. Generally speaking, their mission is to recommend you on other methods to make the most profit and dominate your position in the market.   Wide Connections A mentor with a strong network in the industry will offer potential opportunities for you. Your startup mentor can tap their connections to assist you with strategic partnerships, potential investors, consumer trials, and many more. She or he successfully develops a strong network with the right people or organizations in the startup industry. In fact, investors are most likely to buy a startup referred by someone they know from their network. The very same applies when engaging with future B2B clients. Instead of cold-calling clients, a recommendation from a trusted mentor can provide you more leverage with your marketing outreach.   Propel Ideas into Action You currently have some great ideas in your head. So, what's next? You might require somebody to guide you to change those ideas into action. A trusted mentor gives you the inspiration you need to turn all your to-do's to something more results-driven and valuable. They give you an outlook from another angle when dealing with the challenges faced by your startup. They support you in what you are going through and enhance your self-confidence to continue.   Have a great idea but don't know where to start? Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time!   The Right Fit Before you ask someone to mentor you, make sure they're the right fit. However, how do you know if you'll work great together? Ensure that you know what you're looking for and set a clear direction for your vision. Look for someone who comprehends your entrepreneurial undertakings and the idea you have for your startup. Being successful does not ensure that she or he will be the right mentor for you. Success is only one element, so think about other areas such as their industry understanding, attitude towards business, and values they follow. Transparency and straightforward communication While positive affirmation from the family and friend circle is constantly appreciated, this could not work if you intend to guide your startup in the appropriate direction. Sure, they can support you to build your confidence, but they might not be the right people to turn to when you have complicated issues that need to be solved. In turn, the mentor can provide you with honest advice on how to do things far better. He or she is the one who won't sugarcoat things. Instead, the mentor will undoubtedly be forthright with their opinion and point to the right solution. Go with someone who can challenge your idea and with whom you feel close enough to build a mentor and mentee connection. A mentorship can develop into a meaningful and long-lasting relationship Every mentoring success is based on a significant relationship between mentor and mentee. Launching a startup is an exceptionally isolating experience. Your startup mentor can help you solve a specific growth pain, succeed, and encourage you to go further. They can be essential friends, particularly when you're almost ready to give up because you go to a loss on what to do next. Having a start-up mentor pushes you to grow your early-stage business in ways that you might not have expected. Expanding your professional network A startup mentor can help you develop the right interpersonal skills that can be incredibly useful if you need to interact with your customers. They can also lead you to the right groups and help you obtain the best opportunities for further growth. But, more notably, mentoring relationships must be genuinely beneficial. Mentors and mentees can introduce each other to their very own expert networks. They can offer each other business opportunities that may not have been possible without this partnership. Help you get through growth pains The majority of the time, startup founders get mentors to help them solve a specific issue. This might be not knowing which path to take to grow the earnings, or they could not know how to scale their processes up. Whatever business development problems you're experiencing as a startup founder, finding the correct type of mentor can help you accomplish solutions to all sorts of issues. Nevertheless, there's a caution to this: you already need to understand what you want for your startup advisor to help you efficiently. If you have done this well, the startup mentors’ guidance can bring clarity to previously complicated situations. Get external advice paired with insider knowledge Due to their industry experience and business connections, startup mentors typically offer invaluable suggestions that can be pretty insightful (depending on how appropriate the fit is). This external look can help you have a clearer view of working in your processes and the other way around. Your startup mentor can also reveal different essential types of info that you wouldn't have known by observing your processes. Startup mentors can help founders manage and scale their business more successfully with a series of concrete steps.   Find willing mentors for your startup Want to find a great startup mentor to help you with specific issues? We here in Jetruby will help get your startup or side project where it needs to be. We have developed a technological flow that most of our clients undergo during the past 10 years of constant collaboration and cooperation with various startups. The first one of which is called a Product Development Strategy session. It is an accessible business consulting service where our experts will produce a general plan covering the future product development and the action plan with high-level features. Already got interested? Leave your project details below, and we will contact you in under 24 hours!   Summary A strong startup mentor can be a real game-changer for new companies. However, not all mentor connections are set up for success. The right mentor is the one who is asking the best questions upfront. Look for a mix of experience, knowledge, and mentoring mindset that will certainly guarantee you have the right fit with your advisor. Seek to work with them via substantial sources, such as frameworks and toolkits that ensure their knowledge transferability.     ### Step Guide: How to develop a chat app? The troublesome question on how to develop a chat app is a complex process consisting of various steps. Before we get to the overview of the main chat app features, let's address a core question that troubles many before the main app development kicks in. How does a regular app function? If you look at WhatsApp, this application allows you to share text, video, or audio messages inside the group chat application between two users or multiple users. To ensure the safety and security of the transferred data, it uses a highly secured protocol. And to provide simplicity, it has a very user-friendly interface that can attract more users. So these were the essential points for understanding the base functionality of a chat app. But the question remains: How do you develop a mobile chat app? What are the challenges? How difficult is it? And how much does it cost? All of that and even more you can find in this new JetRuby article! What are the Benefits of Creating Instant Messaging Apps for Businesses? How to develop a chat app? - Essential Features Various things can significantly benefit not only your business model but your business infrastructure. You may never think it when asked “Hw to develop a chat app”, but there are certain things that can be distinguished apart from your profits and customers. Here are some of the examples: Saves Time and Money A bold and apparent reason for you to develop a chat app is to eliminate the nuisance of calls to your friends in another time zone. Plus, it saves time for startups to make a living conversation and dedicate their time to focus on other things. While all of it seems proper to the primary customer needs, there also has to be some solid and unique feature that will distinguish your creation apart from the others. Task Organization The process of chat app development makes your task management much more straightforward. While keeping track of work progress even when you are staying in remote access. Furthermore, you can use your chat app for assigning tasks and exercises for your development team members to get your app done within the deadline. Establishes Smooth Communication with Customers Another clear and definite way to develop a chat app is to provide a concrete platform for your users to communicate and share with them. You can analyze what they what do they like and dislike about your product. So, by collecting a sufficient amount of feedback, you can actively improve and enhance an app to gain more brand trust. How to Create a Chat App in 10 Steps Want to know how to develop a chat app? We prepared a small and concise list of all things an entrepreneur has to do to build a chat app digital product. Clarify your unique selling proposition Set your business goals Choose an experienced outsource company that is proficient in developing a chat app. Make a priority list of all key features Produce your first UX/UI design prototype Be confident in your product development process Test marketing strategies and identify the beneficial one Test & deploy your chat app to the digital stores Connect with users, collect feedback, and plan further steps It is a very raw and general insight on how to develop a chat app. This process can be much longer and exhausting, while the preparation process may take a while too. If you don’t know now how exactly the product development process should be flowing and what goals you should be aiming for, then JetRuby has developed a Product Development Strategy Session for you. It is a preliminary free business analysis of your project. Our experts will produce an action plan with high-level features while adding core adjustments to your business and technological development. If you are interested, leave your project details, and we’ll contact your unique business idea within 24 hours. How to develop a chat app with top basic features How to develop a chat app? - Basic Features Since the process of developing a chat app may be an exhausting and very long one, you need to understand how it should proceed. But at first, before going into the core product development, you need to produce an MVP version. Since you have to test your idea live, see how your target audience will react to it and any traction. To build a chat app correctly and have no issues in the initial phase, we recommend developing only the core and basic features. These are the ones that your user should have before they get to see the final product. Signing in A regular type of authenticating your users to the chat app is by signing in. And there can be three ways to do that: with their phone number, with their email, or any social media account. But in most cases, all of the popular chat apps (like Telegram or WhatsApp) are using only phone numbers for convenient reasons. Personal profile setting and customization For a typical user to have a sense of control and personalization over his chat app, you need to have their account embedded into your product. Also, it is essential to include notification, blacklisting, and favorite contacts settings in your first version. Messages and group chats A fundamental function that is a core and main feature in developing a chat app is sending messages from one user to another. And to have a bunch of group chats, where several users can share various types of information, like texts, audio, photos, and videos. Files exchanges As mentioned above, any contact between two users is conducted by sharing information, including file sharing. That may be pictures, documents, favorite funny videos, screenshots, etc. Allow your users to engage with each other within several chat rooms by adding this feature. Contacts import Another good feature to include is importing all contacts they either have on their SIM card or their phone database. Because you want your user to have the ability to communicate back to their friends who also have the same app on their phones. Automated social network connections and phone book data export also save users’ time. Plus, it’s a good idea to invite new users to your app by sending social or SMS invites. Secret chats and data encryption An excellent way to keep users’ information or data intact will be to create secret chats with security based on dynamic data encryption technology. While keeping shared data apart from any possible cyber threats while you are still developing a chat app. Push notification In most cases, while creating your chat app, you want to make sure that your users constantly use your app at the maximum level. That way, you can analyze and research their potential problems. And one of the ways to do that is to implement push notifications. It’s one of the significant features of a chat app. Challenges of Building a Chat App As the market of chat app digital products has been on the high edge over the past five years, it’s no wonder that there are a lot of competitors you should be fighting with. So it is essential to produce high-quality chat apps with unique features that can capture potential customers. To assist you with developing a chat app that could surpass others, we collected three main points you need to be careful with: Cybersecurity One of the most sensitive topics in digital products that are being constantly highlighted is cybersecurity. It is one of the very first things you should include while developing a chat app. You need to be confident that your customers’ information won’t be stolen, no matter what kind of data has been shared. Furthermore, things like Identity theft, email phishing, unsecured personal profiles, or absence of authentication methods should be taken into account with a red, bold flag in mind. All-in-one With WeChat and Facebook Messenger’s appearance, many other 3d-party services have been attached to them. For example, with the two previously named apps, you can quickly pay for your gaming platforms or purchase some marketing tools with ease. And that’s just one example of how such integration works. Thus, to overcome competitors, while you are still developing a chat app, you should combine the concepts of a typical social network, an interactive mobile game, and a direct communication channel with a payment terminal. Frequent updates You need to maintain your digital product competitive advantage among your competitors. Since the digital market is always dynamic and may change the next day, to make a chat app with a high retention rate and excellent onboarding user experience, your app should always satisfy your users and constantly engage them with regular updates. Otherwise, your MVP could be missed by users in a month after being on top for one week. How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Messaging App Like WhatsApp? How to develop a chat app? - Costs We have already touched on the topic of mobile app development costs to check more relevant information there. While here we would like to stress that the price for an MVP highly depends on any additional requirements you will provide. However, if we’re talking about implementing only the listed features below, it should vary from $20,000 to $35,000. While the list of features includes: Sign in and personal profile - 50 hours Messages and group chats - 80 hours Video and audio calls - 180 hours Files exchanges - 40 hours Location tracking - 30 hours Push notification - 20 hours Advertisement - 15 - 30 hours On average, the UX and UI design works are taking around 90 to 150 hours, while the back-end development processes are mostly taking 600 hours in total for only one platform. Another thing to note on the development works is that you can’t predict the total number of hours to take for your app to be finished. While it is true that the numbers for each respective feature listed above will stay at around the same range, but the total number will again depend on the complexity of your requirements. Conclusion All in all, developing a chat app is not an easy task and will require a significant amount of assistance from both the business and technical side of your business. You need to know how it should operate from the technical perspective and also from the business side. To make sure you have both sides covered, you may need to consult or cooperate with an IT outsourcing company with a lot of experience developing similar applications. JetRuby has extensive experience in developing and producing various chat apps or chat integration into different business industries. And before any development works start and actively proceed to the core app development, lots of startups are going through the preliminary stage of our technological flow. This stage is called the Product Development Strategy Session. This is an essential step towards a confident launch of your early digital product. Together with our business team, we will analyze your project requirements and align your current development flow. All of that with no penny charged. Leave your project description, and we’ll contact you within 24 hours. ### Step Guide: How to create a video conference app? Instant messaging and other text-based networking media paved the way for better human interactions, allowing users to send and receive messages in seconds from anywhere in the world. This paradigm shift has been brought to a new stage with video chatting. There have been fewer IT ideas that can compete with video chat technology’s applications and comfort, thanks to real-time audio and video chat between users. Furthermore, with the pandemic indicating that social isolation is the most critical safety measure, the best way to keep in touch with your contacts right now is via video conference, which has proven to be the best option for staying at home and collaborating remotely. And for that reason, we created a step guide on how to create a video conference app. Sit back, relax and watch how you can easily do it with your development team. Steps to Create a Video Conference App How to create a video conference app? - Step by Step Step 1. Study Your End-User It is essential to define what kind of audience you are trying to gather. For example, statistically speaking, more than 50% of all people using video apps are under their 30s. And according to this survey, you would need to add more “visual expressions” in your app. Such as stickers, filters, and emojis. The designing process of your digital product security is another essential part that is valuable to your target market. Since it does involve lots of business and educational-related people, the privacy aspect is also a significant factor that is important to users. For this reason, you can focus more on cybersecurity and provide security features such as encryption while also ensuring that the video quality is excellent. Customers choose custom solutions on how to create a video conference app in this scenario because it enables companies and solopreneurs to meet their clients while maintaining contact confidentiality. In the healthcare sector, online banking, and legal practices, it is essential. Step 2. Determine the Key Features of your App When you ask yourself: "How to create a video conference app", there is a range of essential features that must be included. The user experience can be harmed when creating a complex app and attempting to incorporate too many elements at once. As a result, make a list of features that will act as your mobile app’s foundation. The following are a few of them. User Registration The registration screen should be the first screen that your user experiences. Users are too busy to fill out lengthy sign-up forms, so keep them as short and quick as possible. Only the most critical fields, such as name, email address, and phone number, can be added. Integrate the app with all major social media networks (Gmail, Facebook, Twitter) to make it even easier for users to sign up. Profile Management This is the most basic function, which entails showing the profile's general user details. The choices range from defining the user's location to offering a brief bio. Picture view, phone number visibility, and mandatory privacy settings are also available. Integration of in-app purchasing tools, allowing customers to pay with credit cards using the authorized payment system, is another essential profile management feature. Search and add contacts The ability to scan for contacts and connect them to the app necessitates the use of two functions: a search engine for easy navigation and quick identification of the correct reference by username or real name, and incorporation of contacts from the user's phonebook. Status Before reaching other users, a process must be in place to determine if it is the appropriate time to do so. Users should have a status similar to other social media apps that indicate their current state, such as accessible, idle, busy, away, etc. There should also be the option to display the user's online visibility or the time of the last log. Chat The best video call applications with many features include the ability to send text messages to other users. Apart from simple conveniences such as receiving text confirmation from a contact to engage in a call, text messaging proves to be an important workplace solution for maintaining effective communication with clients as the software is used for company and enterprise needs. Video and Audio Calls Video calls are needed for video chats. On the other hand, voice calling should be supported so that people can connect with friends and family who live in other countries. This feature is helpful since regular phone calls can be costly when made from a foreign location. Group Calls People enjoy forming communities of people from their social circles, such as a work department, a school club, or a sports team. As a result, they may have both casual and formal video chats about their jobs and assignments. It is recommended to create a video conference app for at least 50 users in a group call while evaluating the right video conferencing app for business needs. It will make a big difference in achieving teleconferencing goals more efficiently, but it will also increase the level of app logic sophistication, resulting in a higher app development cost. Encryption Establish that the messages sent between senders and recipients are encrypted. The encryption process starts at the sender's address, while the decryption process begins at the recipient's. Encryption means that even if hackers break into your app by accident, they will be unable to read the contents of messages, preventing the theft of personal or corporate data. Push Notifications If you're developing a mobile app for iOS or Android, the app should appear in notifications so that you can check it right away if you get a call or a new message by sliding down your phone's notification bar. Screen sharing This is another massive opportunity for you. It allows you to share your screen with lots of people, meaning a brainstorming session and a solid collaboration. If you share the screen with the people to whom you are talking, it will increase communication effectiveness and enhance the consumer experience. If you have any extended budget in your hands, then try to consider some additional options for your video call app. Such features may include customized masks, stickers, in-app purchases, virtual background, making a call with voice-enabled assistants, sending video messages when the contacts are offline, etc. Step 3. Make UI/UX Design It's critical to incorporate the required UX components into the accepted concept early on in the design phase. To succeed, the user experience must remain the development's highest priority, translating into a visually pleasing interface and intuitive navigation. A newbie’s willingness to make a call and use all of the features without difficulty is the checkpoint for video call apps. Since the design’s success has such a large influence on the app's overall success on the market, it's critical to consider all possible scenarios for improving the user experience at this point. Step 4. Development and Deployment How to create a video conference app? - Core Development Back-end Development First, the back-end development stage involves the development team working on the app server, web server, and database creation. The functional center of the app will be determined at this point of the development process. When designing a video call app, the main focus of the functionality moves to optimization. The app is expected to perform well when dealing with large quantities of data and a high load, which means that the development phase may take some time to achieve flawless results when handling multiple calls. WebRTC WebRTC, a technology that facilitates real-time communication in desktop and mobile systems via various APIs, is used by most video-based applications. It has dramatically matured and eventually grown into a dependable technology because it is open-source and has earned the support of major IT brands such as Mozilla, Opera, and Google. The following APIs can be used to build a simple app that includes video call functionality: RTCPeerConnection RTCDataChannel MediaStream Third-party APIs Third-party APIs make it easier to create video chat apps by speeding up the process and making it more straightforward. Twilio You might decide not to look any further after seeing this cloud communication platform's speech, video, and messaging APIs, as well as the interactive visual design and creation builder. Twilio also has communication APIs that significantly simplify workflows and connect efficiently to deliver help during the customer journey. OpenTok Any development team can use the OpenTok API to add high-quality interactive video, speech, messaging, and screen sharing functionality to any site or mobile app. It's one of those businesses that has put its full faith in WebRTC, in-browser video, and text chat. Connecting to a session, publishing a stream to a session, and subscribing to streams in a session are all provided by the OpenTok library. Wowza GoCoder SDK The Wowza GoCoder SDK is ideal for developing live video streaming apps. Wowza Streaming Cloud is a global cloud platform and API for live streaming. It's simple to use and flexible enough to be used as part of a custom streaming solution or end-to-end live streaming. Technology stack With the development of any mobile application, you should also choose your preferable technological stack. Which in most cases, it comes to two primary choices: iOS (Swift, iOS SDK) or Android (Java, Android SDK). The tech stack may differ depending on the number of features and the requirements determined by your project’s scale. Therefore, we highly recommend you to proceed with our service called Product Development Strategy Session. This is a free business consultation, where our experts will analyze and determine a ballpark estimate for your business project. Together we will examine where you can reveal your business idea value and become a unique product. If you are interested, leave your project details, and we’ll contact you within 24 hours! Testing The code is tested, and bugs are fixed during the testing stage. The more ‘clean' the final product is, the more customer satisfaction it provides. Therefore, the greater the chances of releasing a highly successful app that can compete with similar popular apps in this market segment. What’s the Price to develop a Video Chat App? As you have already gained enough insight into every single step when you start developing a chat app, you also need to know how much of a budget you need. So that you can at least estimate how much money you need to invest in your MVP. Of course, the pricing does vary depending on the location and the rates for only one platform. Let’s start with the most obvious one: the number of hours one has to dedicate to creating a chat app. According to the project details that we’ve done for a number of our clients, we estimate around 380 to 420 hours are required to be spent on backend development. While the front end one seems to be capped at 270 to 300 hours. So the total number varies from 650 to 720 hours in total for all core features. If we’re talking about the total cost for developing a video conference app, it varies from $32,000 to $48,000. All don’t forget that this estimate is just for developing one mobile platform. So consider your options carefully, not to overwhelm your set startup budget. Conclusion It is possible to develop a video conference application efficiently, and hopefully, this article will provide you with the information you need to do so. Focusing on the platform and features you genuinely require, as well as implementing the appropriate strategy to meet those requirements, will result in an application that will undoubtedly increase the value of your business without costing your startup life. Suppose you are completely new to the digital product development process and just want to understand how to implement your new video conference app. In that case, JetRuby might have something for you. Together with our expert team, we develop an essential step for every startup called Product Development Strategy Session. Our business analysts will analyze your business idea, prioritize your essential app features and adjust your current business vision. All of that absolutely with no penny charged. If you got interested, leave your project description, and we’ll contact you within 24 hours. ### How to Identify the Target Market of Your Startup How to Identify the Target Market of Your Startup Not everyone wants to buy what you’re selling. For your startup company to be successful, you need to identify your target market. This is one of the first steps of launching a startup company. But it’s much easier said than done. If you don’t have a clear target audience in mind, your marketing campaigns are going to cost you a fortune. You’ll also have low conversion rates, and your customer acquisition costs will be through the roof. Marketing to everyone and anyone is simply a waste of effort, time, and money. Instead, focus your branding and marketing strategies on a specific group of people who genuinely have a need, want, or interest in your company. Cash in the bank is essential for every business, but it’s their lifeline for startup companies. If your marketing campaigns are unsuccessful, your startup is going to bleed money. Take a look at the top reasons why startups fail and find out what makes successful startups.  Let’s focus on the two most common ones. Reason 1: 48% of startups failed because there wasn’t a market for their offering. That’s why identifying your market needs to be one of the first steps. If you discover there isn’t a market for what your startup has to offer, you can go back to the drawing board and try something else before investing too much time and money. Reason 2: 35% of startups failed because they ran out of money. Spending your valuable marketing budget on the wrong target audience could cause your company to go out of business. With limited cash in the bank, you may not be able to recover from this. But don’t worry. I’ll explain what you need to do to identify your target market, positioning your startup company for success. Start with broad assumptions, and slowly narrow your focus Don’t start with a narrow audience right away. Instead, begin with larger groups that you assume may be interested in your brand. From here, you can slowly start getting more specific. Use a few of these general and straightforward segments to get started: gender,  age, location. You can also use these broad groups to eliminate people who aren’t in your target market.    Analyze your competition It’s rare for people to come up with a product or service that doesn’t already exist. While the idea for your startup may be somewhat unique, you’ll still be a part of an existing industry. Other people are already doing what you’re trying to do. You’ve got to find out how to position your company within your industry: To do this properly, you’ll need to research your competition. Figure out what they’re doing well and what needs improvement. Whom are your competitors targeting? Look at their advertisements, visit their website, join their email subscription lists. You can attempt to go after the same target market or focus on a group your competition may be overlooking. Look at the graphic above as a reference. Are you going to target a niche audience or sell products for the masses? Will your brand have high-quality products/services at a premium price, or are you planning to target cost-sensitive consumers? It will be easier to answer these questions after you research the competition. Analyzing your competition can help you increase profits even after your startup launches. Competitive analysis can also show you how consumers behave in this industry. Ideally, you want to build long-lasting relationships with your customers. But this idea can vary based on your products, services, brand, and industry. You need to adjust your target market accordingly. For example, let’s say your startup company sells cars or similar products. A customer today may not be ready to buy another vehicle for another decade. In this case, you can’t rely on loyal and repeat customers. Instead, you’ll have to focus on customer acquisition strategies. Find out how your competition can continually market to different customers and whether their campaigns are successful. The study of competitors is just part of the overall development strategy of the company and product. Breakthrough solutions creation is impossible without thorough research of your product development and business strategy. This is why we here at Jetruby created a startup development methodology that allows you to launch a startup with minimal time and cost losses. Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Strategy Session. And we'll contact you in no time!   Talk to people While making assumptions and analyzing your competition are logical places to start, those strategies will only get you so far. If you want to focus on the ideal target market for your startup company, you need to put in much more work. You need to speak to consumers. See if your assumptions are correct. Conduct one-on-one interviews, and use focus groups to test your hypotheses. For example, let’s say your brand’s general target market is women between 25 and 40. It’s a huge percentage of the population. You’ll have to come up with other ways to segment that target market into smaller groups genuinely interested in your brand.  Focus groups and interviews can give you more information about potential consumers for your company. Your focus groups should have 10 to 12 participants. Show these people different products, services, or marketing campaigns your startup is planning to use. See how receptive they are to what you’re showing them. Find out more information about the people who have a positive reaction. If you’re interviewing only women between the ages of 25 and 40, what other similarities do they have? For example, you might find out that all the women who liked your products were married. You could also discover that women of a particular social class or annual household income were more receptive to your brand than others. Make sure you find out as much information as possible about everyone in your focus groups. Use the market segmentation graphic above as a reference. Have all of your participants fill out a questionnaire before the interview or focus group starts. But realize you won’t find out everything you need after just one session or interview. This market research phase is an ongoing process. The more people you can talk to, the more accurate your data will be. As a result, it will be easier for you to identify your target market.   Create customer personas Now that you have a better understanding of your target market create customer personas to learn even more about their buying behavior. A customer persona will ultimately help you market to this audience. Here’s what a customer persona looks like: Make the persona specific to your company. You can tell the example above is for a business selling shoes. This customer persona has trouble finding shoes that fit her because she has narrow feet. Now, your startup company may sell shoes to both men and women. But each persona needs to be unique. Your general target market in this segment may be: women 30 to 40 years old $30-45k annual salary lives in the western part of the United States. Your customer persona has to be more specific. Notice that the example shows a woman who is: 36 years old $38k annual salary located in Los Angeles, CA. Do you see the difference? The results of your interviews and focus groups can help you create these customer personas. Not all of your customers are shopping for the same reason. The purpose of the customer persona is to figure out the psychological and behavioral shopping approaches to consumers within your target market. Suppose you identify that a large portion of your target market has a similar occupation or lives in the same part of the country. In that case, you can adjust your marketing campaigns accordingly.   Use surveys Once your startup launches and you start getting sales, you can use customer surveys to find more information about your target audience. These surveys can help show your customers how much you care about them. You want to find out more information about your customers so that you can improve their shopping experience. But you’ll also use those survey results to identify your market. Find out who they are and what they are using your products or services for. Get information related to their: demographics geographic location psychographic traits behavioral trends Earlier I told you to start by making assumptions about your potential target market. But now that you have actual customers, there’s no reason for you to assume. You’ve got real people who were drawn to your startup company. This is your target market. Now you need to figure out exactly who they are to target other people in this segment.   Take advantage of analytics and other resources   I’m going to assume your startup company has a website. If it doesn’t, I hope you’re in the process of building one ASAP. Who is visiting your website? The traffic to your site can be a good indicator of your target audience. Google Analytics can show you who is visiting your website.   This is an example of demographic data you would be able to get from these analytics. The traffic from this sample is primarily males between the ages of 18 and 34. Google takes these analytics one step further and displays other information such as: sessions bounce rates pages per session average session duration transactions new users. The reports are generated and grouped by demographic information. It helps you identify which users on your website are the most valuable. That’s how you can determine your target market.   Conclusion As you can see, identifying your target market is a long process. When you first get started, you’ll need to make general assumptions about your prospective customers since you don’t have any concrete data yet. Slowly begin to narrow down that market based on your brand, products, services, and industry. Use competitor analysis tools to see who is getting targeted by other businesses in your industry. Are you going to take the same approach? Or will you focus on a different segment? Talk to people. Interviews and focus groups are a great way to help you narrow down your target market. Customer personas allow you to focus on specific customers with unique needs. Once your company starts getting sales, try to survey your existing customers to find out more information about them. You can also use online analytics tools to see who is visiting your website. Just be ready to make changes. Your initial assumptions about your target market may be wrong. That’s okay. As long as you can adjust your marketing campaigns based on new information, your startup company will survive and thrive. Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and call JetRuby today! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different tech start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Strategy Session. And we'll contact you in no time!   ### Emerging Trends in Agricultural Technology of 2021 2020 brought a lot of troubles and misconceptions to probably every single business industry. Be it an e-commerce shop that has suddenly closed down for an entire year or a medical institute flooded with pandemic people. Everyone was affected. But it doesn’t mean that we should focus all on the negative aspects. For instance, most businesses have found their solutions in remote digital products or services they have never thought or heard of before. Agriculture is also one of the firms that have lots of positive sides as well. In recent years, more and more emerging trends in agricultural technology are becoming more recognized. In this article, we would like to highlight all of the emerging trends in agricultural technology adapting to the current worldwide state. And how various companies and startups are developing their solutions. IoT platforms and applications Emerging Trends in Agricultural Technology - IoT IoT projects allow you to automate the entire cycle of agricultural operations for growing plants or animals. Mandatory components of such solutions are: Peripheral equipment (sensors). Communication channels (GPS/GLONASS, LPWAN, LTE, 3G, GPRS, GSM, BLE). IoT platforms (web platforms for creating industry-specific applications that are generally developed on Flutter). IoT applications (stand-alone applications for specific equipment). Peripheral equipment collects "field" information and receives control signals from IoT platforms. Communication channels are responsible for the connectivity and interaction of all components in the project. The platform is required to monitor all connected peripheral devices, manage and store data streams, and ensure information security. IoT-application forms the logic for solving the assigned tasks analyzes the received data streams and interacts with the user through an interface. Sometimes IoT platforms and IoT applications are one thing combined. IoT platforms/applications’ main application is in crop and soil monitoring for precision farming, monitoring domestic and wild animals. John Deere's FarmSight end-to-end solutions system incorporates wireless technology and advanced precision farming solutions and connects equipment, owners, operators, and dealers. The FarmSight service system provides data on equipment performance. To optimize costs and increase yields, FarmX (USA) offers a platform for precision farming. FarmMap monitors soil, crop, and environmental conditions with its proprietary soil probe transmits data, and provides real-time analytics based on advanced machine learning processes. The open-source farmOS web application offers tools for farm management, planning, and record-keeping. Paid hosting is hosted by Farmier. Huawei's OceanConnect IoT platform provides sensor management and hosts the Holmer application, which provides real-time data collection, processing, analysis, and display. Huawei also has a new X Labs research platform for innovations in various industries. One of the other emerging trends in agricultural technology that desperately need attention and recognition is BLE digitization. However, the main problem here is the usage of all old and analog technologies. Since the spark of digitization can happen very rapidly in some areas, in other cases, there is barely any digital development available. If you have an idea that can successfully secure the relevant market segment, but you can’t understand how your development process should go, JetRuby has prepared something for you. A Product Development Strategy Session - a must-have step for every entrepreneur, where our team evaluates your project and produces a ballpark estimate on your future development process. To get all of that with no penny charged, leave your project description, and we’ll contact you within 24 hours! Product & Data Tracking In 2021, traceability may develop when consumers choose the best product for themselves right in the store using their smartphones. It will be possible to find out where each ingredient of the product was grown, what fertilizers were used in the growing process. This will allow the customer to be sure of what he is buying. The more information and data farmers have, the more profitable their farms will be. Decisive Farming took data collection a step further in 2018 by being the first in Canada to offer producers financial compensation for field data. Besides, the company is providing insight into how farms can improve profitability. There is a high probability that by 2024, the vast majority of farms will use precision agronomy or other innovative food production technologies to become more profitable, sustainable, and accountable. Local Market Production Local markets gained even more popularity in 2020 and aren't slowing down in 2021. People prefer local fresh produce to imported, pre-packaged products. The key in the coming year will continue to be improved delivery efficiency. Improved and faster picking and shipping procedures will be needed to get the product to the customer as quickly as possible. The more efficient the process, the higher the profits. Programs such as LocalizeYourFood create databases that allow producers and consumers to analyze supply and demand in local markets. Plenty plans to grow leafy greens and vegetables near its consumer base with full tracking of demand, which in 2018 was a record high for organic produce. This movement is expected to grow into new traceability and transparency certification programs in 2021. AgriTech Robotization There are three main uses for robots with AgriTech: Unmanned vehicles and aircraft; Automated agro-crop vegetation systems; Mechanical dairy farm management systems. Unmanned systems installed on tractors and loaders, in addition to reducing the influence of the human factor, have another significant advantage: they minimize the risk of fuel and grain theft. Precision positioning systems also help reduce overlap and reduce overuse of fertilizers and chemicals. CLAAS has developed the GPS PILOT system for automatic steering of agricultural machines in the field or indication of deviation from the set track. The AgGPS® Autopilot™ system from Trimble, Inc. (USA) automatically drives the tractor with an accuracy of 2.5 cm for all operations from planting to harvesting. Autonomous Tractor Corporation (USA) develops a modular robotic tractor without a control cabin, the AT400 Spirit, processing, harvesting, and transporting crops in the agricultural sector. CNH Industrial (Netherlands) and Autonomous Solutions (USA) have developed a case IH Magnum wheeled robotic tractor prototype for autonomous work in the field. Kubota Corp. (Japan) has developed an autonomous tractor prototype that can be used in rice fields, the FarmPilot. The Forge Robotic Platform from Autonomous Solutions can work with various attachments (about 100 different tools). The unmanned Greenbot robotic platform, developed by Precision Makers (Netherlands) for agricultural applications, is designed to perform various repetitive tasks. Unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with cameras and sensors can survey agricultural areas of impressive size within a few hours of operation. This data allows the farmer to create electronic 3D maps of the fields, calculate the normalized vegetation index NDVI, take an inventory of the work in progress, and protect the land. At the moment, the agricultural UAV market is in its infancy. PWC estimated in 2015 that the global civilian UAV market was $1.4 billion. This is based on revenues from the most significant commercial drone manufacturers. Automated systems for growing crops Emerging trends in agricultural technology - Automated systems for growing crops An essential element of intelligent farming for online and off-line operation is the use of various sensor systems. Sensors are designed to measure soil, plant, or animal properties by electrical and electromagnetic, optical, optoelectronic and radiometric, mechanical, laser, acoustic, pneumatic, and thermal parameters. Various types and systems of sensors installed on the units mainly perform liquid mineral fertilizers and crop protection agents application and plant observation (weed, pest, plant disease, and leaf damage detection) and yield assessment. American company Trimble, Inc. introduced an innovative system GreenSeeker RT200, which allows the determination of plant matter’s amount and power in crops and makes the dosage of applied fertilizers optimal. The device makes variable dosing based on real-time measurements. Topcon Corporation's CropSpec™ crop scanners (Japan) provide on-time crop monitoring to assess nutrient requirements. Germany-based Agricon has developed the P3 Sensor ALS to control the number of growth regulators and fungicides applied. The TREC sprayer positioning system from Aerosoyuz-Altai Company allows the application of fungicides and growth stimulants with high precision, specifying sowing areas, making electronic plans of fields, and excluding errors in the course of work. In Conclusion All in all, after taking a closer look into each of the emerging trends in agricultural technology, we can guarantee you that it is going to break the old agritech system very soon. With the examples, we have described above and the companies who are doing a great job implementing innovative solutions, it is already doing it. Various product & data tracking devices, robotization of agriculture businesses, IoT platforms, and other trends are slowly being integrated into our lives. If you have an incredible idea that touches the agriculture business, but you can’t seem to find the right digital agency for your business, then JetRuby might be right for you. More than 200+ startups have already passed through our technological flow, and the majority of them are already growing and scaling their digital products. And exactly they are started with the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a must-have step for every entrepreneur where our business analyst will produce a ballpark estimate, adjust your current development strategy and understand where your product value might be hidden. Leave your project details, and we’ll contact you in no time! ### Global Healthcare Trends for SMBs Coronavirus has made considerable adjustments to the IT industry in 2020. There are noticeable negative effects - decreased business activity, disruption of the supply chain, cancellation of global events, and as a result, missed opportunities for cooperation. However, there are far more positive effects as well. The increased need for remote communications will give an obvious impetus to telecommunication technologies (video conferencing platforms, accelerated implementation of 5G, remote consultations, and diagnostics in medicine). The demand for crisis management technologies will increase, investments in solutions for smart cities will grow. So how exactly did the whole global situation have impacted the global healthcare trends that we know today? To answer that question, JetRuby has prepared a particular article on that topic and delivered it right on time. Application of modern technologies in medicine The worldwide practice shows that IT’s introduction in the healthcare industry provides an opportunity to improve patients’ quality of service, subsequently speeding up medical staff’s work and reducing patients’ total cost. At present, these advantages are becoming available to virtually every medical facility. Modern software products can bring a clinic to a fundamentally new level of work. IT in healthcare allows to solve the following tasks: Keep patient’s data private Monitor patient’s condition remotely Control prescribed treatment Save and transmit examination results Online Сounseling Remote training The use of modern IT innovations makes it possible to monitor the health status of patients closely. Maintaining electronic medical records instead of the former paper ones will help reduce the loss of time for forms, which can be spent examining patients. Patient data will be presented in a single document and available to the hospital staff. All information about examinations and the results of procedures will be entered directly into the electronic medical record. This will help other doctors evaluate the quality of treatment of a particular patient, identifying incorrect or inaccurate diagnoses in time. Also, the use of information technologies in global healthcare trends enables doctors to consult patients online at almost any time. This should increase the accessibility of medical services to the population, especially those living in remote areas. It is already possible to receive qualified help remotely as well. This helps people with disabilities who are in a confined space or in an emergency. Patients and doctors will no longer have to travel long distances for examinations and consultations. With IT’s help, a specialist will assess the condition of the person who consults him or her and see the results of all his or her examinations. Such ways of interaction will be helpful not only for physiological problems but also for those who need the help of a psychologist or psychiatrist. Audiovisual communication provides a convenient opportunity to establish the necessary contact between the physician and the patient and provide them with the necessary support. Telemedicine Global Healthcare Trends - Telemedicine One of the most promising and fastest-growing global healthcare trends in the world is telemedicine. According to Global Market Insights, the global telemedicine market volume was valued at $45 billion in 2019 and will raise more than $170 billion by 2026. Telemedicine is the most vivid example of digital health, serving literally as a lifeline for millions of people who for various reasons (living in hard-to-reach areas, limited physical abilities, being in a risk group during periods of self-isolation) do not have access to face-to-face consultations at medical institutions. For patients who do not have such restrictions, telemedicine services are also essential - they save a lot of time. Just to give you an example of how significant the impact was on the telemedicine business sphere, there is a GYANT. It is a digital product created to analyze patients’ medical history and navigate various healthcare clinics available to you in your local area. Within 2 or 3 minutes, a user can get multiple services that they inherently need. GYANT has a fantastic user experience journey for its patience and opens up new horizons for every single patient there is. The average rating on the digital stores is kept at 4.9 stars, where 85% of all users state that they would use this service again, and re-engagement rates are at 70%. Medical Knowledge Global Healthcare Trends - Medical Knowledge New medical knowledge is essential to a healthier lifestyle. To create something new, the healthcare sector invests heavily in research and development (R&D). Pharmaceutical and biotech companies and medical device manufacturers are among the world's leading corporate R&D investors, spending more than $100 million annually. But developing a knowledge bank is not just about R&D. Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and other technologies, people have access to specialized and personalized medical knowledge and information for the first time in history. The iamYiam project illustrates the radical impact on people's lives of innovations that bring scientific knowledge closer to a broader audience. The iamYiam is a digital platform that is a source of empirically-based preventive advice on leading healthier lifestyles tailored to the individual’s biological characteristics and preferences. The rapid growth of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory disease reflects global trends in work, diet, and living. These "civilizational" diseases are the leading cause of death in developing countries; besides, they, including mental health diseases, account for 90% of public and private health care expenditures in developed countries. Nor should we forget that these diseases diminish the value of gains in life expectancy. Half of the years left to a person of retirement age are significantly marred by one or more "civilizing" illnesses, resulting in lower quality of life and higher treatment costs. The iamYiam platform is designed to use the same empirically-based and outcome-oriented decision-making model in health care used in investment activities. The concept behind this development is that optimal health is primarily the result of the efficient allocation of time, effort, and nutrition to individual biological, environmental, and psychological characteristics. The platform is based on an intelligent software agent called See Yourself Differently (Syd). This agent assesses a person's current lifestyle status in terms of their goals and uses platform observations to select a specific counseling regimen. Syd does not diagnose disease, i.e., iamYiam remains a purely preventive tool. More than 200,000 published scientific articles were used to establish baseline parameters for predictions, which the agent is constantly improving through its models and interaction with all platform clients. The platform tracks and reflects the dynamics of users' movement toward healthier lifestyles, allowing the software agent to generate accurate, modifiable information. Another feature of this system is a so-called clearinghouse, through which validated experts and food manufacturers offer users tools, treatments, classes, nutrition systems, and other resources. The user's health information, individual recommendations, and data are accessed within a single medical account with indefinite access rights. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Global Healthcare Trends - AI & ML According to Forbes experts, artificial intelligence and machine learning will become the drivers of global analytics development, and they bring speed, scalability, and convenience. Gartner analysts believe that one of this year's global healthcare trends will be the "hyper-automation," that is, the automation of enterprises using artificial intelligence and machine learning. Meanwhile, Statista indicates that leading organizations in AI project development are expected to surpass $126 billion by 2025. Another area of AI application - speech recognition - will also develop this year. "Alexa from Amazon and Siri from Apple seems to be little more than fun toys, but they can already recognize and execute simple commands. Thanks to Microsoft's Conversational AI project, speech analysis will reach a new level: computer assistants will understand and maintain a conversation and recognize the nuances of emotions. There is also another branch of development coming directly from the OpenAI - GPT 3. With it, various medical information specialists do not have to face the continuous obstacles of keeping up with the complexity and abundance of available information. The GPT 3 has given access to a large amount of data. What is especially remarkable about this framework is that it can establish connections between the user’s words. These are just a few examples of what could be achieved using the GPT-3: Interpret lots of IT programming languages with an easier jargon Create layouts based on their description. Generate a real conversation between famous persons. Observe and learn various things from any individual. So during the management of any medical-related information, the GPT-3 language model may be colossal. VR/3D Technology Global Healthcare Trends - VR New medical devices, whether small endoscopic devices or medical robotics and joint endoprosthesis - are a staple of medical innovation. Moreover, this area of innovation is flourishing. Over the past few years, regulatory companies have spoken of a record number of approvals for innovative medical devices, such as mechanical heart valves, digital medical technology, and volumetric printing devices. The Living Heart Project is an illustration of how medical devices are driving innovation in health care. When Dassault Systèmes launched the "Living Heart" project almost five years ago, it was based on the idea that any initiative in the digitalization of healthcare should put the patient’s interests first. The company went far beyond today's paper and electronic records. It began to actively leverage the digital world’s enormous capabilities to create personalized digital models of the human heart. The Living Heart Project combines leading researchers worldwide to create a digital copy of a pulsating human heart. The model is already being used in various countries to replicate known heart diseases, circulatory disorders, and adverse drug reactions. Heart models can also be used for teaching and practice, medical device design, research, scientific and technical validation. Combining 3D models with actual clinical data provides a solid foundation for creating new product designs and optimizing complex surgical procedures. Conclusion Even though the current situation worldwide is trying to stabilize and put everyone at complete ease, global healthcare trends are getting more attention and government support. For the past three years, the rapid shift and focus towards healthcare startups began to increase, which led many founder ideas to be implemented and accepted by hospital professionals. The examples of medical startups and the prominent opportunities currently open towards any modern and technological products can easily demonstrate how vital a startup is for the current global healthcare trends. Even those startup projects who got rejected, postponed, or ignored during the valuable presentation of their importance, now have a bigger chance to show the whole world what they are made of! For the past 10 years, JetRuby has already developed 150+ startup products, most of which are rapidly scaling up and growing day by day. Regarding healthcare projects, most of our clients are very sensitive and serious about their digital products. To assist them, we form an NDA policy document, implement our idea very carefully, follow their requirements, and discuss the development directions. Besides, every team member has gained HIPAA compliance experience and certificates that testify to their expertise. Contact us today and learn how your potential idea can transform into a valuable product with the free Product Development Strategy Session! ###  How to build an MVP Here's what Statista tells us about the survival rate of startups:90% of new services fail in the first year.37% of companies close within the first two years.More than 55% of businesses remaining after the second year close by the fifth year.Just 29% of companies are still alive after ten years of lifespan. Startup founders face massive dissatisfaction when after months of tiring work and large sums of money spent, their business fails to endure the intense market competition. Nevertheless, there's a simple way to evaluate the viability of a business idea. Financial and technical concerns, in addition to the risk of failure, led entrepreneurs to establish the concept of a minimum viable item (MVP). An MVP is a simplified version of a complete product. An MVP is the least expensive and quickest method to receive preliminary feedback from users so you can enhance your product. In this article, we'll explain how to build an MVP and clarify what level of "minimum" it needs to be, go over common mistakes while constructing an MVP to assist your concept in enduring regardless of today's aggressive service environment, and introduce you to some motivating examples of successful MVPs. For ease of understanding, we have divided the entire MVP development process into stages.Step 1. Research the market According to Statista, in 2020, 39% of start-ups didn't use any worthy solutions for market needs, so they failed at the outset without support from their target audiences. Hence, our first recommendation is to double-check your answers to these two questions:Who is your target audience?What market are you aiming for?Does your startup satisfy these needs in the way users expect it to?To answer the very first question, you'll need to deeply examine who your customers are, what habits they have, what difficulties happen in their lives, and how you can help to solve them. There are many web platforms like SwagBucks and Toluna that will help you create an in-depth picture of your target user.To address the second question, you can use a business model canvas to clarify your product vision. This helpful tool reveals your web project’s value, how it works, its target audience, and your approximated budget plan. You can use a business model canvas to view your company model’s entire structure and see how parameter changes into one essential category will influence other groups. A company model canvas will reveal your target audience’s issues and how your product will resolve them. Only after validating the value of your product concept you can proceed to the next step. Step 2. Study your competitors The web app market is continuously growing, with countless new mobile apps and sites appearing every day. A strong belief in your app’s originality isn't sufficient to introduce an MVP immediately without competitor analysis. To convert app users into loyal clients, your item needs to be much better than others in the same niche. It's pretty simple to say your product is better, however, how can you measure it? Web tools like SimilarWeb, Quantcast, App Radar, Sensor Tower, and MOZ offer you valuable insights into how rivals' businesses work. You can utilize these tools to get data about:How many people use competitors' webs and apps (e.g., regular monthly traffic).Which sources bring more users to competitors' apps (traffic sources).Where your competitors' apps are the most popular (local areas of your target market).The rank of your rivals' items (in your nation or internationally).Also, you can examine feedback from your competitor consumers. When starting to construct your MVP, you can attend to the drawbacks of contending apps. Building an effective MVP would work to embrace your rivals’ best development approaches and avoid competitors' mistakes. And don’t forget about your potential customers! Learn directly from them what exactly troubles them and what kind of problems do they need to solve. That way, you can enhance your marketing and business development strategies, respectively. Step 3. Define the user flow Once you've passed the first two preparatory phases of developing an MVP, it's time to set out the user circulation or what steps your customers will take in your app when they need to achieve a task. If we envision your app as a city, then the user circulation is the roadways that lead users to the wanted location. To describe the user flow, you require to develop a user flow diagram, which will assist you to:Specify possible issues with your app and what can be improvedSee the whole picture of the user circulation: what attracts clients to your app, what they do while using it, and what they do after leaving.Compare what consumers need and look for with what your app deals.Guide users through your app and motivate them to take action.Find out where you can most effectively put your lead magnet or contact us to action.You can use numerous tools to develop a user flow diagram like XMind, Mindmap, inVision. Step 4. Choose the right features for your MVP The next stage is sketching out all features for every single essential piece of performance your app users will most likely need when using your mobile app or website. You can do this by making a note of every function while keeping in mind what users desire. Then, you need to divide all your app features into groups like must-haves, should-haves, could-haves, and wish-to-haves at the moment. This also does significantly impact the business plan development for both cost-cutting measures and fast hypothesis validation. Once you prioritize the features, you'll arrive at a list of vital functions for your MVP.Phase 5 - Design and develop your MVPAs soon as you have approved your application’s general idea and specified the essential ability and individual circulation, you'll need about 2 or 3 months to undergo the MVP design and development stage. You can begin with wireframing the significant screens and navigation methods for the web, iPhone, and Android. To save money and time, you can try one system for your MVP and include other methods later. Another way to develop your MVP more economical and also much quicker is to choose cross-platform development. The layout of your MVP screens needs to be straightforward and clear for app users, not strained by complex, lengthy, and also expensive UI aspects in addition to computer animations. You can also collaborate with a contracting out company with a team of competent specialists who can help you produce an ideal design and development methodology.Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and call JetRuby today! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different health care start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time!Stage 6. Get feedback and improve your productThe last step of MVP development consists of gathering feedback from preliminary customers. You need to diligently analyze this feedback to understand where you should go with your app development. After getting feedback, you'll understand what your app did well and what it does not have, and you'll know what you need to change or improve. Your MVP will go through an iterative process of hypothesizing your initial idea, building it, measuring the results, and learning your users’ feedback. This is the proper development cycle before you have a high-fidelity competitive MVP that can be a base for launching your project.How to build an MVP quicklyLet's assume you have chosen a lean pre-launch tool for your app and have established an MVP with core features. You've also started a build-measure-learn cycle to create a basic app that isn't overwhelmed. However, how minimalistic should your MVP be? Some start-up businesses focus only on the "M," forgetting about the "V." There's an excellent line between a maxed-out and half-baked MVP. We have prepared tips to help you find the best balance.Set clear timeframes for your MVP development In pursuit of a perfect MPV, it's easy to get bogged down cutting, iterating, and enhancing the final results. However, if you do this, MVP development might last for many years. To avoid falling under this trap, identify the terms of MVP development. It should take you only about two or three months to release your first minimum valuable product. Set clear deadlines. This should not be a long-term task.Attract a small group of usersYour primary target at the MVP phase is to begin getting initial users: a couple of 10s or hundreds. No matter how many, simply get them. Choose one special for testing your MVP. Trying your product on a small target audience is less expensive and faster than dealing with various users' feedback.Don't expect your MVP to look perfectYour prototype will not be ideal. However, it does not have to be. These are MVP features: not to have full functionality and not match all your requirements for an entire app. https://teemuleinonen.fi/captionFocus only on basic functionalityFunnel all your attention into solving a single problem for your users. Extract just a couple of functions that will prove your concept is distinct and beneficial. Remove parts up until you can create your MVP within your timeframe.Develop a helpful, reasonable, and attractive appOn the other hand, a basic MVP should be attractive. It must have a straightforward user interface, top-quality photos, expert content, understandable calls to action, and easy contact and payment forms. As we have pointed out above, one of the MVP goals is to draw users' attention to your genius product and make them devoted to your new brand name.Typical mistakes of MVP developmentAs you can see, developing a well-balanced MVP is an art. In this part of our short article, we have prepared a checklist of one of the most common mistakes made by start-up entrepreneurs when transforming their unique ideas right into sustainable and practical applications. For each of these four MVP oversights, we furthermore suggest methods to overcome them. Mistake 1. Wrong product strategy Your product development strategy is the engine of your future business. You can use it to transform your financial and timing investments into noticeable results - and you can not go far if your engine isn't running.Here are the indications of an incorrect item strategyThe problem you're resolving is irrelevant. Once an MVP is nearly completed, the proprietor might be stunned to understand there's no demand for the product. Eric Ries once said:" What happens if we discovered ourselves building something that nobody preferred? In that instance, what did it matter if we did it promptly and also on a budget?".Your marketing and also sales strategies are not clear. What is your target market? Where will users come from? What is the price to attract the first 1000 users? If you don't have a detailed, well-thought-out answer to these questions, you don't have a product development strategy.You can't define the unique features of your product. What's the level of competition? Are you entering into a niche that hasn't been mastered yet? Or are you going into an oversaturated market? Whichever it is, you should know what can make your product reach the top.How to develop an efficient product development strategyCommunicate with your target market. Connecting with users who come across problems daily can stir up a superb recommendation for your item to address your people a helpful option. Strategy your sales activities and advertising campaign. If you do not have an expert internal online marketer, you can interest a remote specialist or outsource your marketing to a third-party company. Specify your vision. No matter what sort of web application you're producing, you will not succeed without a deep understanding of the item's primary function, core worths, along with an important resource. You can utilize Lean Start-up and likewise Agile methods to be successful in producing an MVP.Mistake 2. Your MVP is too overloaded or too very littleIn many cases carrying out a web, the product feels like climbing up a mountain. There are numerous climbers with many routes to the top. You can use a variety of approaches for reaching your organization objectives. However, there is one concept of climbing: if you take excessive with you at the base of the mountain, it will be more difficult to be successful. And if you take not enough, it doubles your chances of returning less than midway.How to specify whether your MVP is overwhelmed or too minimal?* It takes you more than 3 months to establish your first MVP version. An MVP is all about quick advancement. If your MVP has too many functions, it can take years.* You think twice while selecting what features should be included in your MVP. Lots of start-up business owners who have genius ideas wish to see a full-feature app at the MVP phase. Nevertheless, adding more and more functions is a wild-goose chase and funds due to the fact that extra parts are more than likely not so crucial for target users, however, it will postpone the MVP release.* You hold off bug fixes after releasing your MVP. This frequently happens when the app owner rushes exceedingly to establish a minimum of the most minimal MVP with a poor style and primal features to release and evaluate it.What can help:1. Apply an Agile method. Initially, divide complex requirements into a number of fundamental functions. Second of all, set deadlines for carrying out every part and stay within the timeframe.2. Start with the MVP prototype. Establishing an MVP straightaway and skipping prototype development is like building a house without a construction blueprint. A model assists you specify important functions of a high-fidelity MVP and validate them so you can develop the user experience.Follow Item Development Technique. To avoid all the errors pointed out above, it is essential to exercise your business's conceptual part in detail. This needs an accurate estimate of the business objectives and requirements, prototype advancement, establishing clear deadlines, and execution steps. For this function, Style and Discovery Phase has actually been established. It is a JetRuby's program that can ensure that your company failure threats will decrease by nearly 80%. After it, you will have confidence in your service idea and obtain more accurate information for your project.Mistake 3. Inexperienced teamIf your item method is the engine of your startup, then your advancement team is its fuel. Whatever innovations you use and whatever is outlined on paper, if you don't have highly experienced professionals, an efficient launch is less accurate. Let's see how the level of your web designers experience affects the application of your job:You are often missing due dates. A low level of skills leads your web advancement team members might lead your technology option in the wrong direction.You require to work with additional coders. When your advancement team can not handle work, you require to employ more proficient web designers, UI/UX designers, QA testers, or job supervisors. But in doing so, you're likely to surpass your budget..You fail to improve your MVP after getting initial feedback. When you get your really first feedback from initial users, they can reveal you some bugs or UX-related functions they don't know how to use in your MVP. An inexperienced development team is unlikely to deal with these bugs, so it will be challenging to enhance your MVP.How to prevent this:1. Delegate. If you deal with continuous delays for immediate tasks, designate a liable individual who will straight ensure designers are on schedule.2. Conduct item discovery workshops. Every 2 to 3 sprints, you can hold an item discovery workshop to fine-tune your requirements. By doing this, you can determine your employee' work and define what recruitment alternatives you'll have to make.3. Find an experienced partner. You can look for qualified experts for your internal group, out staff individual freelancers, or outsource your advancement to a web development company that has experience performing apps in your particular niche.As much as any business owner wants to develop a truly distinct item, we comprehend that it takes some time and understanding to master or grasp all business aspects simultaneously. It can be hard to be handling everything by yourself, particularly when you are completely new to this. JetRuby's product is established specifically for those looking for a quick and correct method to executing their job. As you'll be associated with multitasking operations, you'll get to know everything you need for your business to introduce itself effectively. So proceed and check out Design and Discovery Phase, which was created specifically for you!ConclusionBy now, you are ready to start your very first MVP Development journey. Simply follow the described actions and methods to develop an MVP for your business. Keep in mind, MVP is a technique that empowers you to find a lot about your users with a working product without spending too much necessary time and funds. All you need is to plan your product hypothesis, define the primary MVP functions, and know your target audience. ### How to create an app for your business You have your app idea. But since you are reading this, probably you do not know how to develop an app and where to get started. Creating an app can be inspiring but it can also feel frightening. There are a lot of variables app development formula: strategy, app design, app development, APIs, back-end programming, hosting, and launching. Turning the app into a successful business is eventually your goal which will need app promo and continuous support. With this article, we will not only give you insights on how to develop an app, but we will also provide you important tips on turning it into a successful company. There are 6 steps for taking your app from idea to having a thriving organization. Create a business development strategy Hire app developers  Budgeting & planning App development  Support & maintenance While this article focuses more on mobile app advancement, it can still be an excellent read if you are producing web applications as the overall advancement procedure is rather similar. Develop a step-by-step business strategy Creating an app without a strategy is like building a house without a construction plan. It is possible, however, you won't be satisfied with the final result. The method requires describing your needs, your goals, and your methodology to develop the app. Breakthrough solutions creation is impossible without a thorough study of your product development and business strategy. This is why we here at Jetruby created a startup development methodology that allows you to launch a startup with minimal time and cost losses. Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Strategy Session. And we'll contact you in no time!   Identify the needs of your target market There are more than 4.5 million apps offered in between Apple App Store and Google Play. However,  less than 1% of these apps achieve success. Your app should be a solution to the problem or offer special value to consumers. Unique apps have a higher chance of success than blindly replicating existing concepts. Billion-dollar apps resolve huge problems that affect a lot of people. If you are developing a business app for your employees and customers, you must have genuine business needs. Every successful app has a specified purpose. For example, Google Drive allows you to rapidly and efficiently access, create, and store files. Facebook connects you with friends and relatives. Uber provides you ride-sharing services. Hence, your app needs to solve an issue and supply value to consumers. After all, developing an app is not just about creating a piece of technology. It's about developing a great product. Conduct competitor and market research The Apple and Android app shops have been around for over a decade. Countless appы have come and gone. An app idea alone does not make it unique. Through research studies, you may find similar app ideas attempting to fix the very same problem. Even if there is a similar app doesn't imply you need to give up on your concept since there is always a better way to do the very same thing. A competitive analysis will help you determine the strengths and weaknesses of these mobile apps. Throughout your analysis, compare a competitor's product features and advantages. Does their app resolve your problem? Can you improve this solution? How successful is rival's app? Is there a market for another app with a similar idea? Check their prices and company culture. There are also paid and free websites to find the initial app development investment. You can learn how much capital they have raised to support their business. Take care of logistics If you want users to find your app, you need to promote it. A website is an essential step to promote your app (more on app promotion down listed below). It is necessary to secure a site domain name early while doing so. You will also wish to confirm that no other live apps share your name on the app store. We also suggest if this is a brand-new product then you ought to register a business as when you are ready to launch your app, you will have to register with the app shops using your company name. If you are developing an app for an existing business then you may not need to worry about securing a domain name but you must think about including a product page for your new app on your business site. Hire App Developers Once you developed a business strategy, it is time to build your app. Quality mobile apps need UI design, programming, QA testing, and project management. It is almost impossible to find one developer who will fill each need. That's why you will need to hire a team for your project. Whom you work with will be totally depending on your budget and needs. You have several options. Hire in-house Developers In-house developers can be an excellent choice in particular scenarios. You can work with those who you really need and keep everything internal. Nevertheless, the procedure of developing a team can be lengthy. Sourcing each expert is a multi-week procedure. We are also seeing the greater merging of technologies. In addition to standard mobile technology, numerous apps consist of functions for artificial intelligence, machine learning, the internet of things, and augmented reality. So you require various expertise on your team. What if you are in a region that has a small talent pool? Employing the best talent is near impossible or could take months to fill the roles. That will set you behind schedule. Working with in-house developers can also add fixed costs to your payroll. If you are a startup or small business, you may likewise need to worry about providing them a workspace, computers, software licenses, and benefits. All of which can increase your initial investment. Hire an app development agency Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the right tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and call JetRuby today! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different health care start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! Budgeting and Planning According to Statista, less than one percent of mobile apps achieve success. Insufficient financing is among the main reasons apps face failure. So how do you estimate and budget your app concept? If you have in-house developers or if you are working with freelance developers then you must seek estimates from them. If you are considering employing an app development company then you must seek estimates from a minimum of 3 different companies. All successful apps have something in common: good quality. So when you reach out to an app development business for a proposal and estimates, you must consider offers that provide equivalent services and have actually a proven history of producing effective apps. This will make sure that you receive clear estimates.  As part of your estimation and budgeting procedure, you will need to tech stack decisions. Do you want to develop a native app or do you wish to develop a mobile-friendly/ responsive web app? If you are developing a native mobile app then do you want to develop for iOS, Android, or both? Should the app be designed for smartphones only or it should support tablet users? Depending on what you chose the prices and timing might vary. If you are trying to budget for a startup app business, keep in mind that technology/app development is normally 40% of your total investments. When you planning a budget, you need to consider both external and internal costs. You will require funds to invest in marketing, support, and administrative functions. You may also incur hosting fees if your app requires a back-end program running from a server. So for example, if the cost of app development is $100,000 and if your app is not going to start generating significant earnings soon after the launch then you should have at least $2500,000 available to create a successful app business. In case if you do not have enough funding available then instead of giving up on your app idea, we suggest creating a minimum viable product (MVP) or starting with wireframes/prototypes. This can help you demonstrate your concept to potential investors to get extra financing. After you have budgeted your app project and secured funding, you must produce a product roadmap. A product roadmap is a shared source of reality that describes the vision, direction, top priorities, and product development strategy over time. It's a plan of action that lines up the company around short - and long-term goals for the product, and how they will be achieved. The roadmap will help you: Prioritize deliverables into turning points Prepare a timeline Develop a communication plan Develop success criteria App Development There are 5 stages in the mobile app advancement cycle: define, design, develop, test, and deploy Define Up until this point, you may have a clear concept of the app you want to develop. You may have produced a top-level specification and have drafts on how you want your app to look. Sometimes, that might be enough details to get developers to start the app development process. For the apps with a limited scope and simple functionality, you can develop an app in iteration following agile processes without gathering a lot of details upfront. Nevertheless, more complex apps will need user stories to catch detailed requirements for each function. All stakeholders from your business need to contribute to specifying the task scope. This procedure can help clarify the project scope for the development team. For example, the app might enable users to login using a username and password. A couple of months later, the client recommends logging in using an e-mail instead of a username. Making this modification can add unnecessary time to remodeling the login process. You can avoid this by gathering and discussing app requirements in advance. All this can be done within Product Development Strategy Session.  It’s a JetRuby’s program that helps you to work out your business’s conceptual component in detail. This requires an accurate estimation of the business goals and requirements, prototype development, setting up clear deadlines, and implementation steps. Thanks that program your business failure risks will decrease by almost 80%.After it, you will have confidence in your business concept and obtain more factual data for your project. Design In 2021, app design should be still the priority. Consumers prefer products that provide an instinctive user experience, clear UI design, and excellent performance. An experienced app development team knows how to create scalable and successful apps implementing best practices. The design phase concentrates on visual design and solution design. To create visual designs, the app designer can turn the app requirements into wireframes using design tools like Invision or Sketch. During this stage, all stakeholders must participate in providing feedback on the design. Implementing design changes after the app is already developed will be really expensive. In order to find a perfect design solution, your app development team will identify an app's architecture, technology stack, database structure, and API design.  Develop Once you prepared app design, it is time to develop your app. Many app development projects include a user interface, front-end advancement, API development, and back-end advancement. Do not simply delve into programming. Prioritize the requirements and create a milestone-based app development plan. To improve project progress, we recommend segmenting the development process into smaller-sized deliverables. Arranging status meetings will help you measure progress against project estimates. As your team reaches each milestone, you need to examine it to guarantee it meets your expectations. In addition, you will want to include a process for managing task changes. In many projects, stakeholders might make recommendations that change the project scope. Having a change control system will help manage, evaluate, examine, and prioritize changes. Test Quality control (QA) testing assists you to provide a stable, secure, and functional app. An extensive app testing procedure includes developing a testing strategy and test cases. Best practices suggest that you should conduct numerous tests throughout each aspect of your application. User experience testing will validate your app with app designs. App quality control will verify that each feature within the app works. Performance testing makes sure the app loads quickly, there are no memory leaks, and the app doesn't drain the smartphone or other device battery. Security testing looks for vulnerabilities that could put user data at risk. Device testing guarantees the app functions with each yearly device release. Numerous modern applications rely on automation testing to decrease manual screening efforts. Automation screening can also replicate multi-user and load testing situations throughout testing. We encourage you to involve all stakeholders to take part in the testing phase. Any feedback you get in the test stage must be tracked, reviewed, and focused on. You should eliminate all defects before the app will be fully completed. Deploy To deploy your mobile app to the app store, you need to submit it to the relevant platform. For instance, the iPhone app needs to be submitted on the Apple App Shop, while the Android application must be sent on Google Play. As soon as you submit the app, it undergoes a review procedure. Google needs a few hours to evaluate as well as accept your app. Apple takes about a week as a result of its rigid review process. The App store will certainly notify you if your application does not fulfill its guidelines. In which situation, you'll need to address those problems and also resubmit your application. The application will be readily available for download when the application shop authorizes it. The application authorization process can take up to 2 weeks. Make certain to include this time when you develop the project development timeline. If app development includes database and also back-end work, you will have to deploy these separately. Many companies rely on cloud service providers such as Amazon.com AWS as well as Microsoft Azure to host their web applications and databases. Cloud holding gives versatility as well as scalability. It can also decrease the companies’ upfront investment for hardware and software licenses. As part of your deployment stage, you should identify your onboarding procedure. For enterprise apps, you should carry out training sessions with your development team and external users. This will increase the adoption of your app and make your app successful.   Support & Maintenance Imagine, your app became successful. You've got many downloads and positive reviews on Apple Store or Google Play. However, the work isn't completed. Popular apps have a strategy for long-term improvement. Mobile app development is a recurring process. The reality is regardless of how good the original application is, there is always need for improvement. You should consider user feedback, market demands, new competitors, as well as advancements in technology. App maintenance strategy should include security updates and bug fixes. Application maintenance ensures the app is compatible with the current versions of IOS as well as Android platforms. Application maintenance will include any type of updates related to app efficiency. Platforms like Google Firebase help app developers to check performance metrics. Firebase provides performance tracking, crash records, user analytics, and more. App maintenance strategy should include security updates and bug fixes. Application maintenance ensures the app is compatible with the current versions of IOS as well as Android platforms. Application maintenance will include any type of updates related to app efficiency. Platforms like Google Firebase help app developers to check performance metrics. Firebase provides perfomance tracking, crash records, user analytics, and more. Conclusion There is a lot that goes into developing an app however with the effective strategy and the right team, you can turn your app idea right into a successful business. Let's summarise. There are several steps for making an app: Business strategy development App developers recruitment Budgeting & planning App Development Support & maintenance   Launching your startup business won’t go smoothly, and you need to prepare for unforeseen circumstances. Proper planning and execution will allow you to restrict these obstacles. We here in Jetruby have developed a unique technology for launching and promoting your startup. Contact us, and we will free help you to build your future development plan. ### How to build or choose your technical dream team Many influential entrepreneurs will not share this secret with you, but we'll let you in on it. There is no such thing as a solo business owner. No people who've ever scaled a business "from scratch" did it alone. In fact, with only themselves, they wouldn't have a business. The team you choose to deal with can make or break your company. If you take a look at research on why start-ups don't make it, the wrong team is among the top factors. It is necessary that you are selective and tactical about yourself. If you're just starting a new business, this is likely something that you've thought of. Numerous startup entrepreneurs ask themselves the following question: "How do I pick the best employee for my start-up?" In this tutorial, we will provide you suggestions for creating a tech team that will help you successfully develop your start-up. Best of all, we'll let you in on some actionable hints for ensuring that your team is fire-skilled and reliable. Hire men of action who can get the job done As a non-tech creator, you're probably thinking about how's to bring this idea to life. If you're already doing some research, you'll know by now that there is no definitive response as to what the very best approach is. Some people think you need to onboard technical talent from the first day, not only to please investors however also for the total success of the business. Others will inform you to refrain from hiring anyone before proving your concept. Eventually, you have more questions than answers.  But there's no need to be upset While it's going to require time and significant effort to discover the best technical partner for your startup; by following a structured process you'll be one step closer to choosing the best option: Learn the essentials of tech - so you can comprehend discussions with possible tech partners and cut through the lingo. Consider your alternatives - whether it's a CTO or technical co-founder, outsourcing to a software advancement company or constructing your own tech dream team. Work out if outsourcing software application development is a choice for your company - based on whether the technology is core to your value proposition. Choose the best partner for you - regardless of which technical partner you select it's crucial you do your research and ensure you have actually picked the best partner for your business. The Tech Essentials  As a non-technical founder, you don't require high tech-level expertise to launch a successful company, instead, you need to be concentrated on the business-driven vision. That being stated, it's important you learn the fundamentals of tech since lots of technical decisions are business decisions. If can't keep up with the conversation on basic tech concepts you will lose a lot, since: Technical partners may see you as an ignorant person. You risk losing control and accepting whatever your technical partner says as law. If you can't understand possible technical partners you are not in a position to appropriately vet them - as we will cover later on. As soon as you have actually gotten the fundamentals of tech knowledge it's time to examine your alternatives when it comes to potential technical partners. As much as any entrepreneur has a passion for developing a truly unique product, we understand that it takes time and technical knowledge to master or grasp all technical and business aspects at once. It can be hard to be handling it all by yourself, especially when you are entirely new to this. JetRuby’s product is developed precisely for those seeking a fast and correct approach to implementing their project. As you’ll be involved in multitasking operations, you’ll get to know everything you need for your business to launch successfully. So go ahead and check out the Design and Discovery Phase, which was created specifically for you! Technical Co-Founder, CTO, Team of Developers, Outsourcing? Which option should you choose? When searching for a potential technical partner you have 4 options. The first one is to learn to code yourself. In fact, that it's the worst of the four options. Yes, you can drop everything today and end up become a software designer. But how long will it take? Remember that every day you invest in coding itself is another day even more from releasing your startup.  Delay in bringing the product to market means a bigger risk of someone beating you to market. And with over 26 million developers around the world why not put your product in the hands of someone experienced? Splitting your focus and trying to 'wear all the hats' in your business might lead to failure. There are three other options to consider when it comes to finding a technical partner - beginning with a technical co-founder or CTO. Should you chose technical Co-Founder or CTO There are some key differences between a CTO & Tech Co-Founder. A technical co-founder is, well, what it states on the tin - the technical creator of your startup. They are an enhanced type of CTO. They have a say in business and are typically compensated with equity. Conversely, a CTO is strictly an employee. They have expertise in tech however not always a business vision. Commonly they are compensated with a salary. That being stated the daily obligations of a Technical Co-Founder & CTO are practically similar: Providing tech-based thinking on the business itself Developing the Product itself Building the tech group (when it pertains to growing the business). Staying on top of the latest tech trends and insights. Should You Hire a CTO or Technical Co-Founder?  If you can find a skilled technical co-founder or CTO, go ahead. However, it won't be easy. Besides the technical ability, your CTO/Technical Co-Founder needs soft skills, the proper combination of which is incredibly difficult to find. You can find more information on assessing the traits of a great co-founder here. They will need to help you represent your company at external meetings (investors, advisors, and so on). They will likewise need to be able to assemble and lead a team. In other words, your candidate requires is: A technical professional Possess the soft skills required to lead and communicate successfully with the group and hold his own in external meetings Within your budget Thus, if you can find the perfect candidate then you must go for it. But as we have mentioned, lots of founders aren't that fortunate. It's incredibly tough to find a CTO/technical co-founder who collects everything you need. However, there are other solutions. Create a Team of Freelance Software Developers  At a first sight, the concept of hiring freelance developers is a perfect solution. It offers you more flexibility and reduces your expenses. But it includes its own set of risks and prospective hurdles. Here are the benefits and drawbacks of developing a team of freelance web designers. Pros of Freelance Developers When you employ freelancers as your technical partner there is a fewer commitment. It means that you will only be paying for software development when you require it. This will reduce your expenses substantially. This presents a much lower risk than hiring a wrong technical co-founder/CTO. You can just thank them for their work and go your separate ways. Working with freelancers allows you to choose the very best specialist for each challenge; provided you know the fundamentals of tech. For example, if your backend is already completed and ready to go. You are free to find the best frontend developer to complement your app's architecture. Cons of Freelance Software Developers As with anything in life, it's seldom smooth. And dealing with freelancers does not differ. Without a CTO or technical co-founder, the very first developer you engage on the project will be responsible for the architecture of your app. This vital choice will lay the foundations for your company. It's crucial that you trust them to pick the right coding language for your product. You need to confirm if the freelance developer is selecting the best stack for your product by asking several Software Development Agencies to make you a project proposal. If they all recommend the very same stack or language as the freelance coder you know you are on the best track. Your second stumbling block is possible commitment issues. Freelance software designers, by definition, are free to accept any job they want. You have to ensure that, regardless of how many tasks they are involved in, they will finish the work in a timely way to the highest quality. You also have to ask yourself, are you ready to run a team of developers? Running development teams is no mean feat, especially if you have no enough experience. There are many attributes that you will need to navigate to create a balanced team. Ultimately, if you choose to go down this route you will be investing a lot more time handling and communicating with your technical partners. If you do not have a lot of experience managing developers you might also think about outsourcing to a Software Development Company. Outsourcing to a Software Development Company Outsourcing has its own advantages and risks. And just like any stakeholder completely vetting them is essential. The most significant benefit of outsourcing software advancement is, in our viewpoint, having a skilled team behind you. Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the right tech pattern? Call JetRuby today! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different health care start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! Advantages of Outsourcing Software Development  Collaborating with the right agency will provide you access to multiple sources with years of product and software experience in development. Many software development agencies are ex-startup founders themselves. Along with developing their own solutions, an accomplished company will have helped launch thousands of products for many years. This means you will certainly be working with a well-established team of professionals that have: All the difficulties you are about to face are already resolved  Solved similar issues to the one your business concept intends to solve. They can pass that experience straight to you. Asking questions and also challenging your ideas to assist you to obtain a competitive edge. Basically, collaborating with the right agency offers you access to a well-known tech-team, product experts, and business development specialists all in one place. Dealing with a software development agency also allows you to have versatility in your team size. Which goes a long way to decrease your functional expenses. As your development needs vary you have the ability to scale the sources you use to fit. Raising as well as lowering the team size as required for your business demands. Disadvantages of Outsourcing Software Development  The initial disadvantage of outsourcing to a software development company is the same as outsourcing to freelancers. As they involved in multiple projects, you need to be sure the agency you select can provide high-quality work in time. If you choose the way of offshore software development, you also need to consider possible communication barriers like timezone, culture clashes, as well as linguistic differences. If not handled correctly this can result in business cooperation failure.  One workaround for this is to look for nearby software agencies. Here you can benefit from affordable costs within the same or similar timezone. Another disadvantage of outsourcing software development is that it will be difficult for you to closely monitor the project development. The primary danger here is that you lose control of the project. It's crucial you choose a company that is transparent; with normal touchpoints that are agreed in between you.  Let’s summarise  So, now you know all the solutions for assembling a technical team. Whoever you involve, keep in mind that developing a business is all about the people. In your Startup journey, everything won't go so smoothly. The right people will certainly have your back as well as when the chips are down they will certainly be with you as well as solve the problem. So make be sure you select the right team you can rely on. And by the Way, As you see, launching your startup business won’t go smoothly, and you need to prepare for unforeseen circumstances. Proper planning and execution will allow you to restrict these obstacles. We here in Jetruby have developed a unique technology for launching and promoting your startup. Contact us, and we will free help you to build your future development plan. Enterprise software development companies ### What's the point in valuing startups? Every entrepreneur knows that a common question on valuing startups is calculated by considering sales turnover, past earnings, and other indicators. A process of valuing startups is done in the way described above. But early-stage startups have no income or other indicators to calculate their valuation. The number of unknowns is so large that it increases risks and makes traditional startup valuation methods inapplicable to early-stage startups. Business plans and financial projections do not show an accurate picture: they just promise investors to demonstrate potential. Therefore, investors can only assess the potential and the team's ability to realize it. That’s why JetRuby discusses the steps that should be taken on how to evaluate a startup at an early stage in this article. The methods are described with examples explaining why a particular metric is so important. Importance of valuing startups Startup capital is comparable to a river in a complete desert. It is the only source of growth for the first few months to develop a powerful idea or prototype. If a startup doesn’t have capital, then it is most likely doomed to failure. The purpose of having your own money is essential as it will be continuing for at least 2 or 3 years if your startup will survive till that time. In most cases, you would need money for product prototype development, development team hiring, offices, marketing campaigns, and lots of other important tasks. So by evaluating your startup, you can already know how much funding one needs to raise. But the question remains: How will you do it? Steps towards the proper valuing startups 1.1 Analyze your startup The first thing to look at is the company's balance sheet. Write down the assets the company has (fewer liabilities). Support can include the following items, but the list is not limited to: Proprietary software Product Cash receipts Patents Customers/users Partnerships Even if most of your assets do not represent real market value (except cash flow), this list will help you benchmark against other startups organized similarly. 1.2 Determine what your revenue will be made of Many startups’ revenue level at the initial stage is primarily a market test, usually not enough to support a company’s growth intending to reach the market in the short term. So, in addition to revenue, identify key performance indicators for yourself to help you more intelligently formulate your valuing. This is where getting creative can be helpful. Here are some common KPIs: user growth rate (per month/per week) client performance index number of referrals daily stats At this point, it's important to note that if your asset list is empty or very limited, KPIs are also missing (e.g., you haven't released anything yet), it would be better to go with an arbitrary assessment using, for example, Guy Kawasaki's method. 1.3 Evaluate the team A good team can go a long way to developing before it becomes a top-notch team of professionals. In other words, having experience and ability is highly valued by investors. The task of this analysis is not to take apart every individual employee "by the bone" but to honestly paint for yourself on paper the experience and advantages of this group of people as a cohesive and professionally working organism. What are the experiences of your team members? What have you created together in the past? Have you had experience launching and managing a startup company? Do you have experts in a particular field of expertise? Have you had a successful exit from a startup? These are all examples of questions from those you will be negotiating your startup valuation - investors. Be prepared to present your team in the best possible light. Otherwise, such an element as "team" can bring a negative connotation to the bottom line. 2.0 Pick your methodology Venture Capital Method Often used for Seed, Series A-stages. Since a startup's performance is usually unprofitable in the early years, the venture method focuses on the perceived value when the investor exits the company. Two metrics play a vital role in this method: Pre-money valuation or pre-investment process of valuing startups (a startup valuation of the company before the investment is received); Post-money or post-investment process of valuing startups (a startup evaluation that considers the investment received and the number of years after which the investor will leave the project). The venture capital method is simple, and the formula is as follows: ROI = final value/post-money valuation Post-money = final value/expected ROI The final value is the future selling price of the company. It can be estimated by assuming reasonable profits for the year of sales and calculating revenues based on those profits. Expected ROI: most VC firms expect 10-40x ROI (according to industry norms for early-stage startups). Given the above calculation logic, a pre-money startup valuation can be obtained in the following way. Post-money estimate = $41,3 million (final cost)/20x (expected ROI) = $20 million Pre-money estimate: $20 million - $350,000 = €19,65 million Berkus Method This method of valuing startups was developed for pre-seed startups by investor David Berkus. He was one of the most active angel investors in the US, who has made and participated in over 180 technology investments. In the Berkus method, five aspects of a company need to be evaluated and assigned values to them. Berkus Method The values in this table are the same, but of course, they can be overestimated to show higher and lower average market valuations. Keep in mind: once a startup starts to make a profit, the Berkus method and the other methods described above cannot be applied to evaluate that startup. Risk factor summation method This method considers many more risk factors to determine a pre-investment assessment (pre-money) for early-stage startups. This method can be used as the first step in evaluating potential risks and should necessarily be used in conjunction with another method to evaluate startups. Most industry analysts identify the following factors as the basis for the assessment: Risk Factor Summation Methods Each risk in the table is scored from +2 (very positive for company growth) to -2 (very negative for company growth). The average pre-money score for pre-revenue stage companies in the same market is adjusted as follows: add $250000 for each positive score (+2 = +$500000) and subtract $250000 for each negative score. Comparables Method Typically this method is used for startups in their pre-seed, seed, MVP, and first sales stage. This method’s essence is to compare the startup being evaluated to a similar startup that has already been considered earlier in an investment round. The difference in the value of both startups’ critical metrics, such as the number of users or customers, potential market size, risks, etc., is considered. This method is based on comparing a startup to similar ventures and valuations in the market. You can use this method if the comparison objects have the same stage, similar product, business model, or target market. Based on the above, valuing a startup is a complex task. Besides, there are many variations of generally accepted startup valuation methods, the application of which depends on the presence of certain factors. That is why it is recommended to use several startup valuation methods for a more accurate assessment. Scorecard method The scoring method is based on comparisons with similar or competing companies and is often used for pre-seed stages. It focuses on multiple market factors and adjusting the average score for recently financed companies in the industry. Such comparisons can be made for startups in the same sector and development stage to determine a pre-money (pre-investment startup valuation). When conducting the assessment, factors should be weighed and scored from -3 (worst) to +3 (best). The scores must then be multiplied by the comparison factor shown in the table below (column Range) so that each element has a value. Then we sum up the values obtained and multiply that sum by the industry’s average pre-money score. Scorecard Method This method’s disadvantage is the lack of information about the startup itself (since each investor evaluates the startup team differently) or its value. This method is not suitable for explosive startups that have never been seen before, like SpaceX, Palantir, 10X Genomics, Vir Biotechnology, Databricks, Rivian, and others. How to enlarge your startup value? Remember that during the pitching sessions, it all comes down to evaluating the startup's development and ability to realize what you have in mind. So even if your startup is still without a working product and sales, you can already justify and directly answer the question on how to value a startup: Before launching your product, create a list of potential customers who want to be the first users of your product; Engage in customer development by analyzing the significant pains and needs of your future customers and their willingness to address them with your product; For B2B products, research and develop customers, identify your warmest leads and sign agreements with them to implement a pilot project; If you don't have a product or MVP and no development team, you can find recognized experts who will be your advisors or even agree to join the team after you get the investment; You can reach out to universities, labs, and other organizations that will participate in product development on an "option" basis or for a success fee; You can launch social media marketing without a budget and use other free channels to create brand awareness and attract your first followers. You can do many other things early on without a budget and a large team to demonstrate the feasibility and potential of a startup. In our experience, we tend to structurize and break down the development plan, identifying hidden industry milestones and prioritizing functional tasks that one needs to complete for an MVP. All of that is neatly packed in our technological development flow, starting with the Product Development Strategy Session. This is the first step towards the concrete and detailed business plan, where our experts will analyze your product potential. Along with that, we will produce a ballpark estimate on your current development direction, adjust it, provide some core guidance along with the commercial offer for the subsequent development step. If you are interested in it, leave your brief project details, and we’ll contact you within 24 hours. ### The Ultimate Startup Checklist to start your business A common startup is always striving towards perfection, both in the technological advancements of its products and the quality of its business model. Entrepreneurs are constantly looking for new opportunities and ways where they can add value to their target market and successfully grow their business to the big giant corporations like Google, Amazon, Netflix, etc. However what kind of business startup checklist did they have on their own? Well to tell you the truth they didn't have any concrete one neither they already knew the path that they were going to take. They did it with giving and take, by constantly experimenting and observing what suits the market. However, we analyzed most of the stories that lots of our and public successful startups had and we came up with this article. Without further ado, let’s see what kind of milestones and what kind of business startup checklist one should have to guarantee at least a successful leap through the hidden milestones! Steps to accomplish your business startup checklist Steps for a Startup Checklist Form a business idea The formation of an idea begins with some kind of a business problem that your target market is desperately willing to acquire. And it’s not some kind of a common issue that someone else has already solved. It can be like that but you’ll need to provide unique value, something that other companies prefer to ignore and you have secretly found out about it. Or at the very least, you should identify a specific market section that is yet to be found and try to introduce your concept into it. Here are a few steps you are advised to follow when you just begin to form your business idea: Idea Validation - Try to make your business idea unique and valuable enough to make your target market not only accept it but encounter something they have been looking for for so long. Evaluate your target market - Study and research how exactly you can fit in the gap of your targeting audience while trying to outcompete your rivals. Learn how to start a business - Make sure you know what you want to do: use online courses, social networks for startups, attend various meetings for entrepreneurs, etc. You truly have a desire to implement your idea - If you want to do your business idea because of money but without passion or with a passion but without a monetization system, forget about it. You need to have both of these characteristics to run your business. Seek your Market Fit Option The second point of your company startup checklist is to sort out who your customers are or draw out the social profile of your future clients. If you will know who they are, it will be easy to determine what exactly attracts them so much and how you can affect them with your business model. After all, when your current users are happy with their customer experience to share their experience, you will eventually bring even more business than before. Here are some of the other factors that you should take into consideration: Focus on your USP - Don’t try to focus on every single customer’s feedback to satisfy all of their needs. You need to understand that you have to offer your key value proposition and only once your revenue wheel is starting to gain significant terms, you may try to offer something else apart from your main product. Value proposition - Stress out the key value that your users are going to get. Make sure that it is different from your competitors as that is what makes your entire company so different and one of the reasons that keep your users engaged. Find your approach - Don’t think that if you have successfully found a perfect market niche once, you’ll be able to do it a second time with no hard time. Try and repeat as many times as you will necessarily need it. Be flexible to your target audience’s needs and try to find out the solution that will suit them the best. Organizational Structure One of the other core things you need to do before going from one stage of your startup to another is to get all your company processes in order. That's important because if you have chaos in your organization, you're going to scale just that. And there are several factors to look at here. You need to have an audit to see if the startup has any real or initial problems. An audit of financial statements is necessary to minimize the risk of claims from regulatory bodies. Initially, there must be a transparent organizational structure, where each employee clearly understands his role and responsibilities. These roles and responsibilities will change as the company grows up, but initially, there must be a clear distribution of powers and responsibilities. Sources of Investment When you make a startup, the available external sources of funding roughly fall into two groups: "borrowed funds" and "equity". By borrowed funds, it means any money which you do not give shares/equity in the company, but you should pay them back (loans). You can also use your savings, sell your car or apartment, or develop your profits from your business. Venture investments are attracted for the development of the company, the growth of revenue, not for the amazing product development. A professional investor will not give money for just an idea. At the earliest stage, you have to make the most of the available capital to make a minimum viable product. You should go to an investor with it, your team, and an understanding of what will happen next. It's not worth trying to attract investment if you don't have an accumulated user base, customers, or proven hypotheses. Another thing to remember: the valuation of a company depends, in part, on how much the founder believes in what he is doing. Investing your own money is proof of the founder's belief in the idea. That is why it is useless to attract investment for an idea: they simply will not believe you Team Motivation and Planning The motivation of employees is no less important. And it's not just about material motivation: when things change, the backbone of the company should remain - the people who are interested in the development of the business. So pay attention to why people work in your company, how important it is to them, whether they share the goals of the business. Another thing is financial and tax planning. Financial planning is necessary for successful business development because you have to clearly understand where and for what money is spent and adjust cash flow if necessary. Mistakes in tax planning or lack thereof are always a loss of profit for the business. Develop a company startup checklist for your business processes It is important to declare all of the business processes correctly and clearly. This should be done on paper so that anyone could understand how the company works. Lots of people forget this point, and the result is confusion. An effective strategy also needs to be in place in the marketing and the sales department. You can't just funnel money into advertising and sales, while not understanding how you're going to increase your customer base and win the market. Only after all these factors, you can choose the tools for scaling and growing. For example, one of our big clients in its early days was not a polished software that required huge assistance right from the start. After we have analyzed the target market, researched its competitors, and produced a few prototypes that allowed our client to seek a solid potential in his product, we started the development process. After just a few months of active development, we produced Sortly, a number one inventory software. So not only we helped with the software part, but we also assisted in creating a business model. And they started exactly with our service called Product Development Strategy Session. If you want your business to achieve the same heights that our client did, schedule our free business consultation where our experts will analyze your business idea and put it on the right development path. Growth & Scaling The last point on your business startup checklist is scaling. Scaling is always an indicator of a company’s growth, but the forms and goals of this growth can vary greatly. At the initial stage of development, the classic startup or scalp growth is usually applied. In the first case, scaling is a controlled process with a specific result. Then the startup turns into a skill upgrading. And with traditional growth, the focus is already on increasing efficiency. At this stage, the company has already gained some stability: it has counterparties, specific external conditions, and an organization of activities. At this point, the business starts to grow qualitatively, increase gross profit, and define a strategy for optimization. Conclusion In Conclusion... There are indeed certain business points that might be added or deleted within this business startup checklist, according to your business structure. We just wanted to point out some of the essentials that every entrepreneur should go through and how a business roadmap looks, at least in the USA. If you want to know how to go through each described step in detail, then you can follow all of the links provided in the article! However, if you checked out all of the entries on this list and you are choosing the right technological partner, then JetRuby might be the right choice you are looking at. We have assisted the growth of startups during the 10 years of our active involvement. Many of them have already successfully launched their product within their desired timeline and are spending the leftover money for advertising and marketing purposes. So, if you are looking for a trustful and experienced company that understands how startups are operated, contact us today and we’ll discuss your product during a short, but efficient Product Development Strategy Session. ### Startup VS Small Business: Major Differences The collocation "startup vs. small business" can be heard everywhere, and sometimes the first one is misused. A fancy coffee shop - startup, a teenager clothing brand - startup, a new mobile app - double the “startup”. It was recently hinted that launching a startup will equally mean that you are doing handmade souvenirs! It may sound hilarious at first, but the reality is: a confusion of terms hurts the economy. A business owner can mistakenly take advice from startup founders. From our own experience, working with various international startups and small businesses, we want to clearly explain the difference between a startup and a small business. There would be fewer such misunderstandings. For that reason, to set things once and for all, we prepared this particular article round of startup vs. small business so that you can understand what makes them so different and choose your winner in this battle. Definition According to Forbes, a startup is working to solve a problem where the solution is not apparent, and success is not guaranteed. For the business to live, the founder simply has to check whether the theoretical problem is correct constantly. Most startups may change it several times within just a few months of preparation time. This is the alpha version of the future corporation going through all the options and possibilities, looking for a way to impact the market as quickly as possible. For example, the video platform for gamers, Twitch, was originally a site where its creator showed his own life online around the clock. When it became possible to broadcast such broadcasts to subscribers themselves, the project gained not only frenzied popularity but also a new business idea, and with it, a completely different level of monetization. On the other hand, small business is first and foremost a form, not the organization itself. Its owner does not strive to prove anything, and its primary goal is to generate income, preferably from the first day of existence. Shops, restaurants, barbershops, or private stores - anything that can have a standard business model and fits the definition of a cooperative, partnership, or sole proprietorship can safely be called a small business. And, figuratively speaking, if these two concepts were to be depicted graphically, the first would resemble a spiral and the second a chaotically galloping broken line. Such is the begging of the battle between startup vs. small business. Startup vs Small Business: Differences The main difference is in the rate of growth. A small business may not grow at all or grow relatively slow while a startup overgrows. It is his essence, after all. An exciting definition was given by the "Godfather of Silicon Valley," Steve Blank. He said that a startup is a temporary organization whose main task is to find a repeatable and scalable business model. When that model is found, the startup can accelerate growth dramatically. A startup is an entirely different type of company that has little in common with small entrepreneurship. A startup is unstable and very unpredictable in long-term development. Most of the time, a startup business plan will be rewritten multiple times due to its development path’s inconsistency. Founders have to control the situation, but they cannot predict everything, so they eventually have to adjust their startup to current circumstances. That is how the first round of startup vs. small business goes by. Let’s see some other great contrast between these business entities. Innovation and Technology It is not uncommon to call a startup a business that has innovations or creative tech solutions. Indeed, a startup often has innovation at its core and uses original and advanced technology. However, these attributes are secondary. Although most startups are innovative in one way or another, growth is primary. Still, as a rule, it is reaching through the expense of innovation in the product, marketing, or business model. However, it may just be a successfully repeated business, with much faster and better execution. An e-commerce shop with average growth is hardly a startup, even if you make a unique handicraft that no one ever did before. Blue Bottle Coffee Shop, on the other hand, can be called a startup due to its super explosive growth across the U.S. It's not a service or product that can be innovative, but a business model or specific tools. Many of the projects that come to us are mainly oriented on some target market segments that were practically unoccupied. Most of the time, they have a tough time finding the right technical partners they could easily trust. But what exactly made them come directly to us? To prepare a young startup for the correct development path and surpass all of the hidden milestones, we created the Product Development Strategy Session. Our professional business consultants will give you a ballpark estimate of your project, adjust your future development direction, and advise how you can improve your current product. All of that with no penny charged. Schedule an introductory call with us, and we will take it further! Investment: credit vs. venture capital Another essential difference is in raising investment rounds. Startup capital for a small business can be taken from another business, borrowed from a bank, or asked from your business acquaintances. Such a company has a clear business plan, which guarantees profit in a short time. The risks are minimal, and the figures are precise. A small grocery store or an account on a site like Aliexpress can give "profit" in as little as a month. It's completely different in a startup. A startup is an expensive venture that may not yield any return for months or even years. In some cases, you can't even take a loan from a bank to launch a startup because it is too unpredictable. So it does require significant investments and long and serious work, but in the end, it may bring worth much more than a small business. During the initial stages, a startup can develop either with the entrepreneur’s capital or with the help of venture angels or any other means of investment source. The first option is preferable because it allows for a prolonged existence without any 3d party involvement. Starting from the Series A stage and further on, the primary source of money for any startup will be VC funds. The mechanics of venture capital A venture capital fund is always looking for a project with billion-dollar potential. It is better to explain the reasons for this choice with an example. Let's say there is fund X, which is going for about ten years. Its goal is to increase the initial capital by at least three times during its existence. The first half of this period will be spent on the conclusion of investment deals, the second half, to profit. According to statistics, a third of all investments will simply "burn out". Another third will come back. And finally, the last third will bring money to the fund. Let us assume that fund X initially has $100 million, and approximately equal investments from it receive 30 startups. Only 10 of them will make a profit, as we remember. The assets will take place in the seed round or Series A stage. The initial investment will be $1 million each at 20% of the capital, plus the option to invest additional funds later to hold their share. Let's get right to the point where ten companies have become successful, and investors can sell their stakes in these companies and make a profit. Fund participants own 20% of these companies, and the sale of all shares should provide investors with a total of three times the money invested - $300 million. For simplicity, let's divide $300 million by ten companies - and get 30 million from each company. For 20% of the company brought $ 30 million, its total value should be $ 150 million. That's the minimum bar. If the price is lower, the fund will not get what it has been working for ten years. The chances that all ten companies will be worth $150 million or more are incredibly slim. The venture capital fund is betting that the clear leader - a company worth about a billion dollars - will be in the top ten. The leader recovers most of the fund, and the other companies’ task is to help the fund reach the desired state. It is essential to understand that the risks are high, and no one knows at the start which startup will become a billion-dollar "unicorn" and which will not. And that’s how we end this battle today of a startup vs. a small business.   In Conclusion In the end, calling a small business a startup for the sake of a fancy term is a bad idea. A small business is just as good as a startup, and it has the potential and benefits. A small bakery can develop into a large enterprise company if the founders have that desire. A startup is an entirely different type of company. It snowballs, sometimes out of the determined scope and boundaries. To understand how to position a company and resolve the fight between a startup vs. small business, you need to assess its growth potential. If you genuinely see real potential in your project, all that's left is to assemble a team, create a business plan, and spread the idea across the world. If you don't see it, but you like the idea, go ahead and do it, just don't call it a startup. Create a small business and make it successful. If you can’t understand or determine how exactly you should spend your capital to reach your product’s full potential, then JetRuby is the right place for you. Specifically for young startups and beginning entrepreneurs, we created a unique program called the Product Development and Strategy Session. Where we analyze your project, produce a ballpark estimate on your development plan, and adjust your current flow to the correct one. All of that you can get on our free business consultation. Leave a short description of your business and schedule a call with us today!   ### Essential features of a successful startup Essential features of a successful startup One of the great questions of entrepreneurship is why some startups fail. Some people start one successful company after another while others eventually fail. Why some businesses suspend their activity while others do well? No one starts a company expecting to fail. Success requires careful planning and starting the business the proper way. So what does it take to develop an outstanding project? Which features do effective startups have? Right here is a checklist of the ones they absolutely share. Among them, there are the basic as well as extra details for software development concepts. Be passionate about your startup  Although it might sound too naive and even too simple, it is where the whole procedure starts. Having a dream to develop a product and being passionate about it is the first step towards the development of a successful and ambitious project, which is going to satisfy clients' needs and bring substantial profits in the future. Passion pushes you to work harder, conquer barriers, never ever quit, and, eventually, prosper. Use innovation to grow your startup  Lack of innovation is often the reason why startups withdraw from the market. There is a theory that almost 90% of startups fail because of the shortage of this function. Innovation is something that identifies your concept from the others, creates a brand-new solution to some particular problems, attracts investors, and offers your startup the potential to end up being terrific one day. Additionally, developing the innovative idea of your product is just the strong beginning. Innovations need to exist on a routine basis. Even big businesses have to make some changes and updates constantly as far as there is a good deal of rivals appearing on the market every day and using their distinguished products. Find a target market for your startup  In some cases, entrepreneurs wish to occupy as many niches as they can. However it is always much better to have a product whose features are narrower than the one that strives to solve all the problems and perform everything, but in the end, does nothing truly well. As it was pointed out in the past, your concept should be able to solve the customer’s problem and you have to focus on it. Your app or web solution must have a competitive advantage over the others. Finding your own market niche and target market likewise comes from this subject. Sometimes, companies wish to encompass more, so they look for brand-new territories, which leads to substantial problems and confusion. Growing within the area you picked at first place, having researched it before, and being familiar with it will give you more guarantees and make you much better and more competitive on that market. Understand your customer startup’s needs  Successful business usually knows their customers and treat them truly well. Having proper knowledge about your target audience allows developing the best product for them and fulfilling their needs. Eventually, you build your concept for the customers, so it is necessary to give them what they want, that’s why their viewpoint about the product is essential for you. In most cases, you have to make comprehensive research on your users and comprehend what they require. It is essential here to keep up with the time since in the IT industry everything, even the client desires, changes truly quickly. Providing excellent user experience  A recently launched startup product has no customer loyalty, hence it needs to impress. Offering an excellent user experience may be something that will help to make that long-desired success. If you develop a software app, you need to provide your users with a smooth learning curve and user-friendly navigation concerning the target market you aim at. Your users should be sure that they will get what they desire from your product as soon as possible. What is more, one should not ignore the role of client assistance. Questions, suggestions, or complaints may come from your clients, and they must be considered. Specifically, if some of them repeat all the time. Furthermore, positively impressed users normally share their impressions with their friends thus creating a genuinely excellent reputation. Launching a startup implies making mistakes or when somethings going wrong, so when users experience this, it is constantly much better to apologize, accept your mistake, and assure them that you will make changes and that they are necessary for you. If a client encounters some problems in technologic or any other ways and receives excellent customer assistance from a company - it can ensure you some level of user loyalty, which is worth fighting for. Your business needs flexibility  Your idea and vision of what your app is going to be along with how it will look in the future might not stand all the time. While there are start-ups, which start from scratch and breakthrough with their initial idea with small adjustments, there are others, which deal with big changes and concerning the content of their product. That is why you have to handle flexibility and make it your feature. Therefore, there might be a constant need for new adjustments, either little or huge ones. It is most likely not enjoyable to know that your team's effort might seem in vain at one moment, but being able to get over it and make changes in order to get more users and satisfy their needs will certainly be worth it in the future. Built strong and efficient team You need not just a group of experts who know their thing and have the proper level of knowledge. Your startup needs professionals who are passionate about your concept and task, who share the vision and values of the company, who want to strive for the success of your startup, and are ready to achieve this. One person is not enough here. So if you about to launch a startup it is your task to interact your concept and vision with your potential team members and hire a strong team of experts and team players.   Retain your great employees  Employing great people is not enough. There is a typical problem of business that puts excessive emphasis on attracting personnel then retaining them. Unfortunately, this approach is wrong, due to the fact that your task as an employer is not just hiring great experts, but also making them stay in your startup as long as they can. Staff members must feel valued (and it does not matter whether it is a just recently employed student or a senior developer with a lot of experience), interested, and inspired in order to continue working on your product. Offer constant communication  You should never undervalue this advice as long as communication skills are vital for any service. Everybody understands that launching a startup takes a great deal of effort and time, and founders are generally busy with lots of work to do. On the other hand, it is of the utmost significance not to forget about your stakeholders, who actually support your business. They need to feel taken care of along with to clearly comprehend their tasks and know what you want from them. There are different platforms consisting of social media networks, which help to make communication simpler. Furthermore, knowledge transfer is likewise something that needs to be mentioned here. Teamwork implies sharing knowledge all the time, so either companies or staff members should understand it and share helpful info with each other. Planning effectively  Running a business is not a spontaneous thing. There are a lot of unforeseeable situations and those, which do not depend on you. However, you need a product development strategy of how your company will grow and how you are going to attain your success. Starting a successful startup implies considering more than just the next day. Your strategic plan has to be deliberate, easily executed, and reflect the future and potential of your business. To make your business successful and be prepared for unforeseeable situations, it is necessary to work out your business’s conceptual component in detail. This requires an accurate estimation of the business goals and requirements, prototype development, setting up clear deadlines, and implementation steps. For this purpose, a Product Development Strategy has been formed. It is a JetRuby’s program that can guarantee that your business failure risks will decrease by almost 80%. After it, you will have confidence in your business concept and obtain more factual data for your project. Find the way to market your business  While being concentrated on innovation, some startups in some cases forget that there is also marketing, which requires a lot of attention. Even investors have an interest in a marketing strategy and the ways you are going to promote your product to its potential users. You have to describe your future app with branding, and nowadays branding is much more than simply a logo. It is the way you place your company and your product, the method you show yourself to the public. With your branding, you need to deliver a message to your audience, which will be quickly easy to understand, even if your product comes from the software application industry. Currently, marketing has a lot of tools and instruments which may be used. Among them, there are blogging and social networks that can assist a lot in making your startup more popular. Learn all the time You cannot stop learning, even if you have excellent technical knowledge and experience, and know exactly what are you doing. Especially in the IT world, where whatever is inconsistent evolvement and does not stay at the exact same location, it is really crucial to be able to keep up with the changes and market tendencies. So, in order to remain productive in the software market, one must have the ability to learn all the time whether in a formal or informal way. Accept that it’s a risky business and deal with it  It might be obvious but still, it should be mentioned. You may deal with a cash loss, a great deal of tension, and failures. There might be lots of unplanned circumstances, which cause you troubles in a financial and mental method, but you have to be ready for it. It is a risky business not just for startup founders but also for investors and team members. However, successful startups do not avoid such challenges on their way. The route for success will most likely not be completely smooth. By doing this, you need to be ready for it, determine and examine the possible risks, and be prepared to solve them. Our digital agency strongly thinks that you can conquer most of the business risks and avoid failure by constant preparation and covert turning point forecast. All of that you can experience and get throughout our tech advancement circulation that begins with the Product Development Strategy Session. Leave your concept in the query above, and we'll be on our way to implement your product into reality! Take Feedback Seriously  Another quality of successful startups is their capability to adapt to feedback. Whether the feedback comes from investors, advisors, or clients, successful startups extract value from feedback to help improve their product, service, or organization model. Ultimately, it's a balancing act of understanding when to pivot and when to hold your ground. Wise founders form connections with mentors and advisors early on, developing relationships with those who came prior to them to learn from their mistakes and success.    CONCLUSIONS Of course, following all the advice above does not ensure immediate and constant success for your startup, however, these features are the ones that successful companies certainly share. Once you're launching a startup, your product and your consumers should come first. You should find your market-specific niche, focus on it, select your target audience, and deliver your customers a solution, which would satisfy their needs. Do not forget hiring and valuing the team, which should be not just a group of experts, however also the people who share the vision of your project. The software market is developing all the time, so be open to learn brand-new things regularly and follow the trends. As it was currently mentioned numerous times before, running a startup is a tough business. However, if you follow the qualities above, it will have all chances to be rewarding and bring you success. Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the right tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and call JetRuby today! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different health care start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! ### Business to start with 30k: A Brief Outlook Starting a new business or opening your first one, can and will be not easy unless you have already acquired the necessary skills and expertise to do so. This is especially true when it comes to the limited budget on your own hands. Since every entrepreneur out there will constantly question one problem:” What business to start with 30k?" The answer to that question highly depends on the type of business you want to run and the capabilities that you are currently holding. Since both of these factors are tied directly to your budget plan. Even though you could do it by yourself… But then again, it’s just not worth the time and your competitors will already cover the market segment you are targeting for. So to give an insight what are your opportunities and what business to start with 30k you can, JetRuby prepared this article. So sit back, relax and let’s get all of your questions answered, while we will review each industry domain where you can start a business with 30k. Businesses to start with 30k E-Commerce Online shop E-Commerce Online Shop The very first thing on our list is the E-commerce Online Shop. There is no doubt that pretty much any platform which has large products in it, whether they are handmade or retails will always find their place online. And it’s a good place where you can actually start and grow your business further. Maybe it’s not a grand idea or it is still waiting for the market to pay attention to it, but it is a stable one that falls under the criteria of a ”business to start with 30k”. As we have already mentioned, it could be pretty much anything, starting from your homemade crafting to the traveling guide. As an example, JetRuby had a client who had a very similar dream of her own as a traveling guide. She is a very experienced and energetic person who has traveled all around the world. And during her adventures, she understood that she wanted to make her own business out of it. After she contacted JetRuby, we hastily started analyzing and researching her idea, since we saw the potential value and uniqueness out of it. During these preparation iterations, we have identified a stable and flexible opportunity that unveiled her full product potential. Want to know what it was? Follow the full story here! Food Delivery Application Saffron Cooks - Illustrations Pretty much every young entrepreneur has already thought about going for a food delivery app. And it’s no wonder due to its simplicity and short development time. For example, one of our clients from Stockholm has created his own food delivery/restaurant app and the results were pretty amazing. Including the fact that he was wondering how he can start a business with 30k in his pocket. The results you can read in this article. You might have a great chance when you first start with home-based food delivery. Since it will honestly require you less capital investment, rather than opening your own business from the start. Once you have that, the business will keep going and you’ll be kicking a revenue wheel and the monetization system will work, then you can easily start investing more money into it. Take note that before all of that will work, you need to invest in your kitchen to achieve splendid results. Plus, it might be somewhat complicated to drive your food around your local area, depending on your city infrastructure. It highly depends on what you want to make and how many people you intend to serve. And always think about the safety and have a licensed electrician upgrade for your wiring to keep up with your needs. So in overall, there are various things that you need to consider before you plunder into the development works. Cleaning online Business Less favorite and more practical business unit that can be easily missed is the cleaning business that can easily be considered as “a business to start with 30k”. Perhaps you didn’t expect that, but it is truly an accessible and flexible business that you can start on. Especially for those who want to have a passive part-time business and for those who want to grow it. Most people think that it is not that scalable, but the thing is you never expect with whom you can collaborate. For example, it could be hotels, motels, private properties, offices, etc. So it is truly possible to make a cleaning business large. You can start gradually and slowly build it from scratch. Most of the time you don’t even need an office, since all you need is the employees, equipment, and transportation. That’s how little you need to have before launching your platform or mobile app. Furthermore, the rates can depend on your competitors only. And most of the time, you’ll be using either a subscription technique or per-hour charging. The service advertisement can be done by giving out cards in stores, or creating a social media presence is enough for starters. Outsourcing is recommended if your budget allows for this. In general, the marketing costs are cheaper on average compared to any other business marketing. Overall, the real estate market can be sometimes much easier than you might think, even if it might look like there are a lot of complications. Real Estate Online Real Estate App Real estate investing can be lucrative so long as the math works in your favor. If you want to start a real estate mobile app or a platform, first search for properties that require less work. Make sure that you understand that a real estate business is a long-term one that requires a lot of time and patience. Also keep on the lookout for new buildings or constructions in your local neighborhoods, as it could mean a steady income over time. The goal of real estate investing is to put your capital to work today. With time it will generate income steadily. More than that, nowadays you don’t even need hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in real estate. There are plenty of ways to invest in real estate and start a business with 30k. But before you go ahead and invest your time and money into building an online platform, we advise you to analyze the rental property processes. Research how property varies by price, down payment, cap rate, and other requirements, and analyze rental properties with interactive tools. How do you get proper funding? To get a more consistent and stable business you need funding. Since you can’t run around with small capital in your hands or a prototype in hopes that it will work out somehow. Absolutely no. There are various options that you might consider going for: loans, angel investments, VC investments, and so on. But it’s not that easy at all. If you want to understand where, how and what kind of approach you should take to gain trust from your investors follow our article here. Not only you will understand that, but we’ve also highlighted the mistakes that you should avoid while preparing for your pitching presentation. Special Bonus Whether you are in the middle of your business journey or are just starting to get things straight with your product, there is one, essential word: preparations. And what kind of project doesn’t have any substantial preparations when an entrepreneur is beginning to think about his early startup. To help anyone cope with that and to understand whether he and his team are moving in the right direction, JetRuby developed a Product Development Strategy Session. It is a special service where a team of our business analysts will analyze your product and base on it, we will provide a ballpark estimate of a product development plan. All of that completely free! So, try it out yourself today and contact our HQ today to receive a professional and free business consultation for your startup. Conclusion In the end, every single business that you’re starting must have some kind of a budgetary plan that an entrepreneur must follow. The more capital you have in your hands, the more opportunities you’ll be able to gain with it. The results of your business development, however, are directly tied to the execution level and the team that is going to manage your product development process. To find out whether you’re on the right development track and analyze what potential you have, JetRuby has created a service called Product Development Strategy Session. A free business consultation where we take a step forward for your product and within a day prepare a ballpark estimate of your future product concept. Not only that, but our professional team will also suggest what kind of direction you must go on and where you should be heading to. To gain all of that, leave a short description of your business idea and we’ll get back to you in no time! ### 5 trends in educational technology disrupting the market! It is astonishing to say this out, but the educational technology industry section trends are tremendously kicking well. It sees the vast potential in lots of educational institutions, especially during pandemic times. Modern technology, top-notch design styles, and educational systems are to be converged to improve our learning methodology. During every decade of humankind’s history, information was our only source of knowledge and progression. Nowadays, it is everywhere. The constant flow of information has flooded our current perception. So, did the education system change accordingly. That is the reason for such a vast diversity among the studying people. To successfully deliver the right learning track, we need to converge both the technical aspect rising every year and the educational aspect constantly changing. For understanding how we can do that, JetRuby prepared a fresh headline of the most notable and emerging trends in educational technology and how they can change institutions today. Immersive Learning Extended reality is a term that hides away the three most popular technologies ever created. Augmented reality, virtual reality, and the combination of both technologies with the natural environment. It will be one of the most significant and innovative trends in the educational technology industry during this year's trends this year. Just look at the statistics of keyword search “extended reality” that has rapidly taken over the internet for the past year. "extended reality" - Keyword searches In general, the average price of a VR headset has been lowered significantly back when introduced in the early 1990s. Furthermore, it is expected to decrease even more by 200$ in 2023. Exactly this drop will allow various schools and universities to use VR technologies actively. However, that raises an excellent question: “How exactly will this new technology allow an educational system to be used in teaching methods?” One approach is by utilizing a more visual environment for the classes that may be required to demonstrate particular objects and elements. For example, it could be chemical reactions, physics experiments, history visual of the past times, and the list may go on and on. The VR industry is going to take over specific market niches that no one has ever imagined before. A great example where VR headset has shown its potential in education is a startup project named Labster. It is a virtual laboratory where students can do experiments and consume knowledge by interacting with the equipment. There is also a platform called Interplan Learning where various people can go ahead and learn some new skills you can then use in real life. It could be HVAC basics, Repairment Works, or even installing electric panels. All of that, you can learn freely on their VR platform. Homeschooling Startups The US homeschooling has never been this high ever since 2012, where only 2,1% - 2,4% of all children were homeschooled. Now it has risen to 3,4%, and due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more parents are starting to look at it as an option. The graph below shows how the trend over the past five years has drastically changed in the US. Just type “homeschooling platforms” in a Google bar, and you’ll see the results for yourself. “homeschooling platforms” - Keyword searches These people were mostly looking at physical homeschooling education. Conducted with books, pencils, papers, and various workbooks that can be very expensive at times. However, on the bright side, some startups saw a clear opportunity where one could develop and evolve something for homeschoolers. One such example is the Prisma platform. Prisma can even be considered as a virtual school, where you can hang out with your classmates, watch live workshops, browse the old ones, and even get involved in group projects. In a nutshell, all students can choose what they want to learn, when and where they want to do that. All of that, while being constantly supported and inspired by online coaches who serve mostly as a mentor, who wish to enlighten his students’ minds. Another remarkable example of an educational platform was taken for Primer. This platform takes an opportunity to explore some default classes taught in school and transform them into interactive games and challenges. It simulates a whole infrastructure, where parents heavily assist their kids in the early adventures of gaining new skills and knowledge. It also has a tool that parents can use to navigate regulations and choose the educational resources they wish. eLearning A popular and trending business direction of 2021 is eLearning. According to the Global Market Insights, the eLearning market increases its current capital state up to $375 billion by 2026. Why is it so big and such a profitable business, you might ask? Well, it’s elementary to explain. You see, not only the eLearning platforms can give you specific resources and lessons that you might need. It has also allowed lots of mentors and educators to teach lots of students at all times via pre-recorded courses. With a cost that is far lower than buying any heavy workbooks. Some specific US colleges have gone fully remote studying during the pandemic course of action. Others have either partnered with some online learning platforms that allowed them to browse much content of their own and offer their courses on their websites. So overall, the COVID-19 only enhanced their presence and solidified their reputations. Like Coursera that grew over the past years and partnered with many famous universities (including Stanford and Yale). Or Udemy, which has boosted the number of its online classes to gain more audience for improving and attaining more skills for them. Some of the other competitors and eLearning platform pools include MasterClass (specific professional courses taught by celebrities) and Teachable (course-creation website for entrepreneurs). Accessible Education According to the UIS data in 2018, it was estimated that there are 258 million children worldwide who are out of school and are not getting any education. However, this number is constantly dropping way down from 2014, where the counter was set at around 300 million children. There are still things left to be done in each part of the world, and it is still a long way to go. There are some prominent signs of what is coming from the technological industry that may solve this issue and fill the need for accessible education. For one, there are “Chromebooks” - a low-cost laptop ($250) base on Chrome OS which runs and executes most of the heavy tasks with excellence. Plus, the OS is entirely open-source, so you won’t have to pay for anything. But what about those who do not have an opportunity to buy it or have a direct internet connection? To solve this kind of issue, some US local PBS networks are broadcasting classes on television. There are curbside book deliveries in libraries, which help those who can’t afford to buy expensive workbooks. For homeschooled kids and children, there are free educational resources available online and both offline. Besides, there are Open Educational Resources and Open Source Software that have free software for educational purposes. As you can see, there is undoubtedly a significant gap in this market niche that is still awaiting a startup or a company that can solve this business problem. Why not take advantage of it and cooperate with JetRuby for implementing your idea? As we have already collaborated with more than 200+ startups, we have enough knowledge and expertise to accomplish your project in reality. More than that, to evaluate your idea and to provide a ballpark estimate on your startup, we prepared a Product Development Strategy Session. A free business consultation where your product development process will be adjusted and analyzed. Leave your short project description, and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours! AI Adaptive Learning Yet another one of the emerging trends in educational technology. Adaptive learning is mainly described as the variety of platforms on the Internet that have an integrated AI assisting and personalizing your kid’s education. So, in a nutshell, this system will analyze your kid’s educational process and provide him with necessary lessons to fill the missing knowledge gaps. All of that is concluded for each student individually. Surprisingly though, only in the past three years or so, such innovative educational technology trends started to appear since they could handle the AI’s processing power. One example of such a platform where a person could easily interact with the AI system is Thinkster. This platform is oriented towards improving middle school students’ math scores and guarantees up to 90% improvement. All of this became possible thanks to SelectQ, an AI learning service, which delivers personalized content using performance metrics. Another example where your children can gain new knowledge would be ROYBI. The product consists of two essential parts: the application to browse specific preschool lessons and the robot itself. The robot translates various educational content through machine learning while accounting for a child’s behavior, emotions, and actions accordingly. Many companies started their creative implementations seeing such a vicious spread of chatbots filled with AI and machine learning. Like Duolingo that helps to learn foreign languages. Or Ivy.ai, which assists executive departments to regulate and adequately manage processes in any business industry unit. In Conclusion In the end, the current trends in educational technology are rising and changing the very lives that we are currently living through. Our team hopes that future educational technology trends will shift most conservative things that have stood for too long—bringing only prosperity and excitement. This will probably be an intriguing matter in the nearby years, as our technological capabilities will forward, gaining more speed. At JetRuby, we assist young entrepreneurs and passionate founders who want to launch their startup and conquer the market with their unique and valuable ideas. If you are a startup that can’t find the right technology specialists or does not have enough knowledge in product development, then your project will be good in our hands. We created a unique service for all entrepreneurs called the Product Development Strategy Session. Our experts will produce a ballpark estimate of your project, adjust your current development strategy and assess your idea. All of that with no charge whatsoever! Leave your short project description, and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours! ### How much does a startup CEO make? After receiving the first big check, the startup needs to distribute funds properly: understand how much to pay employees and how much to leave for existence. One of the main questions is how much does a startup CEO make? That’s why we have reached out to our clients who have already passed the startup stage to ask this question. After producing good research and them, we came up with some fascinating answers that we want to share with you today! We hope this article will assist any other young or early startup who is slowly developing and trying to desperately understand: “How much does a startup CEO should make?” What’s Driving the Salary Growth? According to various sources, most of them indicate that in 2019 and 2020, the salary that most to the startup CEO has been raised by 10%. And that it mostly depends on the funding rounds that these entrepreneurs are constantly raising. Simultaneously, the rise of investment funding has been mostly seen in seed rounds, which means that the biggest driver of salary growth came from tech companies. In the past three years, CEOs of various tech startups had an average salary of $118,000, which came up to $135,000 in 2019. IF mentioning Startup CEOs who are primarily focused on the healthcare industry, we saw that the salaries remained pretty much unchanged during previous and current years, coming in at $147,000 in 2019. The same trend has stayed in touch with a fintech startup, reaching $129,000. Male vs. Female Startup CEOs: Are Men Paid More? It’s no wonder that there are many debates and discussions on the topic of salary between men and women. Especially when it comes to startups, this topic becomes more active and engaging, as there seems to be a slight salary gap. So, when it comes to startup CEO salary, there is a definite difference. YOu see, when comparing two gender salaries who are running relatively same startup organizations, the difference is around $5,000, where $138,000 per year is set for CEO women and $143,000 per year is for men. You might ask us that this is a very crucial difference in salary. While it is true, when we look at it more retrospectively, the results are pretty astonishing. According to our clients’ sources, this difference is explained that the female CEOs are predominantly running earlier-stage startups. If we look closely at Seed and Series A startup CEO salaries, the difference in pay between men and women is practically non-existent. What do startup CEOs get paid? If you’re asking this question directly and want no take-backs or any other statements, then the bold answer is $130,000 per year. The data we gathered from our clients indicates that the average annual salary for a CEO of a seed or venture-backed company is somewhere$130,000. It is also essential to understand that we considered only those companies that are majorly sponsored and funded by various investors. Simultaneously, the average funding statement was set somewhere between $7 and $8 million in venture and seed financing. How much does a startup CEO make, according to investors According to Brad Feld, a venture capitalist at Foundry Group, founders typically earn $100,000 to $250,000 a year, with bonuses of up to $100,000. Meanwhile, founders serving as CEOs often have a cut of up to 20%, and when working as CTOs, a cut of up to 10%. There are exceptions to all the rules. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel doesn't invest in startups where the CEO makes more than $150,000 a year. He notes that the lower the CEO's salary, the better the company grows. New York-based business angel David Rose believes that a funder must get approval from the company's board and investors before paying himself anything. For example, for a startup that has raised $5 million, Rose advises paying a funder no more than $150,000 a year. Foundry Group venture capitalist Seth Levin voiced the rule: "Companies that have raised $1 million or less should pay the CEO between $75,000 and $125,000 a year. If the investment is up to $2.5 million, the CEO's salary should be $125,000. The more investment a startup attracts, the more its funder can afford." Storm Ventures partner Jason Lemkin, a former CEO and co-founder of the electronic signature service EchoSign, bought by Adobe, shares this opinion. According to him, the CEO of a company should not be in a situation where he has to worry about making money because it negatively affects its growth and harms it. A CEO startup salary from other sources If you're a startup founder, how much should you pay yourself? Compass has shared its research on the salaries of founders around the world. The average salary for startups worldwide ranges from $30,208 in India to $72,363 in Australia. In Silicon Valley, 75% of the founders allocate less than $75k a year for their salary, while 66% allocate less than $50k a year. It is worth noting that the average wage in the states is approximately $73,000, while a developer in San Francisco, on average, receives $110,480 per year. In Australia, the average salary in the IT sector is $104,738. Being the "highest-paid'' ($72,363 a year), Australian founders earn less than the average Australian - $85,785. Peter Thiel (co-founder of PayPal, managing partner at Founders Fund) believes that a low CEO salary is the best predictor of success. Most companies set salaries for founders at less than $50,000 a year. However, there are somewhere founders who make more than $175K. By the way, Peter Thiel is not the only one who attributes startup success to the size of founders' salaries. The official Compass blog has posted a graph that shows the correlation between a startup's success and its founders’ wages. We can conclude that companies, where the founders make more than $175k a year, are far from the most successful. Does the stage of the product affect the salaries of its founders? Not really. Founders tend to keep their wages below $45k a year until they get into the rapid growth phase. But even then, the average startup salary -- with a mature product -- of $70,109 is not higher than the average U.S. salary. You could say that startups in Silicon Valley are setting themselves relatively low wages when considering the high cost of living in cities like San Francisco. The most dedicated startupers (worldwide) turned out to be in India. The average salary of a funder in India is $30,208. It should be noted that an Indian developer gets around $10k a year on average, and the average salary of an IT project manager in India is $18660. The average salary of a funder in India is more than an employee in the IT sector usually gets. How does a startup’s funding impact CEO salary? It was estimated that for each $1 million raised in funding, every startup CEO could roughly be increased by $4,000 to $5,000 in annual salary. Some CEOs who didn’t have much capital of their own to run their startups and push up until the first funding rounds tend to reduce their costs to preserve cash significantly. While other startup CEOs who have high annual salaries are most likely running their companies that have recently raised capital or are performing very well with their sales growth revenues. Conclusion All in all, we saw that the primary driving source of income for an aspiring entrepreneur is the amount of investment he is raising during the seed or pre-seed stages. There are some situations where the industry trends allow one to raise more funds, thus increasing the overall annual CEO salary. One thing hiding beneath the CEO salary’s surface is spending your budget for your startup needs correctly. But what if you are entirely new to the whole startup process and you just don’t know your way around? What if you’re lost finding the best possible approach to invest in your business and get the best possible result out there? In that case, JetRuby’s product might be just what you need. Our must-have product is developed for those who want to know every single detail about their product development process and ways to achieve the best possible results out there. This is the Product Development Strategy Session. A free business consultation where our expert team will concretely analyze your project and produce a ballpark estimate on your current digital idea status while adjusting your business and technological flow. Leave your project ideas right now, and we’ll contact you ASAP! ### Why can't you skip the business plan for your startup? Due to various reasons, like attaining sufficient funding and assisting organizational goals, every entrepreneur needs a startup business plan. It is also a must-have in situations where you have to generate a stable revenue channel and make sure that you have a consistent amount of customers coming in. A startup business plan is a straightforward document where every entrepreneur should define and declare the information about his company goals and the methods of accomplishing them. It is one of the core files that any other entrepreneur should initially create. To stress out a startup business plan details and show its significance, our team prepared this article. Where our experts will tell every aspect and every inch of a startup business plan creation. So prepare yourself and get ready for another business adventure. How can a startup business plan benefit you? There are a lot of valuable points that one should know about a startup business plan. Yes, it does help you to set things through your mind and direct your development flow. But it’s just that. It allows an entrepreneur to discover weak and strong points in his business so he can address them before even the launch. Some of the other important and significant tasks of a startup plan are: Identify business opportunities you have yet to encounter. Analyze your product target market. Convince investors, potential customers, and your employees that your idea is worth developing. Understand how exactly your business can profit, prosper and how much funding do you need. Reachability and the means to hit your target market. Thus, by creating a detailed and broad startup business plan, you can easily score all of those points and more, just by putting more effort and research into it. But what are the contents or the steps an entrepreneur should consider when executing a startup business plan? Startup Business Plan Structure Objectives The big and grand business mission of any startup is the objective that an entrepreneur should pursue. The first thing you should clearly define and spread towards your target audience is that your product or service is an achievable reality. And for that, you should make a plan, which should also be a part of your startup business plan. Your objective should clearly state your startup purpose in one single sentence. Here are some substantial questions that could lead you towards the right business mission. What do you want to change with your product? What makes your product different from your competitors? Who will benefit from your startup? What is the business problem you are trying to solve? Target your Market Niche One of the most essential and integral things your startup must do is identify its correct target niche, which means you need to find out who will strictly accept and buy your product or services. To do just that, you have to research your target market. By far, this is counted as the essential part of a startup business plan. Simply put, if there is no exact target audience, your startup is doomed for failure. Or if you also indulge yourself with your business idea for too long, you won’t stand a chance to conduct the necessary research. And for these entrepreneurs, also don’t stand out for too long. To understand where strictly you should focus your efforts on, start with simple assumptions and narrow them down. If your target audience is located primarily in North America, then limit it to the United States. Understand what are your Product Analogs Once you have already got your hands busy with doing in-depth research and analysis towards your potential target market, you better research your competitors too. Perhaps your startup hasn’t been launched yet, and nobody really knows you, so don’t expect every single eye is peering at your copycat. No potential customer will go to your product if they have already gained experience with another company or brand. They just won’t trust your services or products, as your company will be easily recognized as a “duplicator”. So how should you gain enough trust to appeal to your target audience? The answer is competitive analysis! First, stress out your main company rivals. Then, try to understand how your industry competitors are in sync with their target audience, what kind of market gaps they are missing and where your value can rise above them. Plan out your Budget The numbers. The numerous numbers fall upon your budget plan: expenses, costs, prices - all of that have to be considered when you are preparing your startup business plan. Every single dollar has to be counted, not because you should be precise with your calculations, but because you’ll be asking for an investment. At the same time, try to understand how much you need to get your business operating during the first few months. Running out of cash is one of the reasons that startup companies fail abruptly. Take your time to minimize your risk and efficiently use your time. Consider every single factor, including unexpected factors that might not be obvious at first. Every calculation should be accurate since not all things don’t always go according to plan. For example, most of the startups require around $20k to $30k for your product development phase to finish. Further capital expenses highly depend on the type of startups and the business goals you must complete. Project your Finances As we mentioned about budgetary planning, financial projections are also a thing when it comes to forming a startup plan. The main issue is that you won’t have any balance sheets, or any income statements, or any other accounting documents, since you’re not fully launched. But you can still work it out. Based on the statistics of your target market’s total population and the percentage of that market you can penetrate, you can make simple projections. All of them have to cover at least 3 to 5 years of your startup life, and they should be reasonable. You may not have any profits whatsoever until you get the fourth year. However, it is still acceptable to estimate a slow and steady increase each year as long as everything is calculated and divided accordingly. For instance, if an entrepreneur expects to grow his startup in the fifth year of his operations, it has to be reflected in the projections section in your startup business plan. Build up your Portfolio This one is considered to be an exciting side of your startup development. As you are developing your digital product and slowly progressing through it, you will need to create your product portfolio mainly because you need to show your potential customers your core value that you want to provide. Which will demonstrate how exactly your product is different from your competitors. Organize your Startup Structure When speaking and describing an active startup’s outer layer, many entrepreneurs forget about the inbound structure you should organize. Perhaps, if your company is a tiny one, containing 2 or even 3 people at maximum, you may be sufficient. However, what if your startup is aiming towards future growth and scaling? Or what if your target market is vast and you’re just in need of a qualified team that can support your development? In that case, a startup organizational structure is a must-have feature in your early startup business plan. With that, you can distinguish roles and responsibilities for each person in your startup. Plus, no stress over unnecessary and confusing communication matters. However, don’t overcomplicate it. If you do, then your team will get confused instead of you. And you don’t want that to happen since you don’t want to mess things up about the relationships and responsibilities. It is a good chance that you can operate in terms of attracting potential investors. Prepare a Marketing Strategy What’s driving your sales, keeps your customers entertained, and secures a safe spot for your market cake? That’s right, a good marketing plan or even strategy would suffice! Your planning has to be correctly aligned with your allocated budget and the business goals you want to achieve. Of course, there is no concrete or definite roadmap that you could take to gain success. However, if you analyze and make more attempts to succeed, you’ll be on the right path. One thing for sure - stay as cost-effective, versatile and well-balanced as much as you can. Acquiring customers is expensive. You don’t want to dump your entire marketing budget into one strategy. If it doesn’t work, you’ve got nothing to fall back on. You can start your marketing campaign even before your startup will launch. Don’t wait too long, act fast, begin creating a website and social media channels. And don’t dump all budget into one strategy, since if it doesn’t work, then you’ll waste your time and money. Last Advice Define what makes you so Unique A little bit of a precaution, if we would say so, but before you dive into creating your startup business plan, think carefully about what exactly does make your product so unique. Do you want to make a new social network that will disrupt the market and serve as a new online communication channel? Try to differentiate yourself apart from the other, make an outstanding feature that none of the different social media does have. Keep in mind two things that have to be active and combined at the same time. First, you’re not the only one who has had the same idea over the past 20 years or so. Second, you're selling a combination of product, value, and brand identity at the same time. So try to think about how each section would support the other and the intersections of each. Think through these questions and outline them before producing a clean and neat startup business plan. Be Short & Concise Of course, breaking down your startup plan in great detail is an excellent way to start your systematic approach to your product development process. However, try to spend too much time on it, drawing all possible conclusions. Rather be short and concise, include only the most relevant and concise results, and outline what your product will look like that will genuinely help your startup business plan and other essential tasks. If you want the details, just try to remember what you truly need to know and exclude everything loitering your current startup plan structure. It should be relatively easy to read, simple to understand, and flexible to implement. Bonus Some people are telling who contradict the usage of a business plan. And perhaps it might be somewhat accurate to it. However, we have a better opinion than that. You see, the reason why everyone is so against the business plan is that you concentrate too much time on it, losing other significant tasks from your vision, which means that you won’t be able to properly distribute your time and a budget at the same time, to achieve the desired results. However, it’s not like that completely. A typical startup business plan has quite many branches and sections that are significantly relevant for other business tasks. Like the pitching, monetization model, or even market research. To successfully prepare a startup business plan and hit other tasks, you need to understand how to invest money to gain the most effective results. Since without it, you won’t understand how your startup business plan is working, nor you won’t be able to put a fair effort into other tasks. If you have no idea how to accomplish it, we prepared a Product Development Strategy Session service. It is a free business consultation, where we will analyze your project idea, give you a raw estimate on its development process and adjust your business path. Leave a short description of your project, and we can guarantee you that your business journey will be in good hands. Conclusion A launch of any startup is a fascinating and responsible thing. And just as it is exciting to venture deep into the engaging journey with lots of milestones, it is relatively easy to lose track of your time. So to set things straight on your end and sure about your business development path, you certainly need to make a startup business plan. Each startup business plan section has its importance and affects individual branches that are revealed later on. For example, market research is needed to determine whether this is a viable business venture. While a competitors’ analysis will give you an insight where you can narrow down your product development path and how to make it more unique Maybe the process of writing and concluding each part of the startup business plan may be tedious, but rest assured of our expertise that it does impact your business. As JetRuby has launched numerous startup projects live, we are always on the side of concrete planning and avoiding the mistakes that might make your business fail. To guarantee that we prepared the Design and Discovery Phase that will suit your needs and requirements. So, all you need to do is leave a short description of your business product, and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.   ### How much does it cost to develop an app? In July 2020, it was estimated that there are practically over 3 million various mobile applications on the Apple Store. Meanwhile, the Google Store has reached 2,950 hundred available apps. It is evident that the global market is constantly increasing and advancing in different directions and always tries out various new things. Thus, here comes a very genuine question: "How much does it cost to develop a mobile app?" It’s essential to make your app technically well developed, which helps solve your consumers' problems and makes it stand out among the many competitors. To create a quality app, you need to pick a good team of developers. You'll find out what path you should take, how an app is made, and how much does it cost to develop a mobile app in this article. The factors that affect the cost of an app development There are two essential criteria here: the contractor (the price depends on the developer’s location) and the complexity of the application. Naturally, the price also depends on the amount of work that the team needs to do. It directly depends on the number of app screens, controls, device type, screen orientation modes, security, the number of languages supported in the application, and other vital functionalities involved. The more features the customer wants in his app, the more time and money will be required. Although there is a way to spend less time and money, develop a mobile application with only core and essential functions. The typical mobile app development path The general development plan may look like this (although it may vary from one company to another): Idea Creation - First, think about what kind of users and what kind of purpose the app is created for, how the user can enter it, what problems will he encounter? UI Layout - The first half of the design stage begins: the navigation is developed, the layout is made, and the guideline is compiled. With instruction for the developers, all of that is how the design elements should look for different mobile devices. Compression - All of the produced graphics are sliced, not to overload the application in terms of weight, but at the same time to leave everything you need. Core Development - Each of the produced materials is transferred to the development process. Often during this step, new ideas may emerge to make adjustments to the initial plan. Unit Testing - Next comes the testing phase. The QA engineers test the app on different devices and use unique services to evaluate other operating systems. Deployment & Maintenance  - After testing, the app is uploaded to the App Store, and the monitoring phase begins. This is mainly done to track download statistics and feedback. Marketing - Once the app is released, you need to work on user engagement and marketing. Collect all the metrics and analyze user behavior. Using push technology, "studying" customer habits and requests is easier with a customer base segmentation service. Having made the necessary conclusions, improve the application. Before going straight ahead into the development works, make sure that your team will create a prototype of the app. This is very important, as it will help avoid mistakes and milestones and clearly understand what the result will be for you. How do you find the best cost and quality performers for your application? As everyone wants fast and cheap digital products, the most exciting question remains:” How do you accomplish such an app?”. The IT market is now quite full of different options. Each of them has its shortcomings, but there are still some suitable cases for any type of solution that you want to achieve. Freelancers To avoid paying for an office and reduce taxes a bit, you can consider freelance employees. You may hire people cheaper and contact the contractors directly. However, what we said just now is unfortunately too risky. For example, you risk experiencing difficulties in communicating and controlling the work of the freelancer. And the quality of the work is not always guaranteed. Therefore, this approach is not recommended by us since you need to look for a more organized and professional approach. Dedicated team Do you have an idea that is sure to become a long-term project? It makes sense to hire people who will only deal with your business. Specifically, set up a remote office for yourself. For this, you can also turn to one of the companies anywhere in the world. With a dedicated team, the client has direct access to the entire team, not just the project manager. In this case, the executing company undertakes to provide you with all the necessary personnel: developers, designers, testers, managers, etc. It also takes care of organizational and administrative issues (office, equipment, taxation, health insurance, etc.). It's basically like your entire team, which will deal with your project throughout the working day, only remotely. There is a variant when part of the group is on the customer side. Local Devs VS IT Outsource Two other options available for project implementation are either local developers or an IT outsource team. If you know the pros and cons of development very well, you can manage the team, and you can hire local developers for your company. You can do it permanently or for the duration of the project. This way, you will be fully involved in the development process and control the result. Or you can go with the second option and hire a separate company that specializes in software development. In this case, it will take care of all the team building, planning, communication, testing, and partially the business analysis. You, on the other hand, will be responsible for the critical decisions and payment. The latter option will be especially correct if your specialty is far from the development of sites or applications, and the selected company, on the contrary, has a solid experience in it. After all, no matter how tempting it may be to figure it all out yourself, in the end, it only leads to misunderstandings, but not to any gain. If you are one of those entrepreneurs who don’t have enough technical knowledge and experience in creating digital products, JetRuby can significantly help you. Along with our professional and experienced team, we have created a service called Product Development Strategy Session. A must-have step for every startup, as we will dive into your development plan and produce a ballpark estimate on how to correctly create a quality product that will stand a chance to position itself on the market. Schedule a call with us today, and we’ll be discussing your business idea within 24 hours already! How much does it cost to develop a mobile app in different countries? A high price tag doesn’t always indicate good quality of performance. However, in most cases, it does, especially if you can see public proof of successful product launches and production. On average, the level of pay for one hour of work of a programmer with the same qualifications is: U.S. and Australia from $50 to $250 The United Kingdom from $60 to $150 Western Europe from $60 to $150 Eastern Europe from $35 to $100 India from $8 to $30 It takes about two months of work to develop a basic application, i.e., 300 hours. But once again, it is difficult to estimate the cost of mobile app development without specific skills and understanding of the work in the field of programming. It is better to use specialized companies’ services (more specifically, outsource ones). How much does it cost to develop a mobile app with JetRuby? Estimating a mobile app development process’s total price is not easy to tell you the truth. You need to have a good idea of the final result and be technically savvy to estimate labor costs for each function. That is why our experienced team is usually involved in this process and knows what’s best for our clients individually. The estimation takes place in several stages: Product Development Strategy Session - This is the preliminary examination of your entire business project. Even though we produce a rough estimation of your product’s potential, it allows you to know quite accurately the amount of investment needed to create the application before any contracts are signed. That is, you can get it within one day, free of charge. Design and Discovery Phase - This process involves three main parts that will allow you to see your product’s real potential. They are the dynamic prototype, the marketing theory, and the concrete business plan for your mobile app development. Furthermore, we will solve some of the early milestones that might have impacted your development process early. The price for this step varies depending on what goals you want to accomplish. MVP - At this stage, we clearly understand what your product is all about, how it will work and look, etc. The main point of this phase is to develop only the core and unique features that your application should have. This Core Product - Once your product will successfully pass the MVP stage, gain enough customer base, and starts to get more revenue from them, it’s time to add all of the core features that you wanted to add from the beginning. According to our estimates and the previous projects we’ve done previously for most digital products, our general cost would vary from $25,000 to $50,000. However, keep in mind that these numbers are approximate ones and are covering the first three stages. The total cost will highly vary on the requirements you need to follow and the type of app you want to develop. During our projects, there were also cases when in the process of development, there is a reconsideration of the original task, which can affect the final cost. That is, nuances emerge that could not be foreseen before, and decisions are made to remove something from the initial list as unnecessary or to add something to it. Especially when unique and unparalleled applications are created. Conclusion The question of "how much does it cost to develop a mobile app?" for a working project, business, or even a startup is a challenging development process. Nevertheless, to not encounter all the classic difficulties and frustrations of development, it is worth approaching the process as responsibly as possible. At a minimum, at the planning stage and the choice of contractor. In our ten years of extensive experience, the JetRuby team has encountered clients who have already failed several times and were willing to make things real once more. Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, projects need to be saved. In such projects, we always start with concrete planning and detailed descriptions of all tasks that a startup has to accomplish. We start with the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation that will significantly ease developing and deploying an impeccable and profitable application for your business goals. First, we analyze your current project state while suggesting the steps you should take to progress to the next stage. And second, we produce a ballpark estimate for your entire project and all of the approximate expenses a similar app might have. All of that, you can get on our 1-hour free call with our business specialists! Schedule your call today and begin producing valuable results the next day! ### What are the basic startup costs? The critical element of every company is its employees. Every preparation is vital at the outset in every startup. Sometimes, companies depend on a stream of consumers to stay alive and frequently suffer the abysmal results of abdominal startup costs. Startup costs usually occur during the development process of new ideas. Every company has different startup costs. To define what kind of startup costs you need to face and what you should be prepared for, we formed a list of the most common and obvious ones that you should note. Why is it important to estimate the startup costs? One of the most important aspects of your financial strategy is estimating reasonable startup costs. Understanding what it would take to start your company will assist you in the following ways: Secure loans and attract investors Estimate profits Conduct a breakeven analysis Identify potential tax deductions Extend the runway of your business Many people underestimate the startup costs and proceed in a haphazard, unplanned manner. This can work on a short-term basis, but it's typically much more challenging to keep up with in the long run. Customers are suspicious of new companies with improvised logistics, and controlling startup costs is virtually impossible unless they are reliably measured. Since each industry and company has its own set of expenditures, there is no straightforward method for estimating startup costs. But that doesn't mean that everything is lost. You can still break down every potential aspect in your industry that accurately represents your company's needs. It's a blend of market analysis, measuring, and educated guessing, much as designing your marketing plan or predicting your initial sales. It's then up to you to make changes based on the factual findings over time. Now you might be asking yourself, "How do I estimate reasonable startup costs for my business?" Making three easy lists, a few educated guesses, and adding them all together is the solution. 11 Business Startup Costs Even though this is a standard list of company startup costs, your actual startup costs will be dictated by your particular business and industry. Here are some usual ones you should bear in mind. 1. Equipment Almost every company would need to borrow money for equipment. Equipment costs vary from $10,000 to $125,000, according to the size of the business. In general, if you start a moving or shipping business, you would have to provide financing for a vehicle. You would need commercial-grade stoves, utensils, dishes, and utensils in a commercial grade. Styling chairs are necessary if you own a hair salon. Any form of a company uses computers. Naturally, costs vary based on your industry and the size of your market. In addition to that, you'll have to purchase company equipment for your workers, which can be costly. 2. Incorporation Fees When starting a company, one of the first things you should do is select a business organization with tax, legal, and financial consequences. You'll need to file articles of incorporation or articles of organization with your state if you want to incorporate your company or create a limited liability company. Depending on the state, the filing fee may be as low as $50 or as high as $725. In most states, however, the price is less than $300. You'll almost certainly need to apply for federal or state licenses or permits even though you're not incorporating. Depending on your industry and venue, you'll need different types of documentation. Businesses in the agriculture and aviation industries, for example, need federal licensing. Trade-specific licenses may be required in service-based industries. Retailers would almost certainly require sales tax licenses or permits. 3. Office Space If you rent or purchase, the cost of renting or buying an office or retail space would be a significant part of your fixed costs. You could spend anywhere from $100 per month per employee to $1,000 per month per employee, depending on the type of room you're using. You can reduce these costs by working from home at first or looking into coworking spaces, all of which are suitable for small businesses. You can also fly directly to clients if you own a service-based company to reduce overhead costs further. 4. Inventory If you work in retail, wholesale, or distribution, you can secure inventory as soon as possible. Knowing how much to hold in inventory is difficult since one never knows precisely how much one will be required. There is also a risk of spoiling or causing harm to the inventory if you have too much of it. If you don't have enough stock, you risk losing customers who won't wait for out-of-stock products. Particularly for year-round businesses, inventory levels can vary significantly with the seasons. Allocate from 17% and 25% of your budget to inventory. Consider acquiring more stock when you're just getting started. At the very early stages of your main aim is to make as many buyers and produce as much revenue as possible. 5. Marketing Signs, posters, and business cards are examples of physical marketing materials. You may also think of paid ads and more innovative solutions like videos and giveaways, which might necessitate hiring a consultant or a video producer. We recommend allocating and keeping the maximum level of marketing expenses at around 10% of your budget. Or can ultimately reduce it to zero by constantly interacting and collaborating with your audience. The good news is that the majority of your small business marketing can be done for free. Ad costs for small businesses only getting started today are also much smaller than they would have been 20 years ago due to social media and other online marketing techniques. 6. Website You'll want your business website to look professional, be easy to navigate, and show details about your services, products, hours, and contact information when you create it. Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly, for example, make it quick and inexpensive to create a website. These content management systems (CMS) are occasionally free, but premium plans include a monthly or annual subscription: Wix: $13 to $39 per month for a premium plan Squarespace: $12 to $18 per month billed annually, or $26 billed month to month Weebly: $5 to $25 per month Basic website builders are also available for free on Wix and Weebly. It's simple to create a website using one of these services if you're reasonably tech-savvy; no coding experience is needed. However, if you aren't computer savvy, you might want to employ someone to create the website for you—at an additional expense, of course (and it might become a worthwhile investment). 7. Office Furniture and Supplies Computers, office supplies, and office equipment add up into one considerable number. Every employee would need a desk, a chair, a laptop, and a phone in a typical office. This raises the overall costs substantially. Include the break room, limited office equipment, and computer software, such as the accounting system, to increase the total This sums to a different amount, depending on whether the company requires tools to run and the number of workers you must have outfitted. Our early company statistics and our clients’ information estimate the total cost to be about $5,000. Furthermore, you can maintain supplies and furniture at approximately 10% of your total budget. 8. Utilities You'll be responsible for paying the electric, gas, water, internet, and phone bills for your office space in addition to the fixed costs of rent and down payment. According to your lot, the estimated cost of electricity for industrial buildings is $2.10 per square foot. If you want to buy HVAC systems, you'll have to pay extra—usually a couple of thousand dollars, not including installation and maintenance costs. 9. Payroll Even if you're just starting and don't have much money, you must pay your workers. Payroll is made up of the following items: Net pay Bonuses Commissions Overtime pay Paid time off Payroll costs will, of course, differ from one startup to the next. Employees typically cost 1.25x to 1.4x their annual pay. After factoring in various payroll tax costs and benefits, a $40,000 wage employee would cost you about $54,000. If you're a sole proprietor or run a small business with mostly 1099 contractors, a conservative payroll budget could work—and both scenarios are pretty standard for most startups. 10. Insurance You need the same insurance protection level that you get for your health, your house, and your car. There are some different kinds of insurance, including consumer liability insurance, that only goes into action in the event of a lawsuit and restaurant liability that prevents the restaurant from being closed for weeks in a fire. The size of your company, industry, the number of employees, and other risk factors all have a say in what kind of insurance your startup needs. A sole proprietor operating an online business, on the other hand, just has a handful of insurance requirements. Just to give you some background: A small business spends an average of around $1,281 a year on all forms of insurance. No two startup policies are alike, and both need different kinds of insurance. If you haven't already done so, you can consider these three basic types of insurance policies: Health insurance, Life insurance, and  Disability insurance. These policies are important because they vary according to factors such as: General Liability Insurance: $400 to 800 USD per year. Your industry's riskiness will influence the regulation.' Commercial Property Insurance: Approximately $300 to $2,000 to $2,000+ depending on the company’s property and assets’ valuation. Workers Compensation Insurance: The price ranges from around $0.75 to $1.74 $ per $100 of payroll for small to high-risk companies. Errors and Omissions Insurance:  The range is from $2,000 to $5,000 annually, depending on your business size, sector, location, and employee contracts and procedures. 11. Taxes Planning the financial structure is a challenging job because taxes can vary greatly depending on the company you are and how much you have to pay. It depends on your sales (which is difficult to forecast), deductible expenditures, and the type of business entity you have. Corporations pay a flat 21 percent corporate income tax under existing federal law. Company gains and expenses are passed on to the owners' tax returns in pass-through companies. Before paying their business taxes, pass-through companies will subtract 20% of their profits. However, working with a CPA will also save you money and time. A knowledgeable CPA can figure out what you can subtract so that you pay the least amount of tax possible. Conclusion Any journey, particularly a business one, is full of incredible milestones and costs that aren't always obvious at first glance. As previously mentioned, getting a contingency budget in place in case of unforeseen expenses is essential. If everything does not go as planned, it is entirely normal and understandable. You must, however, learn the lesson and put it into practice; otherwise, you can face an even worse fate. However, let’s say you’re entirely new to this, and you suddenly got overwhelmed by the number of startup costs, which you can’t comprehend. More than that, you don’t really and how you can get the most effective result out of spending so much money, then what? We understood this problem early on when we were managing most of our startup clients, and for that reason, we created a Product Development Strategy Session. Your digital product idea will be assessed, and our business experts will adjust your current development flow. All of this while producing a ballpark estimate with your product development process, just so that you can get the most effective results out of your business idea. Leave your project details today, and we’ll contact you within 24 hours. ### Trends of startup development in 2021 Startup advancement is a window to your service, which helps you grow it globally. Now, the startup advancement world is continuously changing, so do the patterns. Often these patterns alter much faster than they can be utilized. It is needed to focus on the latest trends, updates, methods, and approaches that are getting popular to stay ahead. Besides, knowing patterns and keeping in check of what is happening around is vital for web advancement. Here we have collected some trends after analyzing propensities throughout markets in this list of startup advancement trends 2021. We have made this list to conserve your time and help you grow your organization in the upcoming period. So, let's begin. The combination of 5G and Artificial Intelligence brings a new digital health approach  The international mHealth apps market size was valued at USD 40.05 billion in 2020 and is anticipated to grow at a compound yearly growth rate (CAGR) of 17.7% from 2021 to 2028. Mobile health is the practice of using smartphones to preserve and track one's health and wellness. The growing promotion of mHealth applications due to their advantages in improving client way of life and treatment outcomes is the essential aspect driving the marketplace.  Besides, using these applications can help with a much better patient experience and engagement, further increasing their adoption. Thus, the rising adoption and numerous mobile health applications for remote monitoring expand market development. According to Statista, in the third quarter of 2020, there were around 47,140 mHealth apps available on the Apple Store. This number is considerably high compared to the 3rd quarter of 2015, in which there were approximately 28,000 applications offered on the platform.  In recent years, the healthcare industry has been given an additional leap in development thanks to two technologies - 5g and artificial intelligence. The combination of ultra-low latency networks and autonomous search engines accessing billions of medical records immediately can bring us a revolution in healthcare. The AI-based virtual assistants, which come in helpful for people with chronic health problems, provide fast and extensive analysis, as well as a forecast of possible sicknesses, including tuberculosis and breast cancer. There are also considerable opportunities in drug discovery and advancement; with AI and machine learning, the long stages of drug developments can be cut considerably while also allowing tailor-made medications.  Therefore, the digital health market has a massive capacity for future startups, with endless opportunities like virtual assistants, custom-made drugs, remote surgical treatments, and so on.  Integrate it with the current technology advancements of 5G and Artificial Intelligence, and you have a recipe for the next generation of digital health providers.  Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the right tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and call JetRuby today! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different health care start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what's holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we'll contact you in no time! 2021 Is The Year of Voice Recognition Technology Apple users were favorably shocked by Apple's virtual assistant - Siri when formally released in 2011. One of the unique functions was the reality that you might communicate with Siri, browse the web, and complete other tasks simultaneously. These days, voice recognition innovation is being introduced to our businesses, cars, and homes. Are you aware that around 50 million Americans own a smart speaker? Obviously, virtual assistants are no longer a mysterious product but necessary in today's way of life. The voice recognition market size is expected to grow from 12 billion U.S. dollars in 2020 to 27.16 billion U.S. dollars by 2025. The approximated CAGR from 2020 to 2025 total up to 16.8 percent. To succeed in 2021, startup business shouldn't develop their voice recognition software. There are plenty of alternatives out there to establish exclusive algorithms, apps, and other performances using the voice technology space. There are opportunities for voice recognition technology in business services, production, education, health care, farming, and field service. Integrated with Artificial Intelligence, startups can be successful in 2021 by developing voice recognition innovations that fulfill a specific niche’s requirements. There are also considerable opportunities in drug discovery and advancement; with the use of AI and machine learning, the long stages of drug developments can be cut considerably while also allowing for tailor-made medications. Therefore, the digital health market has a massive capacity for future startups, with endless opportunities like virtual assistants, custom-made drugs, remote surgical treatments, and so on. The Use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) Will Evolve Read also: Emerging Trends In Healthcare Startups Of 2021 AI is no longer a concept. In 2021, AI will power a sizable amount of businesses. Nowadays, it's everywhere - in your analytics, marketing tools, customer service platforms, digital ads, and smart devices. The artificial intelligence (AI) software presently is experiencing strong growth, reaching around 126 billion U.S. dollars by 2025. The total AI market consists of various applications such as natural language processing, robotic process automation, and artificial intelligence. Hence, an artificial intelligence market will be shaping and altering our lives over the next ten years and beyond, including the market’s reaction to the challenge of the global pandemic. The majority of citizens who are actively utilizing AI do not have any idea they are using it. That is because to the fact that AI doesn't look like what we once expected. It is running in the background to make procedures more effective, faster, and accurate. An AI can do various things that would usually demand human intelligence, such as pattern recognition and decision-making. Startups that develop AI applications will succeed in 2021 and businesses that bring the study of AI to brand-new heights. E-Commerce dominating new-normal retail Read also: How to develop an e-commerce platform Better testability and lower overhead expenses for sellers while supplying more benefit for buyers? Electronic commerce offers simply that. While the business model has currently stepped foot among the most popular start-up patterns, it will continue to grow and expand in more years.  The global e-commerce market size is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.7% from 2021 to 2027. Increasing penetration of the internet is boosting the smartphone using population throughout the world. Digital content, travel and leisure, e-tailing, to name a few, make up a range of e-commerce options readily available to the internet accessing customer base that is getting momentum with increased web usage. Its prominent growth is no surprise since it's a great deal for both sellers and purchasers. Sellers can operate on a lower-cost basis while leveraging data enabling easy testing of new items. On the other hand, buyers might likewise experience lower prices due to cutting out the mediators while shopping conveniently from home. As such, the sphere of e-commerce holds a lot of capacity for future start-ups. From concentrating on conversion and churn rates to building cost comparing plugins, the possibilities are endless. Marketing becomes a lot more personalized  This trend will continue going as everything revolves around the client. In 2021, we will see more actions that encourage consumers and speak directly to their needs. Digital marketing, for example, has progressed rapidly, that most customers now have high expectations from brand names. They want brand names to understand them, know their requirements, and give them what they want. Clients are trying to find information online before purchasing a product or service. Businesses that provide the appropriate and detailed information stand to benefit. To successfully adapt to these start-up trends, you will have to provide high-value and individualized content every step of the way. Customization is a significant startup trend, particularly in email marketing. Around 80% of marketers use customization in their marketing projects in purchase histories, transactional information, and other data. Customization, however, can go beyond welcoming an email receipt by their name. In 2021, we will see the next phase of customization - hyper-personalization. It includes a thorough analysis of client data to supply the best marketing messaging at the right time. New Opportunities with 5G Networks Everyone is talking about 5G lately. For startups, this technology will supply brand-new opportunities for creating tech options that require the power of 5G. The enhanced internet speed will make it possible for startups to bring their ideas to life. Compared to 4G's maximum speed of 150 megabits per 2nd, devices connected to 5G will be able to move an enormous one to 10 gigabits per second. Hence, 5G can offer uninterrupted access to digital tools, no matter where you are at home, in the workplace, or on the road. According to Statista, by 2024, there will be around 1.9 billion 5G subscriptions worldwide. Numerous startups are working on effective software solutions to improve the healthcare, retail, logistics industries, along with 5G itself. Blockchain technology in 2021 Another technology, interest in which has not faded throughout the years. For the most part, blockchain continues to be utilized in fintech, but other markets are likewise looking for implementing blockchain to fix different service challenges. Blockchain is attractive mostly for its primary homes: transparency, security, and expense effectiveness. The global blockchain market size is expected to grow from USD 3.0 billion in 2020 to USD 39.7 billion by 2025, at an excellent Substance Annual Development Rate (CAGR) of 67.3% during 2020 - 2025. Such industry potential provides tremendous opportunities for new startups.  Many startups are working to develop more successful payment systems, more and more companies are using cryptocurrency. Despite some distrust of this innovation, the number of crypto wallet owners is growing, and startups will not abandon blockchain, discovering brand-new ways to adopt it. We are talking about the use of smart contracts and the development of cloud storage based upon blockchain and the creation of decentralized applications (dApps) that satisfy numerous needs, and so on. Online Education keeps growing  Online education is another apparent competitor among the top startup patterns. The worldwide pandemic required many students - ranging from grade school to post-graduate universities - to move to online platforms. The worldwide online education market is projected to witness a CAGR of 9% during the forecast period to reach an overall market size of US$ 319.167 billion in 2025, increasing from US$ 187.877 billion in 2012. Increasing penetration of the internet across the globe is a significant element driving market growth. The growing adoption of cloud-based options paired with substantial investments by major market players towards improving the security and reliability of cloud-based education platforms increases its adoption amongst the end-users. Many services and content suppliers in the market are bringing substantial volumes of educational content online. Declining hosting prices and the growing requirement for accessing academic material are additionally sustaining the adoption of this technology, therefore enhancing the market development. Improvements in artificial intelligence and the fast development of the Web of Things (IoT) will continue to improve the user experience on these online education platforms, which is anticipated to spur market growth throughout the projection duration. Due to the above, startups have a market full of potential. Enormous open online courses, or MOOCs, are currently experiencing a rise in their userbase. Platforms, such as Udemy and Coursera, provide top-level online courses at gift rates. Apps using interactive learning experiences, let it remain in coding, languages, reading understanding, or meditation remain in abundance on the marketplace. The list is only growing, developing intense competitors for traditional curricula. Last but not least, traditional college institutions are likewise striving to offer void-filling options to in-person knowing. While it is an undeniable obstacle, this means that in the long-lasting, universities will be a great deal more accessible for individuals from all around the world. Entrepreneurs are also excited to use solutions for the new reality. More and more educational startups launch custom-made virtual learning environments and subscription-based textbook sharing services. These are excellent examples of how start-ups can leverage ingenious solutions in the out-of-date schooling system. All in all, the education system will definitely stay true to its in-person format for the foreseeable future, yet numerous interactive and ingenious aspects will be incorporated into standard curricula. Conclusion Despite the economic uncertainty, the start-up market continues to establish, although its players have changed. The role of tech startups has risen within the context of a lockdown as one of the main ways to optimize various industries in a crisis. During this time, technologies such as AI, ML, blockchain, 5G have received accelerated growth, and quickly we can expect the introduction of new remarkable startups that will change our lives. The market disturbance usually is terrific news for startups: when the status quo is challenged, the barriers to getting into the marketplace become lower. In the present circumstance, startups are not just forced to go through a rapid digital transformation, however, they also have the ideal market conditions for developing disruptive services. However, breakthrough solutions creation is impossible without a thorough study of your product development strategy. This is why we here at Jetruby created a startup development methodology that allows you to launch a startup with minimal time and cost losses. Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Strategy Session. And we'll contact you in no time!   ### How to Start an Online Business That Actually Grows in 2021 Find a niche Before you start selling, you need to find the best product with the capacity for significant earnings. To find a perfect niche, you need to examine your own life to discover business issues that can be solved. If you won't find the best specific niche or concentrate on serving people who are willing to pay you, the chances are that you will undoubtedly fail. But this doesn't mean you need to figure everything out right now. Finding your perfect niche is not about perfection - it's about continuous improvement. If you have a vague concept of what you want to do, but you're not sure, the very best point you can do is go ahead and see what happens. If you can not figure it out, you just need to act. Otherwise, you'll be stuck for a long time. There are three main steps to define the perfect business niche.  Step 1: Passion Yes, some people have businesses in markets they aren't enthusiastic about but are they happy? They might be making a lot of money, but cash alone will not satisfy you in life. It is when you are passionate regarding something that you excel. You have the drive to get more information because you like it. Action step: Consider what you're passionate about. Brainstorm a list of possible ideas. Don't censor yourself, and also don't worry about whether it's profitable or not. Step 2: Skill The next area is a skill. What are you good at? Or, what do you wish to end up being good at? People tend to pay for skill; they pay for a well-done job. This doesn't mean you have to be an all-knowing specialist -  you just need to have skills required by the people you're helping. Action step: Document a list of things you're proficient at or want to become good at. Again, let it flow, and you'll be surprised at what comes out. Step 3: Demand Demand is what makes it all work. What are people ready to pay for? What currently exists out there? Look at books, courses, workshops, retreats, and other areas where people are spending money. Also, look at effective coaches: What problems are they resolving? How are they assisting individuals? How much are they charging? Action step: Do some research study. Usage Amazon, Google, and merely plain surfing around, to see what people are paying for. Then look at what you have jotted down in steps 1 and 2. Search for the intersection. Conduct market research What is market research? The market feasibility research study is the info that will assist you in evaluating the overall appeal: customer interest and demand for the product and services you're proposing. The market evaluation is a reality check for entrepreneurs and can help you refine your service or product concept to ensure it is appealing to your Futura customers.  Market research helps you to define: What is the demand for the service or product? What are the clients' needs and cost expectations? What kind of competitors will this item face? What are the pros and cons of the competitor’s service from the consumers' viewpoint? How will you keep clients returning to your product? How to conduct a market research Industry analysis  The top-level overview of the market in which your online product will compete is called the industry analysis. A promising sign that your concept will be a winner is if the market is in a growth phase. Example: The artificial intelligence or digital healthcare markets are young and growing, and there are opportunities for brand-new businesses to enter the marketplace. While other needs, such as web development, are stagnated and full of competitors.  The variety of market players is also a great indication to take a look at. If there are many businesses in the market, the competition will likely be high and center around the rate. To discover if a market is attractive and in a development phase, business owners will need to conduct primary and secondary research studies. The preliminary research study is initial info collected by you through interviews, focus groups, observation, and surveys. The secondary research study is collected from business reports, market research reports, trade journal articles, and other available information online. After performing both primary and secondary research, you should understand the market, who currently occupies it, know key trends and actual dollar figures indicating the total market size. Get insights directly from the industry’s top experts Competition Analysis  Primary research for competitors analysis typically includes talking directly to your competitors to learn their service or product expenses and their product features. Collect opinions of the customers about what they like about the competition and if there are deficiencies. The secondary research comes from public company reports readily available on their websites, market reports, or paper stories. Building a competitive map will offer you a better understanding of the field, the competition's strengths and weak points, and identify opportunities those weak points develop for you. As an experienced digital agency, we tend to help business owners to form a concrete future business vision and reveal their product's value. Our team can construct your brand name image and focus on the development procedure of your future creation. Our digital agency strongly thinks that you can conquer your fear of failure by constant preparation and covert turning point forecast. All of that you can experience and get throughout our tech advancement circulation that begins with the Product Development Strategy Session. Leave your concept in the query above, and we'll be on our way to implement your product into reality! Analyze your target market What Is A Target Market? A target market describes a group of potential customers to whom a company wants to offer its products and services. No business serves everyone. When your particular client groups are clear, it is getting much more comfortable to develop an effective and precise business plan. A target audience is a specific group of possible customers who share similar qualities such as demographics, psychographics, income, location, and more. Understanding your target audience is essential - and not only because of its associated benefits. Companies who can't understand their target audience waste cash on ineffective marketing strategies and have problems attracting new consumers. There are five things you genuinely want to understand regarding your target market: Who Your Customer Is: How old are they? Where do they live? What do they do for a living? Are they married? Do they have children? What is their education level? Are they homeowners? What Your Customer Needs: What are their interests? What do they value? Do you know what they like and dislike? What challenges do they face? What struggles do they have? When They Are Likely To Buy: When do they seek a solution to their challenge? Do they purchase in a particular season? When is the best time to approach them with your offer? Where They Can Be Reached: Where do they find out about new products? Where do they search for solutions? What places do they turn for advice and insight into their particular challenge? Why They Will Buy From You: Why aren’t their problems being solved currently? Why haven’t competitors been able to provide a solution? Is there a specific reason why they will choose you? Why would they pay you, specifically, for your product or service? Perform Primary Research How to Perform a Target Market Analysis The key to comprehending your market is to carry out an extensive target audience analysis. A proper market evaluation consists of segmenting the market into niche customer groups and comprehending each group's requirements and desires. The very best type of research you can collect for your analysis is the main research study. This includes information that you gather by yourself by engaging with real consumers within your target audience. Speaking with genuine clients means leaving Google and finding where your customers are. Then, talking with them and discovering their true desires. Here are a number of ways you can carry out helpful primary research to enhance your market analysis: Forums: Online online forums and social network groups are a great method to discover pre-established neighborhoods of people with comparable interests or qualities. On these platforms, people within the marketplace typically assemble to go over the challenges they deal with. Meetups: People also form groups offline through meetups. For example, a business providing an item to web designers can easily discover a group of developers in any considerable city since designer meet-ups are very typical. These occasions are significant for networking, meeting prospective customers, and creating first-hand client feedback. Studies & Interviews: As soon as you have actually located consumers from your target market, gather the information you require through studies and interviews. Inquire about their problems, how they resolve their issues, and how you could help them fix their scenario much better. In-person interviews are typically the very best method to get real-time feedback from potential consumers. Market Tests: An effective method to learn about your market is to carry out market tests. Usage landing pages to display your option and use advertisements to send targeted traffic to the page. Test to see how these prospective clients respond. You can even develop a pre-registration type for the page to check how many of these individuals convert from visitor to interested purchaser. Tracking these market test metrics is an exceptional way to show your principle and raise preliminary app funding. Take advantage of top specialists extensive experience As much as any entrepreneur has a passion for developing a truly unique product, we understand that it takes time and knowledge to master or grasp all business aspects at once. It can be hard to be handling it all by yourself, especially when you are entirely new to this. JetRuby's product is developed precisely for those seeking a fast and correct approach to implementing their project. As you’ll be involved in multitasking operations, you’ll get to know everything you need for your business to launch successfully. So go ahead and check out the Design and Discovery Phase, which was created specifically for you! ### 10 key steps to get your startup off the ground in business Once you've come with a good business idea, it is time to start building and planning the launch to get your startup off the ground. We've come with 10 actionable steps to create some buzz around your business. Deciding to start your venture is a big step forward. Many entrepreneurs hesitate to take that step because both starting and running a business is a challenging endeavor. Being an entrepreneur these days is challenging, and ensuring your business success is even more challenging. The fact of the matter is that the market is quite crowded and highly competitive nowadays. The harsh reality is that 71% of businesses fail within ten years. However, just because there are various obstacles and challenges in the entrepreneurship world, it doesn't mean your startup is bound to fail. The important thing is to avoid making mistakes that have the potential to ruin your business entirely. There are ways to ensure a successful business launch for your startup, but you must ensure it remains afloat after the launch as well. With that in mind, here are a few ways to take your startup off the ground. Make your product concept  Long before you begin working on the actual item, you need an item principle. This is the story you would inform a potential customer about what the item will be someday. You need to offer as much information as possible, without really having the thing. Your product idea is critical. It's what you'll share and fine-tune a million times before you start investing real cycles building the simple thing. Functionally, it can be anything from a paragraph text description to idea sketches to a PowerPoint presentation. What's important is that it paints a picture that potential clients can react to. Numerous business owners disregard this action only to end up in severe problems with their organization. For example, multiple startup services stop working due to a lack of market knowledge. That can quickly be avoided by simple yet extensive market research. It'd be a genuine shame to invest time and money into a service that will undoubtedly fail since there's no need for your product and services. The more research you carry out, the more tactical decisions you'll make, and strategic decision-making can help your startup off the ground. To avoid all those problems, it is necessary to work out your business’s conceptual component in detail. This requires an accurate estimation of the business goals and requirements, prototype development, setting up clear deadlines, and implementation steps. For this purpose, Design and Discovery Phase has been developed. It is a JetRuby’s program that can guarantee that your business failure risks will decrease by almost 80%. After it, you will have confidence in your business concept and obtain more factual data for your project. Attract your first beta-users  Beta users are your very first consumers. They're people who are willing to attempt your things out when anyone else wouldn't even consider it. They are your early adopters. You don't have to wait till you have an item to get beta users. You can begin by recognizing those who would be the most likely customer (not merely your roommate who happens to be sitting beside you on the sofa). You can start with your item principle and eventually transition to your actual item later on. What is very important now is that you determine these users and keep gaining from them as you improve the item. It does not have to be a vast group: it could be 5 to 10 people. However, you have to keep providing your idea to them till it clicks. Learn more on How to Attract your first beta-users to your startup  Study your rivals  Researching your service concept is essential. However, if you're going to drive your service towards success, you need to figure out against whom you're fighting. That's why performing a competitive analysis is of the utmost significance. This analysis isn't solely suggested for you to spy a bit on your main competitors however also to provide you an insight into the very best ways to lift your startup off the ground. It's vital to remember that you're not supposed to copy your competition's strategies, but instead, learn from them and determine ways you can improve your methods. For instance, choosing your rivals' strengths and weak points will help you understand how to compete in the first place. Although a competitor might be better-funded or well-developed, there's always a space you can exploit. That's why you have to look at how they connect with customers, the level of customer service and support they supply, the marketing methods they utilize, and so on. The critical takeaway is to learn from their mistakes and prevent attempting to outrun them at their most significant points, of course, unless you're specific that you can do so. Build a product platform  As you may currently know, a service without a site in today's digital age is a disaster waiting to occur. Without a website, it resembles your service doesn't exist at all. Even if your startup is in the earliest phases of development, you'll still need a site to begin with, if nothing else, then to offer customers essential information about your business. Bear in mind that your website will develop and grow further along with your company. That's why it is imperative to design it right from the start. As an example, have your customers' benefit in mind when creating a site. The majority of consumers have typical expectations that include quickly packing pages, a smooth experience, mobile-friendliness, responsiveness, security, and so on. With that in mind, make sure your site is highly functional from the minute you start developing it. As for the design itself, you'll add functions, such as visuals, material, additional pages, etc., as you go. Still, ensure that everything you add remains per your target audience's choices. This might not be a planned investment from the start, but the faster you establish a site, the easier it will be to grow your organization later. Always have a plan You can't get your startup off the ground if you don't know where you're shooting at. A dependable company strategy can assist you in attaining that. Put simply, a company strategy details your company's activities for the next three to 5 years. For example, a business strategy consists of business objectives, techniques for reaching those objectives, financial projections, marketing techniques, growth chances, etc. It also helps you decide how to promote your business (whether product or service), employ employees, and when is the best time to do so. According to Foundr, in addition to merely having an organization strategy, you ought to prepare for its monetization - otherwise, it's challenging to grow the earnings from your service. In other words, preparing helps you obtain from where you are now to where you wish to be with your organization. Without a business plan, you're aiming carelessly and improvising at best, which implies you're more likely to slip up that can cost you more than you've bargained for. Get a team in place Establishing a startup business and trying to raise it off the ground is hugely challenging. What's more, it is essential to understand that you can not achieve all of that independently. Indeed, startup owners can not pay to lease a workplace or employ full-time employees. However, sooner or later, you'll require some support from others. That being stated, think about employing the right people for the job. You do not need to generate everyone right from the start. Instead, start small and work with just a couple of individuals you need. If you can not afford to pay a full-time wage, think about working with freelancers or part-time staff members. In time, your team will grow along with your startup business. Needless to say, you'll have a lot of trouble attempting to grow your organization without the right people at your side to assist you to do so. Still, if you do, in reality, choose to employ a full-time group, make sure you have a retention method in place. After all, you desire your workers to help your company grow and avoid costly turnovers that will unquestionably prevent your startup's growth. Likewise, think about working with some interns if you are simply starting. This will help you reduce costs a lot and confirm the concept effectively by receiving aid on different tasks. Starting and running a business is an uphill struggle. Business owners must invest a great deal of time, effort, resources, and commitment into their business, have a chance of succeeding in the market. Nevertheless, just because something is challenging doesn't indicate it's complicated. The key is in notifying yourself and enabling yourself to believe outside the package. Avoid freelancers  You might want to hold your arguments pull back for a couple of minutes right now. We understand that freelancers also have stand-in task executions. And in many cases, freelancers can give you a small increase in the production of your item. However, it is not always the best method to let freelancers do all of the startup work. Even when it pertains to our internal company business matters, we do not utilize or suggest using freelancing support. It may sound like an excellent concept to have an independent worker for some specific job. However, most of our clients who involved freelancers’ eventually got disappointed since freelancers either could not support their work process or even abandoned a project. Thus, if you decide to stroll on the freelancer's path, you will have to put up a lot of work. For the most part, the primary person in charge of an app will be responsible for preparing its architecture. He also needs to have experience with handling the freelance group while designating the required resources. You are considering that it's pretty much impossible to do it as a single guy army. This means they all need to choose the appropriate technology stack and put up some core company foundation logic for your job. For more details on this subject, you can check out our article here. Make your ultimate pitching technique  Your startup pitch is everything, and knowing how to pitch a startup is vital to your success. It doesn't matter how ingenious, well-thought-out, or possibly lucrative your item concept is-- if you can't draw in financiers to your startup, your company will deal with serious difficulty scaling up and achieving wide-spread success. Naturally, raising capital provides a distinct set of obstacles that many startups struggle with. Your prospective investors aren't going just to take your word that your company will thrive; you require to demonstrate to them that investing in your startup is most likely to supply them with an excellent return on their investment. Focus on your brand attributes  Branding permits you to introduce your company. It will enable you to express who you are and what you mean. It is ideal for building up a character that your potential clients, financiers, and investors can connect to and get behind. Permitting your business to establish its distinct, personal identity, branding aids in setting yourself apart from all the competitors out there. A big part of identifying yourself from the competition is creating a brand name logo design that mirrors your business - in objective and performance. To get the most business, your business needs to stick out before customers, rivals, and investors. It is just when you are recognized as your relied-on firm that you will get showered with the countless opportunities that the business world needs to offer. The best method to develop this recognized name is by highlighting your branding methods. Pick your startup mentor Mentorship is a touchy subject. Initially, you should figure out if having a mentor is right for you as a founder. If so, discovering the best coach can make a big difference. Even with the combined expertise of you and your co-founder, a coach can offer deep market insight and wisdom to help you browse some of the difficulties that come your way. Conclusion Launching a startup business is a challenge. At first, you need to figure out if your idea deserves to be developed into a business. Having a proper guideline to follow will assist in streamlining the process for you. Start by creating a thorough business strategy. Your company strategy will help you with the staying actions required to launch your startup. You'll also raise money. Without proper financial planning, your startup does not stand a chance. Surround yourself with the right people. Discover individuals to help you in spaces that are not your most significant areas of know-how. Even if your startup hasn't released yet, it's never too early to start marketing. These steps will help you construct a consumer base. Launching your startup business won’t go smoothly, and you need to prepare for unforeseen circumstances. Proper planning and execution will allow you to restrict these obstacles. We here in Jetruby have developed a unique technology for launching and promoting your startup. Contact us, and we will free help you to build your future development plan. ### Guide 101: How to make a restaurant app? During extensive research on the food industry, it was found out that a restaurant's profits can significantly increase by 10% to 20% by using mobile applications. Honestly, a fascinating discovery, to say the least, and another excellent reason to understand how to make restaurant apps. And no wonder that many entrepreneurs took an opportunity and started actively developing so many mobile apps, including restaurant ones. Since the current global situation doesn’t allow restaurants to be fully opened, a mobile app will solve this scenario. Plus, it is a useful tool to attract new customers to your brand-new business. Thus, the JetRuby team took this chance to shine some light on the topic of making a restaurant app and prepared this article. Here we will cover basic instructions on the app’s development process, reveal the truth of restaurant app costs, and share some insights on maintaining our development flow. So, get yourself ready, as we’re about to begin an adventure of your future restaurant app. Essentials services for your online Restaurant App Let’s first define some of the essential points and aspects that every startup or company founder should note. Not because every developer or creator should know these specific tips, but because they are considered a trend that every restaurant app should have. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the most notable essentials. Interactive menu Guess this point doesn’t only apply to restaurant apps but any other app out there. However, to create a simple restaurant app, this point is essential. Your menu should be attractive, simple, and interactive, making the user try out most of the dishes in your restaurant. Fill in the correct information about the meals, ingredients, and size portions. Also, don’t forget to add good quality images. They are also a must-have. Home Delivery A home delivery option is a perfect feature that mostly all of the restaurant’s apps should have. Just remember about the current pandemic, and you'll understand why you need it. Ensure that your users can see and track the current status or even location of their food order. Pre-order Option Time is a valuable resource, and the possibility of making pre-order will help users not waste it in vain. So it’s a “must-have” option, especially if you’re going to build an app for your restaurant where visitors, as you know, should usually wait to make the order (and they wait in line). Table Reservation Don't forget about including table reservation features. It will be an excellent addition to your overall restaurant app user experience. Furthermore, your customers will truly appreciate such a simple yet efficient function. Everything to make their life easier. Order through the app Like any other food app, one of the essential things while making a restaurant app is to make orders online. With the help of an app, you can easily save your time and money on your waiters. Who will serve the tables instead of waiting for people to come? Restaurants nearby To attract the maximum number of people, you probably would want to develop a feature like that to allow your restaurant app to find places to dine in their location. And of course, you can add some additional information about your restaurant, like available dishes, your menu, promotions, locations, events, etc. Online payments Any mobile app, including the restaurant one, should have an online payment type. It can work for both the pre-ordered food and during your table reservation process. It can significantly reduce your clients’ time to spend if they were to come physically to your store and do the same thing. Also, they can’t do it due to the global pandemic state. As they make an online order and pay for it, the customers will only need to come by and collect their food or simply dine at an isolated table. Loyalty programs Award your constant customers with something special and unique. Something that they truly deserve for the loyalty of using your app. Like giveaways, coupons, discounts, bonuses, or any special deals exclusive for them. And since they always have a mobile phone right under their hand, they can efficiently utilize your offers at any given time. How to make a restaurant app? How to make a restaurant app? The process of making a restaurant app is not an easy one. Yes, it may require additional time to develop it, more discussions to understand the development path, or even several marketing campaigns to attract the right users. However, just as it is composed of different stages, you also need to prepare before the main development process kicks in. Below, we illustrated a simple routine of how a restaurant app’s development process is being created at JetRuby. 1. Market Research Market research should be your first step in the restaurant app development process. It is essential to understand your future application’s target audience, what problems your potential customers currently encounter, and how you can create a restaurant app that will address all of these struggles. 2. Business Model You should fully understand the benefits that you expect to get from restaurant mobile app development. It is critical to remember that not all app ideas can turn into applications that bring in money. Think about the main KPIs, set business goals, and search for the best ways to receive the necessary results. More about that and other core essentials that you might have overlooked, you can find in our Design and Discovery Phase. Exactly there, we execute an in-depth and thorough analysis of your business while constructing a correct development roadmap of your product. 3. Find a right technical partner The process of finding the right technology partner is not an easy task. However, I don’t think that this task is an impossible one. Just try to focus your attention on the references, reviews, and technical expertise for your chosen company. And always try to weigh your options and choose the one that fits your company the most. 4. List down your key and priority functions Make a list of all the functions that you need for your product implementation. Plan your restaurant app development carefully and think about the features that you want to develop first. If you choose the right IT outsource company, the relevant experts can help you produce a product backlog and list all the features implemented during the restaurant app development process. For that, we can also help you during the Design and Discovery Phase. 5. Design and Backend Development As you approach the core stage of the "how to make a restaurant app" guide, it is time to track back your business plan. Think about the goals you want to accomplish. Think about the problem that you are going to solve for your target market. Try imagining how your restaurant app can do that while providing an excellent user-friendly experience and showing an attractive design. Both the design and development parts are on the sides of the same medal. They are the core foundation that any product needs to have to reach sustainable success. Some of the main stages during the creation of a restaurant app include: User experience design - the creation of sketches and UX wireframes. All of that makes up a system skeleton with user-friendly navigation and a basic layout. Visual design - design of the mood board and UI mockups to apply an appealing color scheme to the app. Branding - both visual and information attributes that define your company identity. Tech Stack - the core Backend functionality where the app is going to be operating. App infrastructure - how your app is going to interact within its functionalities. During the core mobile app development, aka the MVP, every person must know his role. All of your actions should be followed as you have prescribed them in your business plan. However, let's say you have suddenly stepped aside from your main development path, what would happen next? Well, perhaps you might make it out somehow, but only to find out later that your product does not have a clear market fit. To solve this problem, JetRuby has prepared a free service called Product Development Strategy Session, where our experts will estimate and guide you to the correct development path. Leave your project description, and we'll get back to you soon! 6. Test & Launch the App After you have produced the first version of your mobile app, it is time to test the functional, performance, security, and device testing. Because by the time you make a restaurant app either by yourself or with professional experts’ help. Just remember that you will want to publish your app by the time all of these functionalities should be ready to be developed. 7. Marketing campaigns Once you have already tested out and published your product's first version, it is time to deploy a marketing campaign. The main goal is to try whether you can get enough attention from the identified target market. By making that, you’ll gain enough brand awareness and secure a stable place as an entrepreneur for a potential investment round. But only if the product will indeed be recognized and the monetization system will already bring some concrete results. 8. User Feedback Collecting your users’ feedback is one of the first things you should do before you go any further. Since exactly they will show how your product should be developed, what they like and what they don’t, and which features are the most valuable one. This process should be continuous, so pay close attention to feedback after the initial release. 9. Further App Support As any app’s development process is a long and continuous one, it doesn’t stop the deployment. Instead, you are the one who will push further development, advertisement and make your brand develop more awareness. Check out the users’ feedback, improve your app features, debug your current app architecture and add more functions to it. Considering the difficulty and uncertainty of the development steps on how to make a restaurant app, it is true that some entrepreneurs are having trouble with it. But it’s not a shame to admit it. The first step towards a successful business path is to accept that you are having trouble with understanding the correct development step or the app cost that you are going to implement. Whether you found yourself between these two flames, JetRuby has produced the first step towards your product technological development, and that is the Product Development Strategy Session. Exactly where we will pass through your project, analyze its value, discover the correct development path and make a ballpark estimate on its cost! Leave your project information, and we’ll contact your startup in no time! How much does the restaurant app cost? Restaurant App Costs To tell you the truth, there is no concrete price or cost for a restaurant app. It all depends on your requirements and the business goals you want to accomplish. However, as a digital agency such as ourselves, we have experience making restaurant apps (like the example below). We compared the prices of all the projects we were developing and compared other companies’ prices. On average, for a standard restaurant mobile application with a set of minimum features, the price is estimated at $11,000. The full completion of a restaurant app with all the functions and services included, the total cost varies from $30,000 - $70,000. Further complex requirements that your restaurant app should have may go higher. On the other hand, if you want to distribute your budget and allocate your resources correctly, then you’re up for an MVP Development time! This product version contains only the key and the most valuable features that your restaurant app should have. Then, after 2 to 3 months of testing, you should be able to see whether your target audience will like it or not. Depending on the outcome, you can either continue the development work or switch to creating another unique idea. The average cost of developing an MVP varies somewhere around $20,000 - $25,000, depending on the company you have contracted with. For JetRuby, we estimate an MVP development process in the range of $18,000 - $20,000. Not only is it significantly cheaper than most of the companies offer, but we do provide both technical and business development for your company, which means that we will guide you through your product technology development and educate you on how to manage your business model properly. If you want to try out our expertise, you can quickly sign up for our Product Development Strategy Session to make a short overview of your product potential. Absolutely for free! JetRuby Log: Saffron Cooks Saffron Cooks Main Website Just as we told you before, we do have extensive experience in creating and developing restaurant apps. One of such successful examples is Saffron Cooks. This was a young Swedish startup that made the idea of having excluding restaurant meals delivered right to your home. So it’s kind of a hybrid between a restaurant and a mobile delivery app. After analyzing all of the product’s business data, we built all of the core requirements needed to be completed for the correct product development process. To lay a definitive path towards successful product development, we decided to propose the desired solution through the Design and Discovery Phase. We showed and explained the value of each deliverable that it had, which are: the product vision document, the marketing campaign, and the complete product branding. As a result, we built a product worth showing other startups and competed with other restaurants across Stockholm. In the end, the startup gained substantial public attention from the entire Stockholm. It began rapidly developing and creating other food branches on the restaurant app. Right now, they are up to new heights, making successful business ideas from the experience they gain after developing Saffron Cooks. For a more detailed success story, you can check it in this article. Conclusion All in all, the process of creating restaurant apps is truly a unique one. It does involve various business processes and development branches that differ this type of app from the others. But it doesn’t only affect this factor. This also significantly impacts your deadlines, the estimated expenses, and your business revenue model. Keep in mind all of the takeaways we provided in this article are must-have options that you should have in your fully developed restaurant app. So in the early stages, try to identify or understand what makes your product unique apart from your competitors. And be always confident in the development process of creating your restaurant app. It doesn’t matter whether you will win or lose at the end (which, by the way, does matter). What’s important is the experience that you’ll gain as an entrepreneur. As an experienced and professional development team, JetRuby understands how to develop a restaurant app and what it should have. During our first meeting, the Product Development Strategy Session, we will prioritize and highlight only the most essential and vital functionalities needed to attract your first customer leads. That’s the reason why our highlighted prices are pretty much based on the marketing and business aspects. That is to grow and extend the realistic approaches to gain more customers for your developing app. So, leave your project description, and we will estimate your project business plan while giving the correct development directions! ### Saffron Cooks: Success Story of a Food Delivery App The vast majority of our clients are coming and originating directly from the USA (where basically every success story starts). This time, however, we received an inquiry from a Sweden startup entrepreneur around. The two founders of “Saffron Cooks” told us that they founded their startup in Stockholm and were actively backed up by Silicon Valley and 500 Startups. They wanted an app for an exclusive food delivery service. Whose main competitive advantages were a restaurant-like experience and a vast number of delicious meals. Interesting, to say the least. The idea of creating a food delivery app with a restaurant experience at your home came after a long and exhausting working day. As he came home lingering with hunger, he understood that cooking isn’t always a thing after all of your energy was consumed during the workday. Fast food wasn’t an option either as it won’t fill him up. That’s where he imagined a buffet café and how he would love to have it right in his room. And here we are! Not long after that, he cooperated with his friend. Together they launched an idea of a premium food delivery service with a restaurant-like dining experience. Initially, we briefed the client regarding the requirements and technical tasks of his project. However, after analyzing his business vision and the input data he provided, we discussed the possibility of assistance for both technical and business product aspects. This lifebuoy for their product was the Design and Discovery Phase, which later on showed how we made this project a success story. Saffron Cooks Challenges Saffron Cooks Main Website One of the core issues that the founder’s team has encountered is a long customer journey before the payment screen. Even though the customer is presented with a massive Swedish buffet, each of them can’t easily make quick orders, as it should be. Additionally, a customer has to wait for the food to be cooked, so that’s an extra layer of waiting time and complexity. During the initial briefing with a client, he shared the project’s current state and what kind of “challenges” it had. First, previously the responsibility of a software implementation was on a freelance contractor. While he was handling the development process, he left more than half of the features unfinished and unpolished. Second, after a quick code review, our CTO has explained that the core backend infrastructure was utterly messy. Thus, our development team had to redo the entire infrastructure and make sure that everything will work smoothly. And thirdly, due to the current status of the backend part, some very significant security issues were identified during a quick code review. Meaning, that we had to properly secure the platform and exclude any possibility of open security vulnerabilities. To attract and gain a stable income, “Saffron Cooks” lacked steady and constant traffic of clients. Meaning that, even though the platform provided a range of restaurant meals, the customer’s retention was really low. Thus, they needed an in-depth analysis of their business model and practical solutions for their marketing campaign. And so, we started a thorough implementation, which subsequently led this startup project to a success story. Technical & Business Implementations Saffron Cooks - Illustrations After we analyzed and reviewed all the product’s business information, we build the requirements required for the correct product development process. In fact, to lay a definitive path towards successful product development, we decided to propose the desired solution through the Design and Discovery Phase. We explained the value of each deliverable, which are: the product vision document, the marketing campaign, and the complete product branding. All of that and even more, could potentially benefit the future product development process and attract potential customers. After a series of interviews with the founders, we created a business model that gave us a fundamental answer. During the break time (which in Sweden is from 11:30 a.m. till 1:30 p.m.), the marketing ads should advertise a new platform with a discount voucher! Exactly this move allowed us to gather the first round of brand-new clients? We took the responsibility to finish the job ourselves and take on the unfinished product by the previous contractor. Our development team has wholly refactored the code and spread the relevant unit tests within the given infrastructure. Meanwhile, we looked up near the backend part and noticed various bullet holes in the security section. Thus, we closed all the vulnerable code parts, leading to SQL Injections, Data Breach, and even Identity Theft. To top it off, we restructured the frontend design, and now it runs on React, which allows faster loading time. To solve the problem with the long ordering process, we decided to create a one-page solution. Instead of the tedious ordering process, now you can do it within just a few clicks. All with the help of integrated Braintree’s API into the website. Plus, all the debit/credit cards are saving automatically, making this process even faster! Another excellent solution for gaining more traffic that our team and startup founders have created is a loyalty program. This enables purchasing “gift cards” and sharing them with those who haven’t yet registered on the platform. Now, whoever will receive the card can spend quite a considerable discount on any meal available. This feature was also integrated to send out the email and SMS notifications to the unregistered users. In addition to the loyalty program, our client found a way to cook snack meals much faster. Thus, we decided to create a “delivery on-demand” program. Due to the high volume of quick meal inquiries, we created and launched marketing ads & banners across Stockholm promoting various quick meals with discounts. So, now it takes just 45 minutes for food order delivery to arrive! Success Story Results Saffron Cooks - Main Screen After we have implemented the core features, the client began actively advertising his product all across Stockholm. Once the first product iteration successfully finished, within just a month, the user base gained 5,000 new clients, which is around 35% of growth. The time for ordering has shortened twice, while the number of people who abandoned cart cases decreased by 40%. Saffron Cooks is another success story that became a well-known service in Sweden with thousands of happy clients across the country. It led our client to create other unique projects, while Saffron Cooks became a very user-friendly digital product. To this day, it offers a wide range of products that makes a simple food delivery right to your door. “JetRuby is an agency that I can genuinely recommend. JetRuby and I have worked closely together to develop the backend of my startup. Knowledgeable, hard-working, supportive, and honest are all words that come to mind when I think of the developers whom I've collaborated with daily.” - Justin Drees, Co-Founder of Saffron Cooks. ### How to produce the right product development strategy? Startups are an absolute blast for those with a deep desire to develop something that breaks standard stereotypes and gets a lot of attention. However, how many founders out there has an ideal app/web platform solution in their head labeled “best product ever”? And how many of you think that people will just go and grab your solution like penicillin? Unfortunately, the reality is much, much harsher than you might think. Perhaps you can find at least a dozen people who got interested in your product and just won’t forget about it. But what of it? It won’t bring you rapid growth nor the potential for the other app development process. Thus, one can combine the facts and say: The code itself is nothing and cannot be considered a finished product. A real operating business that is dynamically generating sales has a healthy and profitable business model along with a workable application. How can you achieve such confident results without knowing that your solution might fail midway through the active stage of the product design process? To answer that question, JetRuby has prepared a free tool for every enthusiast who asked himself this kind of problem: Product Development Strategy Session! What is a Product Development Strategy? Start your business journey alongside Product Development Strategy! As we mentioned above, the app’s code or the platform itself practically means absolutely nothing, and most businesses fail miserably without proper preparations. For that reason, JetRuby has constructed a Product Development Strategy Session. This is an entirely free meeting specifically created to assist both young startups and mature entrepreneurs. To properly adjust and coordinate the vision for implementing your idea into reality. Most entrepreneurs or startups sometimes have two milestones that they are continually bumping into during the early development processes. They are: Lack of strong technical and/or business requirement points Ignorance of digital product development lifecycle specificity. In short, you tell us your business idea, and we will prepare the corrections and estimations for its implementation to avoid the highlighted mistakes. And to get the most precise estimate during this session, we recommend the following: If you have any app visual aspects, please provide them to our team. Try to compare and analyze your idea and the idea of your product competitors. Try to understand your business model monetization “But what exactly will I get after this meeting?” or better, “How will I benefit from it?” The session itself will last just 1 hour where you’ll be talking to our business analyst and the head of our business development. During the meeting, our team and you will be going through the following critical project aspects: Create a very high-level user story map while referencing high-quality app practices and basing it on your product requirements. This helps to identify the missing app gaps and form a unified insight into your business product. Build a Product Evolution Canvas, where our team will systemize all product data and prioritize product development according to your business goals. Detail the user story map with a concrete summary of each feature connected with each relevant product development process along with the monthly deadline estimations during the MVP process. By the end of the session, we’ll provide you with the essentials you will find useful for your further product development process. Here is what you will get by the end of this session: A priority list of functionalities that your app should have during your first product release. Feedback on technical and business requirements that shows what exactly should be adjusted or added. A ballpark estimation of your entire project. Further suggestions upon the next steps. These results will be presented during the kick-off meeting. While all of the context preparations will be done one day prior. If you want to get a professional and expert assessment on your product vision, just leave an inquiry on our Product Development Strategy Session, and we’ll schedule your meeting immediately. After the session is complete, we will proceed with further steps for creating the right product development strategy. We’ll move to the Design and Discovery Phase. Design and Discovery is an initial stage for any idea that defines your future product’s vision and guides you towards the correct development process. Where in its end, a project plan will be produced for your MVP! A word from our Head of Business Development Interview with our Head of Business Development is like... We decided to discuss some of the most frequently asked questions that our clients raise during various meetings. Who knows, maybe you have had similar problems like that in your mind. But you didn’t receive any answers yet, or perhaps they are too vague. So, take a look, and hopefully, any of your uncertainties or doubts will be cast away. - Let’s say a client says: “I have an X amount of budget, but I wish to implement a product which costs ten times more than my allocated budget.” How exactly could we assist him? - The thing is, for producing the most precise and neat future product vision, one has to understand and prioritize the core amount of functionalities that could give real value to your potential customers since they don’t need all of your functionalities all at once. They will be using at most one or two main features. Let your audience feel and try your product first. Then observe the results: whether people like it or not. And only if everything is positive, then you can add all of the additional functions after you’ll confirm that your product has reached a specific point of success. - How can we guide a client if he might say the following: “I have a very great idea, but everyone keeps estimating it in XXX million dollars.”? - All of the vast and massive projects we develop gradually. There is no point in doing everything at once. The very first thing that you need to consider and weigh is that the business idea or a product launch plan that you are trying to implement is demandable by your target market. Make adequate research on your competitors and product analogs. Seek what exactly attracts and keeps the attention of users at it. After you do that, you’ll understand how the foundation of your idea can work out. You will also figure out how to make your product much more valuable and unique than your competitors. - “I want to implement a complete, full-scale product and release it to the market. I don’t think I need a half-baked one.” Why is this specific approach wrong? - The issue here lies in this stereotypical thinking “the more money I’ll invest, the more successful my product will become”. It doesn’t work that way. There is no point in any investment in something that didn't show its value or at least a bare potential. Even if you are 100% confident in your business idea’s success, there are no guarantees that you won’t rework some features that do not resonate with your target audience. Various methodologies were created to avoid these kinds of milestones and adapt to constant market changes (SCRUM, Agile, etc.). In 21 century, most modern customers are very demanding. So you have to continually observe and coordinate your project towards the best user experience practices. That also includes the constant dynamic competition processes since every massive project equals a long-term development process. Even during half of the year of active development, the product may already lose all of its relevance. If you are developing your business project to optimize your enterprise processes, then it’s all easy peasy. However, the customers located in the open market are very demanding, so you just have to keep up a high adaptability speed for any changes. - How much budget does a client need for developing an MVP? Typically, to cover all of the app’s core and necessary aspects for the market to accept it steadily. One would probably need around 20,000$ per platform, be it a web, iOS, or Android one. Whether it is a web or a mobile platform, 3,000$ is going for thorough and detailed research on the product development strategy, and 17,000$ is divided to release a lean MVP of a project. - Why do we not recommend investing the entire budget into the MVP straight ahead? - Honestly, the answer is straightforward. Every MVP has a unique turning point when the business product is not entirely ready for a market release, but the budget is running out. 99% of all products currently available on the Internet and that you are continuously using are continually updating and upgrading their software products. They keep pushing and testing innovations that require user reviews. There are 3 key reasons MVP technology is so strict in both the timeframe line and the budget. First, you can’t infinitely implement lots of features into your digital solution. You need to set the boundaries of your product’s main functionalities, release it to the market and test your idea. That way you’ll know whether your business idea is worth a shot. Second, while you are putting so much effort into developing your MVP, someone else is already releasing their core product into the market. And that one is either fully or partially replicate the functionalities that your product has. So you must release your product first. The research shows that the first one who releases the first will get the bigger size of a market, rather than a polished product released last in the line. The third and last one is the process of your product aging. While you are developing an MVP of your product, your digital solution’s technology stack may become an old one, and the specificity of your technology requirement may change already. - Why do we recommend following our technological development sequence in the right order? - During every stage of our technological development cycle, a specific knowledge chunk of soon-to-be developed product is produced. Once received, we’ll form it and deliver it to the client. That way, he’ll be aware of what is going on with the product, how the product can be further enhanced and where we should direct the development path. Plus, the development process of building your product will be done correctly. So the process of our technology development cycle is presented in the following way. Our team will analyze and understand the development strategy on a high level in the Product Development Strategy Session without going too deep into the specifics. In the Design and Discovery phase, we will understand clearly what we want to produce during the MVP session and during the Scaling process (but not too clearly). The MVP will produce a core software product suitable for the market release and further plans for shifting to the Core Product Stage. - What may happen if someone won’t follow the regular development sequence? - Well, nothing too critical. You can quickly release the product that is going to be out of the technology development cycle. But there is a 50/50 probability chance of two outcomes. First one - your product will be developed, released out of the cycle, and your target audience will successfully recognize it. Second - the core of your technology implementations is going to be spoiled. Since there are no distinctive requirements nor any synergy with the development flow process thus, during the development time, you’ll form a tangled nonsense clew, which will waste a lot of time on implementing unnecessary features. So don’t build a plane when it is already in the sky. Build it on the ground, test it properly and finally fly on it. JetRuby Story Log We do appreciate and cherish every moment we get to work on your client's projects! We want to tell you about the following projects through this session and the Design and Discovery Phase. As a result, they managed to implement strong business models and dynamic products, which they always enhance daily. Here are their brief stories worth mentioning. Name Coach The partnership between JetRuby and the “Name Coach” began in 2014. Initially, as a startup owner, the client showed us his product prototype and explained that it would help correct name pronunciation. The partnership started after a successful Product Development Strategy Session. The client was amazed by delivering his product visualization and the business concept we formed from his inquiry message. Almost immediately, he continued his development process with the Design and Discovery Phase. As the client knew a good portion of how exactly he could combine the business and the technical part, he lacked a concrete understanding of using the money to achieve a valuable product effectively. For that reason, he wanted to dive deep into the preparation process and understand his uncertainty for his business’s future. If you have stumbled across similar milestones during your business journey, contact us. Our experts will assist you in your first steps and explain the right approach for implementing your product by assembling the right path during the Design and Discovery Phase. During the Design and Discovery Phase, our team helped our client to fill a Business Model Canvas. Since it was necessary to identify the right business model that his product is going to adopt. Next, we focused on the user story map by identifying various user types and constructing a first UI/UX prototype of the visualized application. As a finishing touch, we drew the app’s beta prototype, which had some of the main screen selections and a core function demo. During three years of constant development, we worked tightly with the ”NameCoach” web app. Currently, almost every notable US university is actively utilizing this platform. The list includes Stanford, Haverford, Xavier, CMU, and Northwestern schools. The platform has more than 110,000 active users who are feeling much more confident. StudyClub Our next partner started his business journey when his first kid was born, and he had immediately solved one of the issues of his state. As his children began to grow up, he noticed that it was real trouble to get your kid occupied with extra activities. The client came to us with a fundamental concept in his mind on how to solve this business problem. He wanted to develop a scheduling platform for a series of practical children activities in his town. As he was a technical specialist himself, he was looking for experienced and professional specialists. The ones who could assist him in building a product and guide him to the correct business path. After we introduced him to several successful entrepreneurs and startup projects who have launched successfully during the Design and Discovery phase, he thought no more and agreed to pass it too. So, wait no more! Contact us today and entrust your unique idea to initiate your startup business in just a few months. After we took him through the Design and Discovery Phase, we suddenly decided to pivot the idea. We analyzed various similar business ideas and tested a new concept with his family friends. A sufficient amount of positive feedback gave him much more confidence in implementing something more than just a simple booking service. And that is the marketplace instead. As of right now, the platform is still under a huge development process. Even though the platform received a tremendous amount of positive feedback, some moments were waiting for a definite polishing. But with the JetRuby team, our client is striving for the growth of his marketplace! BWTours The last project on the list is “BWTours” which came to us quite unexpectedly. The client has contacted from overseas while traveling through South America in search of new life adventures by foot! She explained her idea in straightforward terms: she wanted to build an E-Commerce website, where she wanted to publish her exciting and unexplored tour road worldwide. Her focus was on the exploration factor, where no other tour guide has put his or her leg before. During the discussions, our client was worried about the results that she wanted to achieve. Since she will invest her time and effort in developing her product for the first time, for that reason, we assured her that our team has already launched several successful startups during the Design and Discovery phase. So if you have any idea that you genuinely want to implement, wait no more and contact us today for a free Product Development Strategy Session consultation! Therefore, we took her inquiry and took her along the journey of the Design and Discovery Phase. Our team has produced a set of artifacts (Business Model Canvas, prototype, and product design process of her E-Commerce platform) that helped develop further product launch plans. After the research, we analyzed the results and compared them with our JetRuby team capabilities. And we have made a decision that was not inferior in performance, stability, and ease of maintenance. Which reduced her initial budget proposal by four times! We concluded our offer with the Tilda page platform that could manage all of her needs. Final Thoughts All in all, the code means nothing if you don’t know how your business will function. Prepare your product launch plan steadily, and don’t try to advance your business in only one direction. Since if you do, you’ll be having lots of issues on other business development branches that you preferred to ignore. At JetRuby, we assist in producing software applications. Still, we also make sure it will fit the business model correctly inserted in your marketing and sales processes. This way, we can turn your idea into a working business model. And find the first clients within the first three months. So wait no more and schedule a free Product Development Strategy Session for your business today! ### What is a Lean Startup? What is a Lean Startup? Launching a new startup - whether it's a tech start-up, a small company - has constantly been a hit-or-miss proposal. According to the traditional approach, you write a service plan, pitch it to investors, find a team, release a product, and begin selling as hard as you can. And somewhere in this series of events, you'll most likely suffer a deadly setback. According to Statista, 75% of all startups fail. However, recently a crucial countervailing force has emerged, one that can make the process of starting a business less risky. It's an approach called the "lean startup". The core The Lean Startup core concept is to prevent waste of time and resources when developing a new product and services. The term Lean startup was coined by Eric Ries, in a book named the same. The important thing is that lots of startups begin with a new idea that they think people want. Then, they spend several months, sometimes years, refining this product without ever showing it, even in its most primary type, to prospective customers. When they fail to earn money consumers, it is generally due to the fact that they have actually never talked with potential customers and heard whether the item was of interest to them or not. And when consumers finally check the item and it doesn't fulfill their needs as they'd wish, the startup passes away. It is a sad and exceptionally common journey. And the objective of Lean Startup methodology is specifically to avoid this journey. Lean startup Meaning The word "lean", here, has been applied by Eric Ries, Harvard Service School scientist, towards avoiding waste. It involves recognizing and removing waste in all the processes, from research study to production. In other words, in this methodology, the company begins by getting to the marketplace to ask the opinion of prospective clients about all components of the business design: product functions, price, circulation channels, and financial methods. With this data collected, the startup creates a minimum viable product (MVP) and requests consumer feedback as quickly as possible. Based on the responses obtained, it goes for brand-new versions and changes till it finds the perfect product.   How to Execute Lean www.flickr.com/photos/aaron_davis It's required to deal with manners to systematically identify the waste in every and every action of production, sales, and after-sales. That stated it's important to reduce or remove First: before launching your item, instead of combining a long report (business Strategy), you are going to use Canvas to build your organization model. This canvas will show how the business creates worth for its customers. Second: you are going to test your hypotheses with the help of customer development. You are going to speak to possible users, buyers, and partners to get their viewpoint on any and all elements of the business design. To get that, you are going to have your MVP constructed. Third: you are going to finally embrace nimble development, where there is no wild-goose chase or resources, as the product is established in an iterative way. Notification that whatever has to do with engaging with your clients, testing hypotheses, and repeating during the procedure-- all of that before introducing your product on the marketplace.   Lean Startup Principles The Lean Startups approach can best be described as a set of principles and viewpoints, instead of guidelines or steps, and these concepts are typically self-evident; there are lots and great deals of stories from the past years of companies who have actually utilized them to fantastic impact. Here they are: Entrepreneurship is about management. Your startup is not just an item, it needs management. A new type, created specifically for your context of uncertainty. Validated learning. Startups must build a sustainable business. Your knowledge can be clinically confirmed by experiments that allow you to evaluate every component of your company. Innovation accounting. Yes, you also need to concentrate on dull things: how to determine progress, how to set goals, how to prioritize work. This requires a brand-new type of accounting, particularly for startups. Continuous deploy. The group's work must be updated routinely for the end consumer. You need to construct a brand-new feature and make it offered in a short time to get a much faster examination. A/B testing. Whenever possible, make more than one version of the product readily available on the marketplace. This way, you have feedback on how customers react to different product models. From the reaction to these different possibilities, you may discover what the user chooses. Actionable metrics. Metrics that, when triggered, provide information necessary for the company to make decisions about the business. Minimum Viable Product  (MVP). It is the minimum version of a brand-new product, with the function to catch more information and learn more about the requirements and expectations of the end consumer. That avoids efforts to develop resources that are unneeded or boring. Pivot. It is a complete modification in the course of an item, a new strategic hypothesis that requires a brand-new MPV to be checked. Build-Measure-Learn. An essential activity of a startup is to turn concepts into products, determine how consumers respond, and find out if something needs to be changed or maintained. Every successful startup should accelerate this build-measure-learn cycle. Following the above principles, our clients also used the Lean Startup methodology. For instance, one of our clients convinced himself that his idea is genius, however, we wanted to be sure that customers will also like it. The client successfully solved this problem with the help of the Design and Discovery phase. Do you have difficulties while figuring out where to start developing a startup? If so, please contact us and we will help you prioritize the development process correctly, saving you time and budget Build-Measure-Learn Cycle The Lean Startup cycle, referred to as Build-Measure-Learn, highlights the speed of a group or company to develop an idea, build a minimally practical product, measure its effectiveness in the market, and gain from that experience. To put it in a few words, it is the cycle to change an idea into a product, determine the reaction to it, and choose if it is a good idea, that must remain, or a bad idea, that must be disposed of. The cycle creates innovation, as the quick iteration permits teams to determine a practical way to adjust the item, in order to enhance and enhance the business design towards success. Differences between the Lean startup and the traditional organization plan Strategy. Lean startup is based on hypotheses and utilizes a canvas to be developed. Traditional is based upon execution and makes use of a company plan. Speed. Lean startup seeks to be quick and utilizes data that suffice for action. Standard operates gradually and just with total information for action. Product Development. Lean startup experiments hypotheses on the marketplace and gets feedback from clients during the procedure. Conventional prepares the whole item for the market in an extremely linear plan. Failure. Lean Startup pivots, offering new possibilities, functions, and items. Conventional abandons the project and, in some cases, fires groups or executives.   What Does It Mean to Be a Lean Startup? If you want your startup to utilize the lean method, this suggests that you need to focus your business around the customer. If you have an idea for a product or service, you will not begin by developing a service plan for your company. Rather, you need to begin to create a minimum viable item. Keep in mind that clients will see the development process first-hand, which isn't constantly a comforting sight. However, this can help you enhance customer commitment. The minimum feasible product that you produce should just have the most basic features that will allow consumers to actively engage with the product. Once you have actually produced an MVP, the next step of the process includes supplying it to a little subset of your target audience. If these people don't like an item that you put out, it will be very difficult for you to acquire an enduring consumer base. As consumers utilize your MVP, you should focus on acquiring their feedback, which can then be utilized to make changes to the item and ultimately make it more feature-complete. When you become a lean startup, you should expect to experiment regularly. While the outcomes may not always be favored by your consumers, downsizing modifications must be easy with the iterative approach that you're taking to product advancement. In time, you ought to have the ability to develop a product that's ready to be released on the market. This is an extremely fast method of item advancement that should assist you to save cash. However, it can be stressful as you react to the feedback that you get from test clients.   Lean startup vs Stealth Startup Lean mode functions in direct contradiction with another popular start-up philosophy: Stealth startup. A substantial part of a lean start-up is the concept of taking your minimum viable product (MVP) to market as quickly as possible so that you can discover what's working - and what isn't. That's the initial step in the iteration cycle, which is developed to get your startup to product/market fit and viability as soon as possible. The greatest downside of a stealth mode startup is that it's really hard to discover product/market fit without bringing the product to the market. For adherence to lean start-up, stealth mode is the reverse of what you should do if you want to create an excellent product. However if you've somehow unequivocally determined your product/market fit some other method-- and I suggest in fact figured it out - then sure, choose stealth mode. However do not be too stunned if when you actually bring your product to market, the fit isn't rather as tailored as you'd like. Read: Everything you want to know about Stealth Startup   Lean Startup Benefits   More efficiency. By focusing on what truly matters, the company's advancement will take place quickly and directly. Therefore, productivity grows while conserving money and time. Expense reduction. When waste is removed, expenses are decreased. Since you can eliminate steps that don't add to sustainable advancement, hence preventing expenses and increasing earnings. Greater proximity to consumers. When the build-measure-learn cycle is well used, customer needs and expectations will be much better understood. This will supply a higher intimacy between them and your brand name. And that is the first step to get faithful consumers. Why Lean Is It Important? It is very important to know about the lean startup approach due to the fact that it can be the basis for your whole company. Whether you pick the conventional startup method or the lean method, understanding the differences between these two techniques ought to make it much easier for you to determine which technique would best fit your new startup. At Jetruby, we can help supply you with the proficiency that you require to utilize the lean startup method. Let’s summarise  Every lean startup's development process differs, but all of them will go through the 3 stages: solution fit, product/market fit, and growth stage. The first stage is about verifying the problem you're solving. Do consumers really require a solution? Would they pay for it? When you verify that, you can go to the most important phase, finding the product/market suitable for your lean startup. In this phase, you should validate your MVP and your business model. Before it, you will have gone through a number of research cycles. Your future product will actually be solving the customers' issue, and you'll currently be making some revenue. After you see that your start-up is running, there is a need for your product in the market and the clients are using it, it's time to scale and grow. You'll need to secure funds, use data to identify the very best marketing and sales channels, and continuously deal with improving your item. To learn is to grow, after all. In order to successfully go through all three steps, we developed the correct algorithm of actions, which we call the Design and Discover phase. This is a development methodology that allows you to launch a startup without time and cost loss. Sign up for a free consultation with our experts! ### FibriCheck App: A story of an innovative medical startup The Back Story The FibriCheck Startup story started in 2013. But it was not an original story about a startup formation that was all about idea brainstorming and decision-making about the project development. On the contrary, the story began with the CEO of the FibriCheck app, Laris Grieten, and his father. His dad was 51 and had been feeling healthy all the time. However, he suffered a stroke during one of the biking vacations along with his friends. It was shocking for everyone to witness it, let alone feel the panic that can overwhelm you. By the time he was delivered to the hospital and the doctors were able to conclude the diagnosis. It was a transient Ischemic Attack - a temporary blockage of a blood vessel in his brain. After a few days of treatment, his condition stabilized. However, what the doctors could find is the root cause of the problem. FibriCheck App Back story and how the idea started That’s when his son started to work alongside the cardiologist team in Belgium, to determine the causes of the stroke. And it was not an easy task. The root cause can vary and the limits of the medical equipment didn’t allow Laris to identify it. He decided to rely on software technologies only and Big Data. Fast-forward two years, and he had finished up his first working prototype. So when his dad started to feel unwell again, he measured his heart rate with the FibriCheck app. The results were truly astonishing. Almost immediately, he identified the medical problem he had - atrial fibrillation. After that, his dad started a treatment process and to this day they keep an eye on him. This powerful, yet encouraging story has greatly impacted the mind of today’s FibriCheck CEO. He understood that with that digital solution he could potentially save millions who have yet to encounter their hidden diseases in their body. However, how exactly did he manage to go through such a long way and became so famous across the world? What kind of milestones did he encounter that we could relate to? Startup Challenges Startup Challenges and Milestones As we know the FibriCheck startup began its journey back in 2013 and has since passed down numerous challenges and milestones. Many of those have since developed into opportunities that allowed them to gain a high competitive advantage. Not only among the medical startups but healthcare industry vendors. The Key Issue Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a true silent killer. Most of the common cardiac arrhythmia affects more than 10 million people in Europe. It was estimated that by 2050, the global population who has Atrial fibrillation problems will double to at least 92 million. AF typically leads to heart failure, coronary heart disease, kidney problems, and is the main cause of over 20% of all strokes. That’s where the FibriCheck app comes in to try to solve this global problem. Scalability The key point of a FibriCheck app is to screen the heartbeat of all the patients across the whole globe. But how can you achieve that and properly get people to adopt it? That is the question FibriCheck startup was having. As you may already know, a good part of medical startups utilizes various wearable medical devices that assist in health screening. But, if this PPG sensors technology was to be implemented, a startup could spend a few million dollars for their first batch only. Therefore, they needed to seek other solutions that implement the same functionality. Trust To adopt the product to the people and have positive feedback, the FibriCheck startup needed to achieve a trust factor from the healthcare vendors. They were looking for recognition of their product as a device or a tool for assisting doctors in making the right diagnosis. Since there are so many diseases relevant to Atrial Fibrillation, that not lots of experts can diagnose. And Fibricheck app can provide valuable data assets that can assist doctors in making the right decision during a patient's consultation. Accuracy When the startup group started their work in 2014, most of the doctors and health providers told them directly: “We don’t need your solution. Everything that we do and the devices that we have right now are more than enough to cover AF health problems”. And just like this, they understood that, in addition to the trust factor, they needed to achieve accurate results. Not only to prove that their product can greatly assist but to provide accurate results and try to prevent any AF-related causes or diseases. The Implementations As of right now, the FibriCheck app is considered by the first world’s medically certified app that assists stroke prevention. It detects atrial fibrillation and other heart rhythm disorders using only a smartphone or smartwatch in just 60 seconds. The app is used by more than used by 30,000 people, supported by various medical industries, communities, and various hospitals. Since 2017, it was commercially available all over Europe followed by the entire world. So how did they achieve such high awards and got famous across the world? Scalability Factor Back to the scalability question, how do you think the founder of FibriCheck has resolved the issue with the PPG sensors usage? To tell you the truth it was simple when you think about it. The startup group was developing a mobile app platform the team didn’t want to complicate users with an extra pair of wearable devices. Instead, they focused on their consumer devices (mobile phones) and built this technology around them. You see, from a technology perspective, any PPG sensors are already in the camera of any phone. Thus, after producing numerous tests, 80% resulted positive, meaning the app can properly display the correct heartbeat. It was fantastic. Not only did the company save millions of dollars, but they made it easy for their target audience to use it. More than that, now they can deliver their solution to any person in the entire world at a low cost. That’s how flexible their solution was, both simple and genius. And to illustrate how impactful this solution is, in under 48 hours their app can perform a screen of more than 65,000 users! Trust Factor As the COVID-19 pandemic spread, it became difficult for patients to attend a physical visit to their doctor or clinics. Meaning that the screening monitoring and measuring processes of the patient’s heartbeat rate were absent. And if there is no concrete data or information about the patient’s health, how would a doctor diagnose a patient. To solve this problem and gain more trust, FibriCheck has begun collaborating with various individual doctors, which first occurred at Maastricht University. Here what the doctor's idea was. He knew that he had an online call with his patient next week. So this week he invites him to try FibriCheck so that by next week he has information about his heartbeat. Meaning that he would be able to make a correct diagnosis. This plan gained so much success, that within 2 months, the FibriCheck app was onboarding more than 40 European Centers with 2,000 patients. Now, that the app has gained so much public attention, the FibriCheck team has started to customize its user experience. So many people were using the app, it became a necessity to differ the user experience for different age groups. Not only that, but they are trying to optimize the User Experience based on demographics. Accuracy Factor Coming back to 2014, nobody knew what is FibriCheck app and how to use it. Since everyone was attached to the physical meetings with their doctors, who were monitoring their health. Step by step, Fibricheck started to cooperate with doctors, but it didn’t change the world’s opinion on their product at once. The startup has invested a lot of time and effort in the heartbeat algorithm for producing the most accurate results. As the company picked up the pace, after 4 years of consistent development work, they were approved by the American Food & Drug Administration. Now, FibriCheck was a medical smartphone application, that could have its way to the US market. Even by now, the FibriCheck app has user feedback sessions twice a year and a feedback form, added in their mobile app. Both of these innovative solutions bring a positive impression on the users’ opinion when they utilize their heartbeat software tool. Final Words With just a finger pressed against your camera, now you can properly measure your pulse! All in all, the story of “FibriCheck” is an inspiring example of how a dedicated team of developers and business experts didn’t give up. There were obstacles and they pulled them through. They got numerous rejections numerous times and their startup wasn't getting anywhere, they believed in their work. As a result, their company is globally recognized and is widely accepted across various private and public hospitals. Currently, FibriCheck is working under two major enhancements for their mobile application. The first one is a background service that automatically connects to the EMRs. Where you have risk profiling automated based on demographics, medical history, and biomarkers. Thus, those people who have high risks of cardiac arrhythmia will be automatically asked to use FibriCheck. And if there is anything wrong with their heartbeat rates, they'll be immediately advised to a local doctor. This feature is currently in testing with 2 private Belgium hospitals. The second one is a “diagnostics-as-a-service” model. This is a future extension that will allow the FibriCheck app’s algorithm to be available for 3d party integrations for other wearable devices. This means more data will be available for analyzing and researching the health of various users all over the world. As of right now, they are collaborating with the UK, Germany, and Netherlands, while Asia seems to be the company's central focus. At JetRuby we assist young professionals and entrepreneurs to launch their products right from the ground. Our team has completed more than 200+ startup projects that are by now still growing and branching out their new ideas. We helped them implement their ideas, and understand how their business model should work according to their main product. We support every single person who has a deep desire of determining the value of their product. And also those, want to learn how to use their capital to reach the maximum results. If you are one of those startups that are truly looking for a team of professionals experts, then JetRuby can be your right choice. Leave a short description on our Product Development Strategy Session, where we will produce a ballpark estimate on your project absolutely for free! ### You never knew these essential startup stages! The job of an entrepreneur is not as easy as it might sound at first. Yes, it is a truly unique path that leads you through various startup stages while having benefits and risks on each end. And almost all the risks are difficult to foresee or even to overcome. If this goes on and nothing will be done, then, just like other startups, who thought that they can succeed, yours will fail too. “What’s the deal?“ - you might ask us. The thing is that they don’t have a clear future vision on what kind of startup stages or startup stages they should go through. To identify the most optimal journey that your startup and your business product should take, JetRuby prepared this article for you. So, let’s figure out the core startup stages and how they can benefit your enveloping young business! What is a startup? What exactly is a startup what goal does it want to achieve? Many entrepreneurs already know precisely what a startup is, how d works, and what you need it for. But let’s revise this knowledge and see whether we can grasp something new. So what is a startup? A startup is a company created by a founder(s) to meet the market demand with the produced product or services under uncertain conditions. As a rule, such companies are funded by founders, their families, and other investors at different startup development stages. However, what makes them so unique is how they are operating. You see, apart from a typical small business, a startup is being formed to solve some kind of company and demandable problem. Several startup goals are to secure an investment, produce a product that solves a problem, and create a marketing campaign to gain more customers. That is a story of any given startup in a nutshell. But what are the startup stages an entrepreneur should go through? What are the main startup stages? We’ve all heard famous stories about startups and how they have started in their home garage. However, what many young entrepreneurs may not know is how exactly your rapid startup development should unfold? What are the steps it should go through? And what are the challenges? Whether you are a young startup or an amateur one who is revising his knowledge, we present a 6-step ladder of any startup development. Startup Stage #1: Birth of your Idea Any startup or company creates an unbeatable and iron idea that solves some kind of demandable problem. In 2020, the statistics showed that up to 34% of all startups have failed due to no market fit of their product. Meaning that they just created a product/service/ code without knowing where to apply it. Ergo, most of them didn’t do proper research and analysis of their idea, its value, and its business model. Before you begin crafting your product and releasing it to the market, go over the idea stage of a startup and follow our recommendations. Those that every entrepreneur should know and implement before your product release. Conduct customer interviews One of the best ways to understand what exactly your potential customer will want to have is to ask him directly! Let’s say you are creating a clothes online store, and you are questioning yourself if you wish to make a male or female one? Should it be for slim models or plus-size models? What kind of clothes should be on the list? The list of questions may go on and on, but the important thing is to go ahead and formulate these questions for your customers. They are the ones who know the best what they want. This is important if you are building your product in a very narrow area on a specific customer group. Your final results of this step should be very concrete and detailed. Analyze your competitors One of the essential researches that your startup has to perform is to research your product competitors. The ones that have failed will give you a valuable experience of hidden milestones. The others that succeeded will show what kind of path they formed to reach their business goals. At the same time, you’ll see where you can add value and secure a market niche when your product analogs prefer to ignore it. As an experienced digital agency, we tend to help entrepreneurs to form a concrete future business vision and reveal their product’s value. Our team is capable of building your brand image and prioritizing the development process of your future creation. Our digital agency strongly believes that you can conquer your fear of failure by constant planning and hidden milestone prediction. All of that you can experience and receive during our tech development flow that starts with the Product Development Strategy Session. Leave your idea in the inquiry above, and we’ll be on our way to implement your product into reality! For example, let’s say you want to develop a healthcare application for your startup to gain a more competitive advantage. However, as you scroll through the list of various health startups and their products, you notice that every popular section has already been reserved. What exactly should you do? In that case, choose a niche that is very specific in your desired field and perform deep research with relevant experts. And most probably you’ll hit your target successfully since some medical niches are still waiting for a digital solution. Want to know what are the other essential points you should consider when solving a business problem? Find out yourself in our article, dedicated exclusively to this topic! Startup Stage #2: MVP Once you scored your business idea and started to make plans about your product development strategy, then it is time to think about MVP. This is your very first step towards the product development process and should be implemented only if your first startup stage has been polished. Most likely, your very first product iteration won't be ideal. It won't have a rich functionality or even a proper monetization system. Since what you should do first is to test out your product in your target market and see the feedback of the users. Only then, if it gains a good amount of attention you'll get to see the rest of it with your own eyes. Here are some tips and tricks for you to get started with developing your very first MVP product: Make your priority list Due to various reasons, every software product needs to have a specific amount of features at every development stage. Which is divided into three parts: MVP, Core Product, and Full-Scale Product. The first part should have only the most important and key features, to test the marketing theory, as it was previously highlighted. The second part consists of the core and essential functions that cover all the key user scenarios. The last one is allowing users to use the product at its full potential and mostly have scaled features due to the increased user base. So, try to understand what feature should be included for each product development stage individually. Highlight your key feature As we just mentioned, your product won't have much functionality at first. Since all it needs to do is test whether your users are going to be using it. So, try to answer the following question as detailed as possible: What is the key feature that your application is going to have? What will be so different about it compared to your competitors?” Ask questions Don’t be shy to ask questions regarding the correct product development process. Since you are at the wheel of your product, you should understand each step that your digital solution is going through. Observe its current state and make adjustments, if you see that there is a necessity. Another key aspect that you should always keep in mind is your future vision of your business product. Nearly 35% of all startups fail due to producing just a bare product without knowing its application in business terms. Therefore, you should correctly identify its value and seek approaches for user attraction, without the risk of immediate failure. If this resonates with you, schedule a free Product Development Strategy Session. To gain a more concrete understanding of how your digital solution should be developed. Startup Stage #3: Traction The traction stage is one of the most interesting startup stages. Here you’ll get to see your product prototype to slowly gain more awareness from the public. You’ll acquire your very first customers and hopefully, you’ll get the loyal ones too! Focus on enriching your customer base while continuing to collect feedback. Just to give you a little example, we’ll illustrate how the founders of Uber attracted their clients with a creative strategy. As you know, there are UberX and UberPool app versions that allow drivers to use their cars for taxi purposes. However, before implementing all of that, the founders have started with professional drivers who were riding black cars. That way, they have ensured that their first customers would receive an ultimate and both satisfying experience. They can leave the most attractive feedback from their first rides. For your startup to get even more attention and seek public approval, we recommend you going through with these strategy aspects:  Giveaways & Promos - To gain clients, you should put your product in front of thousands and give out free trials. Depending on your target audience location, try to pick a few different promo channels. Partnerships - Search for partners who can assist you tell the world about the product you’re creating. People have more trust in recommendations rather than ads. Flashy Brand Image - Make your product visually appealing and easily recognizable. This is the first thing that your customers will look at, so capture their attention. Startup Directories - These are very specific platforms dedicated to startup lead generation. For more information about the most recent ones, follow our article here. Startup Stage #4: Seed Stage You’ve already created your first working product version, published it, and slowly are getting your first users, it is time for a seed stage. Why is it called the seed stage of a startup, you might ask? Well, because any given startup is associated with the seed that you plant in the ground to nourish its results. Meaning that what was previously described has been completed and your product is slowly getting more public attention. Sp your next step would be to seek an investment plan. The seed startup stage is all about the investment firms and pitching techniques to secure the desired amount of capital. All startup founders should focus on Venture Capitalists, as they should be the ones who can assist you. Not only financially, but they can also provide valuable experience, office spaces, and even more. All of that just for your business to go through another business development iteration. To understand what are your other options and what benefits do they provide follow our article to gain a more detailed insight. As your startup journey continues, you’ll probably need to understand how exactly your product can present its value gem. More than that, you’ll need to show it and explain why exactly your solution deserves investment and further development. But, as you are progressing through your startup, you might not understand how to effectively use your money to achieve these goals before you. The Design and Discovery Phase is built for those who are looking for a correct development approach. If you got interested in it, leave us a short message about your idea, and we’ll contact you within 24 hours! Startup Stage #5: Early Stage Startup Following next, the early stage startup is dedicated to those who completed their business model and are confident in their revenue. They already have some constant customers and slowly attract new ones. However, what they are lacking in this startup stage is the scaling process. All of that just to satisfy the demand coming from the public.  To do that, a founder should go through a round of investment pitches. Your main goal is to make your investors confident in your business processes. Show them that you have a stable revenue income, present your strategy and explain how exactly your startup is working. The investor can also assist you in achieving your goals and maybe even take over new market sectors.  Startup Stage #6: Growth & Exit You’ve reached the final goal of your journey! Now your startup or rather your company is generating a stable amount of revenue. You gain new customers every month and your cash flow management is not looking so bad! Since all the expenses are being completely covered by your income, so it’s a fine time to seek your further profit improvements. The biggest challenge here consists of managing your time to handle completely new tasks and priorities. Such as: gaining a more competitive advantage, renting extra workspace, managing increasing levels of revenue, and hiring more people with specific skill sets. And look at yourself, you're ahead of the company, the very top of it. Now that you have a qualified team, it is up to you to decide how your company should move forward. Now you are the captain of your ship, directing the path for finding new adventurous business journeys! Aspects worth mentioning Some of the essential aspects that we advise you to follow! If you're in one of your startup stages, we want to highlight the core principles that you should always keep in mind. They are not strict ones, but rather are an example of how you should guide your business. Learn from your competitors - Researching and analyzing your competitor’s product is a very good way to start identifying your product value. As long as you will study their approaches and learn from their mistakes only then you can raise your startup from the ground. Always be patient - It’s always fun to dive into each startup stage, research it and enjoy it. But do not let that temptation take over you so easily. Remember, the entire process of startup development takes a few months to understand. At the same time, it takes a few years to fully understand and master them. Focus on your customers - Just as the title says, do focus on what your main consumer should have in his product. Determine what keeps your customers stay longer on your platform and learn how to try to enhance it by listening to their feedback. Conclusion All the described startup stages are very essential ones, but it doesn’t mean that every entrepreneur should go through each. Some startups can skip the pre-seed stage, while others may have a mixed development path, meaning that you can have your development path. However, one startup stage that almost 99% of all the entrepreneurs are going through is funding. Without it, your startup or your business won’t live that long. Yes, there are cases where some famous businesses didn’t need any funding and operated solely on their services. However, to go through at least the main development startup stage, you should go through the pitching process. If you’re an entrepreneur looking to launch your startup, you might need assistance — like a product prototype, MVP, and even pitching. Then JetRuby can help you with that. We create digital products for startups that are both successfully launched and steadily developed. During the Product Development Strategy Session, we will analyze the correct development roadmap. While the Design and Discovery Phase will allow your product to avoid lots of hidden milestones. Got interested in how our experts can dash your product to a successful product path? Leave a short description of your project and see how exactly we can help you build your product! ### Glowforge App: The Success of a Famous 3D Printer Back in 2013, at the rising dawn of the 3D printer technology era, lots of various companies have tried to secure the targeted audience. However, everyone had an issue with that most of the printers had huge and impractical designs. Some of them even looked like partial robotic prototypes that might have looked impressive. But they have significantly lacked a more straightforward and flexible format. The design layout of the original Glowforge App A year later, a business unit named, GlowForge company made its debut by presenting a simple yet fantastic design for the 3D printer technology. It was compact, slim, and the size was just perfect for a 3D printer. Why are we telling you this? Well, because the company CEO has reached out to us to make his Glowforge app platform real! He explained that as he had built his future business roadmap plan, he understood that he lacked enough resources to implement his ideas. That’s why he contacted us in the first place. He noticed that our company assists with both the business and technological development of a startup. That’s where he decided to share a fantastic work for us too. The team decided to outsource a significant part of their Glowforge business plan activities to another software firm. Which just happens to be us, JetRuby! They found our services beneficial for creating an e-commerce platform that will boost their product awareness and adjust their sales process. Glowforge Challenges An initial thing that most startups lack is the right brand image. The product itself made a great noise for a startup to quickly gain a sufficient amount of its users. However, what it lacked ever since the first step is the visualization of their company. A branding that captures a customer’s interest was priority number one. The next challenge was the long process of building a customer order. To be even more precise, the process of preparing an order was taking a tremendous amount of time. And not because the website was slow, and they used a LAMP stack to do that—quite the opposite. The composition of a regular customer order requiring the involvement of several departments was the reason for that. To top it off, our client required integration with NetSuite. Since most of their work was utilizing it, and it would speed things up efficiently for the entire team. As it often happens in e-commerce, the front-end technologies available for the users are the tip of the iceberg. There are tons of different activities that can give you many headaches if you consider implementing it by human labor. Synchronization of data between various departments, prices & tax calculations for each given country, and automating the system processes as possible. These were the issues that the Glowforge app required resolving. The Implementation Design and Discovery Phase Once our team understood the list of requirements, our Project Manager immediately offered to go through a custom Design and Discovery Phase. Mainly because the startup never had a branding image of their product or even a simple website. So, it was necessary to launch a few test marketing theories and find the appropriate design option. The first thing that our design team focused on, was the brand logo. Our logo combined both the simplicity of perception and complexity of the art. Since Glowforge company is all about creativity, it inspires users to be creative and brave in visualizing their dreams. A calm color palette with predominantly blue, black, and white colors makes the user feel confident and relaxed. Brand Image of the Glowforge App The user interface design was very simple, and strategically using color and texture allowed us to create an encouraging design. The Glowforge app & product is in rectangle form. That’s why we made a design rectangle-like to save the product’s integrity and the design itself. So the overall concept was built not around the overall outlook but rather the psychology of the product itself. Exactly that allowed us to focus on the essential product aspect and not be distracted by anything else. MVP Development Most of the Glowforge app’s orders worked under a specific methodology, which was not automatic and connected whatsoever. Thus, requiring human labor. All the customers’ demands are created on the frontend of the platform and user profiles. All of this information, stored and managed by a custom solution based on Solidus. This solution required that all relevant information on the order statuses and specific goods go to NetSuite. But these two pieces of software are not the only ones that Glowforge was using. So, let’s review each step-by-step and first see what responsibilities each bear and corresponds to in the Glowforge app: Celigo / Integrator.io - A third-party service-to-service integration manager. NetSuite - Accounting software. Solidus - ECommerce Glowforge platform. Flex - First manufacturing and logistics partner. ModusLInk - Second manufacturing and logistics partner. And now, let’s take a look at how the automation system should look like after our implementations would be successful: First, the order status and each item’s status have to be in sync between NetSuite and Solidus at all times. Second, Flex and ModusLink have to get the information instantly when the item changes its status. And they should be informed via Celigo API. Third, once any changes on the item status, will synchronize between Flex/ModusLink and both NetSuite and Solidus. Last, implementing this logic structure will enable all managers to have 100% relevant data at all times, almost annihilating human labor. After the necessary development work, JetRuby successfully automated customer order creation in NetSuite. At the same time, we integrated the Glowforge app's orders with NetSuite and automated manual ops. These jobs covered numerous scenarios, such as pre-orders and real-time orders, and system behavior in RMA. Also, it fixed the issue where the chosen item was not in the local warehouse, but instead somewhere else. As a result, we managed to automate most of the internal processes into a neat system. Now it was capable of forming and sending a relevant customer order in no time across the entire US and worldwide.  One of the other responsibilities of the internal system was to calculate value-added tax for the chosen country (specified in the order). It should present relevant information to the selected customer and be synchronized among various departments, including accounting. During the development process, JetRuby has created an integration from scratch with Avalra and implemented the “Landed Cost” functionality for several countries. This feature allowed customers or employees to receive a total order amount, as it will calculate every mandatory expense. Avalara is yet another excellent solution for e-commerce projects targeting international markets worldwide. As a result, users now have a clear understanding of the item pricing and the tax rate. Business Results During the first month, more than 10,000 printer products have been successfully sold. Almost an infinite number of satisfied customers have already experienced the ease of the platform and are satisfied with the Glowforge app experience. Additionally, Google recognized this product as the “Next-generation 3D laser printing”. We made an attractive Glowforge website design that allows simplistic navigation through various sections of the website. Now people are starting to build businesses on them. On the one hand, some people are doing their woodworking hobbies and making fundraisers around them. Some schools are actively using them for prototyping, art classes, and engineering classes. Glowforge company is considered to be the leading and the most iconic 3D printer technology in its market niche. Approximately, a few million handcrafted materials that all customers have already created and continue to develop. While the estimated sales revenue spiked up to $70 million in January 2018, it grew bigger and bigger! We were glad to help our client’s business grow, as we built a custom E-commerce allowing all creative people to easily buy Glowforge products. We would like to thank all the Glowforge team. Specifically Xander Joo, for a hugely exciting project and the best-looking spec we have seen in a decade! ### Emerging trends in Healthcare Startups of 2021 The world stays in the COVID-19 anabiosis, the vaccine is in the process of completion, and the new mutation cell spreads like a caterpillar. But let’s forget about all negativity that currently impacts the healthcare industry, and let’s look at the more positive side of it. Since most of us are staying isolated at home, how do medical startups benefit from the current world’s state? And here’s a short and both concise answer for it: The world conditions have changed towards new technological solutions. Because they are: remote, flexible, and can combine with the current emerging trends in healthcare to simplify a lot of complex processes. Let’s recap the current situation of the healthcare industry. See whether there are any healthcare startups worth mentioning. And understand whether you should breakthrough your idea with the help of the current trends in the healthcare industry! Healthcare Industry current state Like any other business industry, a healthcare one was slowly taking its turn to develop across all countries steadily. However, a particular disease got the hand of the world’s wheel, causing an impact upon the healthcare industry, which led to its rapid development. Therefore, below we highlighted the current state and the issues occurring in the hospital industry. Prevention vs. Treatment A very peculiar and intriguing fact is currently facing the healthcare industry, unnoticed within the customers’ trust. There is a very high debate on what kind of source people trust to prevent and treat specific diseases. Statistics about Patient's trust towards prevention medical devices On the one hand, we have healthcare providers who are open to their patients. They excel at treatment procedures of any given person’s disease rather than prevention. As seen below, around 59% of all interviewed say that they would instead go to the hospital to treat serious health diseases. Data Privacy Ever since the increased popularity of medical digital products, all healthcare startups should test their apps more frequently. Because the privacy aspect of your patients' data is one of the others that is building trust for your product. Ever since the 1996 HIPAA Act declaration, many businesses have started to be very careful around patient data. And now, the importance of data privacy for hospital patients has never been so high before. All digital apps or platforms must ensure the confidentiality of data and that executed actions will benefit the patients’ interests. Statistics about healthcare data breaches Just during the previous year, the number of data breaches has been at its peak since 2009. It was estimated that every day in 2020, the number of data breaches would reach almost up to 2. Price Increases As the demand for various health treatments grows and becomes much more apparent, the offer increases drastically in a money format. Therefore, the companies or startups focused on healthcare services should look out for innovative ways to develop their monetization models. Since all patients are looking for value and not the results. So, you need to make sure they will get what they came for. By building a smart growth strategy to help lessen the financial burden. Huge capital Investments As the prices of health provider services continue to rise, more governments are starting to invest in the healthcare industry. In 2020, it reached up to $80.6 billion in equity funding. According to the CB Insights report, "the funding trend was on the rise through the previous year, during the pandemic changes in various countries." And that it will continue to stay on the same bar or slightly higher till the discovery of proper COVID-19 vaccination. Emerging trends in Healthcare Startups Artificial intelligence Ever since the integration of AI technology has become possible, lots of businesses have automated various processes more straightforward and flexible. However, what about the emerging trends in healthcare? How has it affected hospitals all across the world? Even though health providers are afraid to integrate AI into their work due to the fear of being replaced, they are working things out. Various private hospitals began to utilize AI-apps in their scanning devices. This technology is used to collect and organize accurate medical images and data of a patient’s history and scans. The AI technology is currently being used for imaging diagnosis in genetics, labs, pathology, and other healthcare areas. All of that AI technology combined with Machine Learning can make various decisions based on lots of patient data. AI technology is not used for simple optimization purposes or foreseeing the fastest route possible, making the right decision in a patient’s life. It assists doctors and experts in making much more clear and precise diagnoses with treatment options and alternatives. Virtual Reality The evolving VR technology is disrupting and ripping apart every single business industry out there. And it’s not a joke. You can find any utilization space in any given industry. You can even implement a technology that could see through the human’s body and analyze his/her internal organs. While it sounds fantastic, we have yet to see such a technological opportunity. As of right now, the VR headset technology is assisting the industry and is considered as one of the emerging trends in healthcare. For example, various surgeon students are practicing and observing the visual and interactive classes of real-time operations. This is truly a very solid example of how the digital solution can significantly benefit the healthcare industry trends. Another example is when VR technology is used for patients that suffer from a stroke. Since this digital technology is compared to regular physical therapy, the first one allows more diverse interactions. Meaning that the patients will gain control of their bodies faster. The VR/AR technology has started with simple games, and now it is slowly beginning to pick up the pace. It is seen in various health sectors that could leave a significant impression on a regular patient. The healthcare business sector’s global VR technology trends are foreseen to reach $5.1 billion by 2025. If you are a healthcare startup, leave a short description of your project on our Product Development Strategy Session and start your project now! Wearable Devices This is a remarkable trend that keeps going on, which is all about building a set of wearable devices. This allows their product for a much more comfortable and convenient approach for collecting necessary patient data. Currently, most healthcare providers are trying to invest more into wearable technology devices. They can provide both conveniences of the use and the prevention factor before a major accident can happen in a person’s life. According to Statista, the estimated number of connected devices will drastically increase in 2022, by 32% compared to 2020. The market size of wearable medical devices was at USD 16.6 billion in 2020 and will grow by 26.8% from 2021 to 2028. Here are a few healthcare startups who made such devices and now are gaining a stable position in the health industry: Heart rate sensors Exercise trackers Ultrasound devices Disease-Predictive Products The last and one of the popular emerging trends in healthcare is implementing wearable devices and mobile apps. This current technological breakthrough allows us to collect, predict and prevent the chances of early-stage medical conditions of various diseases. Through Big Data and Machine Learning, many healthcare startups are trying their best to help multiple health providers create lifestyle recommendations for their patients. Notable digital health startups to look out for The current amount of emerging trends in healthcare industry is not sitting around and doing nothing. Apart from developing a Covid-19 vaccine, many healthcare startups took an opportunity and actively created and promoted their digital products. According to this source, it was estimated that the number of people who download and use medical apps increased during last year by 37%. There’s no doubt that there is a massive potential for any emerging trends in healthcare to come into the game. More than that, more companies and medical startups included are receiving funds for creating digital solutions. Last year, the funding amount reached up to $26.5 billion. There is no doubt that there are vast opportunities for emerging trends in healthcare to join the game in 2021. But which healthcare startups showed their true unique product opportunities? Who are the ones that never gave up and made it through till today? Who are the ones that currently stand at the peak of their development process and gain a lot of attention? To answer all of these questions, we picked out the most prominent healthcare startups whose products have been recognized globaly. KRY A recent yet significant startup that began its roots in European hospitals in 2015. At first, the digital product (which is a telemedicine app, one of the emerging trends in healthcare) was not accepted widely across Europe. However, after the global pandemic has begun, the amount of active users has doubled since last year February. Meanwhile, the vast majority of doctors have all agreed on the significance of this app. Due to the safe healthcare consultations that all hospital professionals can provide via this app. FibriCheck This product can be easily considered one of the most incredible and innovative mobile apps for healthcare industry trends. FibriCheck is a leading digital solution, officially recognized as the world's number one app for monitoring your heartbeat interval. Goal? To acknowledge any beat irregularities and prevent heart diseases early on. Once our team saw this fantastic product, we wanted to shine some light on it. Therefore, we took an opportunity and wrote a whole story about the FibriCheck pathway of their success! PathAI To demonstrate one of the most innovative and disruptive medical startups in the emerging trends in healthcare, there is PathAi. This product combines both AI and Machine learning to identify cancer cells inside your organism and solve pathology issues. The AI part consists of collecting data on cancer patients. Machine Learning is utilized to integrate technologies that improve possible treatments. PathAI assists pathologists with algorithms that extract images from the clients’ blood cells. They detect cancer early on and decrease the rate of human errors. It’s a genuinely magnificent digital solution that can slowly integrate into modern hospitals. K Health K Health is a product for seeking quick guidance and information about their current health condition. It is an exciting product in terms of identifying your potential diagnosis. Since the digital product does collects and combines various data from all of its users anonymously. Once done, artificial intelligence will analyze all of it to provide an insight on how you can manage your current health conditions by yourself. More than that, by providing the list of your possible diagnosis and symptoms, the app connects with the list of local specialists. So this solution is a must-try app for anyone who searches their symptoms and can’t possibly understand what is going on with him. Caption Health A startup named Bay Labs has produced another magnificent solution to benefit the current healthcare industry trends! They released a digital solution called “Caption,” described as a “device for detecting cardiovascular diseases''. The product combines AI deep learning with cardiovascular images to prevent or detect the diseases currently happening in the patient’s heart. The startup aims to accomplish a medical product for detecting cardiovascular diseases. It has a second goal though. Educate and train medical professionals about echocardiograms and make them accessible for all med experts. Caption Health is now widely recognized as one of the promising AI medical startups that can impact the future of the healthcare industry trends. Want to be next on the list of unique ideas but are afraid to choose the right tech pattern? Or you are afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and call JetRuby today! We are an experienced and professional digital agency that supports and assists various healthcare startups. We guide them through the development process from point A to point B—breaking down every step. Our team discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what’s holding you back? Leave a short description of your unique idea or a project on our first and free development step: Product Development Strategy Session. And we’ll contact you in no time! Conclusion Even though the current world situation is trying to stabilize, the healthcare industry is getting more attention and government support. For the past years, the rapid shift towards healthcare startups began to increase. Leading many founders to implement their healthcare ideas and seek acceptance from hospital professionals. The examples of medical startups illustrate the opportunities for all health projects that want to make it out to the current healthcare industry trends. Even the rejected medical startups during their project development, now have a chance to show the whole world their mindblowing ideas! For the past 10 years, JetRuby has developed more than 200+ startup products, that are rapidly scaling up and growing day by day. Regarding healthcare projects, most of our clients are sensitive and serious about their digital products. To assist them, we form an NDA policy document, implement our idea carefully, follow their requirements, and discuss the development directions. So, contact us today and learn how your potential idea can transform into a valuable product with the free Product Development Strategy Session! ### Everything you want to know about stealth startup! “A valuable and unique startup idea can open opportunities you’ve never heard of.” - some successful entrepreneurs might say to encourage young ones. While it is true that most of the startups are walking the same path that many do, there are stealth startups that don’t. Is it a company that keeps an ultimate product that can rewrite human history? Or is it a company working under governmental infrastructures? Well, it’s not like that, but it has some core parts of what we described. Let’s see why stealth startups are different from the ordinary ones and why people need them in the first place! Definition of Stealth Mode Startup Company Enable the stealth mode! A stealth startup is a startup group working on a valuable idea that can solve some significant business problems under uncertain conditions. What makes them different is the fact that the product, developed by an entrepreneur(s) is hiding in complete secrecy. Meaning that no one, even the technology patterns, doesn’t know what you are working on. To be more precise, there exist two types of stealth startups, which are: The first type is those who go "full stealth mode.” The second type focused on stealth mode inside the company. The “total stealth mode” means that all the company’s actions are being hidden and concealed as much as possible. It can hide all of its activities to the point when a startup can mislead its real goals or operate under a temporary name. All the company details are being well-hidden inside the company HQ. The “stealth inside the company” type is concerned with keeping the secrecy about its new project or a business idea as maximum confidentiality. For example, Microsoft has been known for keeping all of its projects under code-names, like Windows Vista’s name was Longhorn. All of this was done to keep up the maximum confidentiality and secrecy. As a young entrepreneur, you won’t likely use this stealth mode startup for your first try. However, you should at least be aware of it and know how you can benefit it from. The amount of things that stealth startups do is enormous, and the list goes on. Covert testing Creating a cover story Engaging informal sponsors NDA documents for all stealth startup employees. Leaving out some core business aspects to keep up the privacy bar. What are the pros of Stealth Startup? There are two major advantages that you can use for your benefit and reaching your secret company goals. Let’s take a look at each of them. Intellectual Property Confidentiality In case you are figuring out a unique idea that none of the companies or startups have created, this advantage is for you. With the stealth mode startup cover, you’ll get more development time, release your product and keep it confidential. That way, you can be sure that not a single soul can steal your idea. Anonymity If you are going through your stealth mode startup, no social media channels will notice you. Meaning that neither you nor your workers won’t have any public pressure for the things you are doing. And you can focus on the product development processes. Moreover, not even your competitors will understand who you are and what your intentions are. Cons of Stealth Startup As there are tremendous advantages made for a stealth startup, there are cons that cannot be overlooked. Some of them may affect your business stability or confidence. Let’s see each of them in more broad detail. Difficulty to find the right market fit A stealth mode startup makes it is hard to locate and identify your product’s primary consumers. You may say, “Well, the product should be available for everyone!”. But it’s not that easy as it might sound. You see, you need to determine your specific market fit to reach your company results. However, it requires definitive and in-depth marketing research and testing for various branding elements. Lack of Customer Feedback Customers and their feedback are some main things that impact the path of your startup development. But how are you going to gain any if you isolated yourself? How will you know whether you are on the right track and can succeed without this essential aspect? Some entrepreneurs may find out how they should escape from this issue. Simultaneously, others may realize this issue’s scale and shut down their businesses in mere months. So how can we, as a digital agency that assists and launches various startups, can solve it for you? First, we create an NDA document that will guarantee your business idea’s safety, as we did with the Healthcare Project. Second, we can perform an audit of your marketing audience and test the theory campaign to understand your customers’ location. Lastly, we can prepare you for a confident business pitch you may need during your development process. Want to know how you can do all of that and get a free bonus for your startup development? Leave your inquiry on a free Product Strategy Development Session and go through the Design and Discovery Phase to receive all of that! No Marketing research and Lead Warming Your startup is in full stealth mode, and that means that there is no direct marketing involved. If there is no marketing, that means no customer feedback, no proper marketing research, and no target audience awareness. It may sound optimal for those entrepreneurs who can analyze it during their active product development. But if you decided to go for startup funding, it might negatively impact your potential investors’ impression. Should I go full stealth mode? If you think that your startup is something that you and your team are okay with the stealth mode startup company, think again. Weight your options, seek which one can benefit you more and which option is the one that can guarantee that your startup will survive. Try to focus on these highlighted business points that you need to consider. Do you know your customers’ desires? The stealth mode makes it impossible to publicly search or collect feedback on your product’s current state. It is considered to be one of the most significant challenges in a stealth startup. Since you don’t want to waste your hard work, release your product and realize that not even a single customer is interested in it. That’s why you should keep in your plans a section with the user feedback. Perhaps it won’t be public testing, but you should pay attention to this step since you're risking a failure for your startup without it. Do you understand the value of your idea? Most software companies or startups tend to over-value their product. Ergo, when the time comes to demonstrate it to the public, it fails. You can’t assume that people will see your digital solution and will use it. That would be some black magic like David Blaine pulls off. On the contrary, you should get adequate feedback on your product and convince the people why they should try. There may be many approaches and opportunities that you can use to target your market while in a stealth startup. Remember, your company seeks approval from the public to test your idea within the market scope. Do you require funding? Since you are running a startup, not a typical small business, you would need to seek funding. However, it’s not that easy as it might sound. Since your startup is in the dark, you can’t assume that every investor may want to sponsor you. Every investor is interested in two things: the value of your product and market acceptance. But how are they going to know these two aspects if you haven’t tested your product? Maybe you need to seek funding within your headquarters, who can support you? All of these questions are coming from a straightforward sentence: funding gives life to your idea”. If you can’t perform market analysis, try to attract investors the other way around. You can try to rely on your team if they decide that your project is worth it. Otherwise, you should ask yourself whether you want to go down this road. When is the launch time for Stealth Startup? At some point, every stealth startup has to show its true colors and show what they've been hiding all along. So when should you do that? You determined your target market Whether you’ve identified your target audience before or during the launch of your stealth startup is a good thing to be proud of. Not only do you need to know who your customers are, but also how you can reach out to them. And that is the first step towards selling your digital solution. As a digital agency, at JetRuby, we develop and launch successful products evolving their headquarters. They had trouble pinpointing their market niche, and some were stealth startups requiring in-depth marketing research. Once they tested their healthcare product within a closed beta, they knew they chose the right tech partner and the right business direction. You can launch your startup confidently with our assistance and support. Leave your inquiry on our free Product Development Strategy Session, and we’ll make a ballpark estimation for your business roadmap in no time! Let’s say you are developing a new kind of tablet, which is explicitly different from others. In that case, narrow down the market niche that your product is going to fit the most. For example, it might be for industrial architectures or private hospitals that are cheaper and more functional than any other tablet out there. It is time to develop and adapt your product The timing and the place of your product launch are crucial for your startup success. It takes a reasonable amount of time to perfect your product, you need to know when the world will be ready to accept it. This applies to the revolutionary ones, the ones who can potentially conquer the hearts of your customers. Do you remember how Microsoft has released its first creative product as a touch tablet? There are many vital reasons why Microsoft failed, but the base one is that the people were not ready to accept it. If you have a unique product developed under the stealth mode startup, you are more likely to dominate the market. And the big companies will have to pay for your solution rather than designing their own. Your product is both unique and disruptive This part is connected with the previous point. Once the society will be adapted and ready for your product launch, it has to be unique and disruptive. This means that it should cause a mini industrial revolution in a targeted market field. Many have seen such examples, like Facebook, Amazon, Instagram, and many others. You might think that your project is outstanding among other competitors who are on your level. However, think about the big giant corporations and the feel of the product they are producing every day. Then ask yourself: Will my product conquer their ground and compete against them?” If you’re 100% positive, then stealth startup is the right thing for you. Otherwise, you can proceed with the usual startup stages and develop your product more confidently. Conclusion The stealth mode startup is a unique and peculiar one. It has its charm for producing and developing an innovative digital product that our world has yet to see. On one hand, if you run a stealth startup, you have the ultimate confidence in developing a unique product no one has ever done. On the other hand, the privacy factor allows you to exclude any public eye from your development process. However, every young entrepreneur should be aware of the challenges and milestones are hidden on a stealth startup path. It does require a lot of attention and confidence for your actions, so measure thrice cut once! In contrast, the amateur ones should rely on the experience and knowledge of their previous mistakes and businesses that they have opened. If you are a stealth startup that needs immediate support and tries its best to start a cover-up business, JetRuby can assist you. Our digital agency is ready to help such startups be hidden marketing research or guidance towards the right product development path. Leave a short description of your product concept, and we’ll get back to you during our free Product Development Strategy Session! ### What do you need to know about startup directories? You managed to launch your startup product, and you are proud of the work you have accomplished. What’s your next step? As an entrepreneur, you need to gain more awareness of what you do and what your startup is all about. To help you with that, there are startup platforms that can get the first load of traffic. To build a relevant and robust linking platforms network, any entrepreneur doesn’t need to sweat about it much. The only thing you do need is a great business idea that you own, your profile on several platforms, and viola! Your first visitors are lurking on your website! Purpose of Startup Directories Main goals of any given startup platform out there! The primary purpose of any given startup platform is to show the startup’s solution to searchers’ specific needs. So you need to show what kind of value you are delivering and referring to while featuring your company in a startup listing platform. Some other core purposes of startup directories include the following: Gaining trust from your customers - The customers who may check you on these startup platforms will feel relief and confidence in your business since they will believe that your business is real and you’re no scam. Link Building - As you’ll be registering not only on one startup platform, all of them will give you excellent link building. Traffic Generation - By listing your business in many startup directories, it will ensure that your company website ranking will be going higher. Meanwhile, it will help to create networking and link-sharing processes among other websites. Importance of getting your business on startup platforms The critical value of publishing your business on startup platforms and being involved there is to get leads from a relevant target market. After that comes the drastic increase in its page ranking and a good SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) placement in Google. Some listed startup platforms establish various drip campaigns throughout their social media channels, including different startup formations. Exactly that helps startups to create a stable startup brand image and gain more product awareness. Other startup directories are actively providing email newsletters, blog publications, or simple startup/startup product reviews. That can significantly help young entrepreneurs during their business journey. Is there any risk involved in startup directories? “No doubt, that there can’t be only positive aspects of publishing your business in the best startup directories, right?” - such a question might suddenly popup in a founder’s head. Well, technically speaking, there are no negative aspects that can harm you when you submit your startup to these platforms. The only potential danger is the directories with no peer-reviewing option and may not even be relevant to your startup. Exactly those startup directories will potentially hurt your SEO and bring an irrelevant target audience to your website. For that reason, we picked only the most valuable and trending startup platforms out there. One thing to jot down is that don’t think of these platforms as your lifebelt. Remember, it is only a first step towards getting your customers attracted. It’s not going to solve all of your problems, nor it’s going to leave your startup with nothing. Think of it as your first marketing goal that shows you the way to the social media channel and other relevant marketing tools. When should I utilize startup platforms? Catch the right timing for using startup directories to gain more traffic! We suggest any entrepreneur make his product go through at least a good of 1 to 2 months of core feature development. After that, you can start to appear on all startup directories actively. For example, at JetRuby, we take two development stages and produce two core components required to complete an MVP development process. These two startup technology phases are the Product Development Strategy Session and the Design and Discovery Phase. The first one will produce a free ballpark estimate for your project strategy. At the same time, the second one will lay a solid foundation for your product core development phase. If you want to know more about each, check out how we can help you, and our team will assist your startup project! However, you can submit your startup via various social media and some startup directories, even without your product release. But only if you can provide your product value through different snippets of your development process. Then, it won’t hurt at all, and you’ll be doing a good job warming up your market segment. The other thing worth mentioning here is the accepted time. Yes, some platforms are very strict and specific towards their guidelines. They take time to process your information and verify you as a legitimate startup company. For that, it takes roughly one to two days, maybe a little more, to accept your filled profile. Others might get your account at once, so you’ll have no issue during the registration. We recommend you plan out your startup platform deployment time. Probably a week before your first product iteration release or during one of the initial stages of startup development. Want to know what are the other ones? Read our article where we break down your startup development stage, bit by bit. What data do I need to provide on startup platforms? Lots of necessary aspects and points are developed and produced by every startup during its very first phases. Exactly most of its information is partially required to be filled in the majority of startup platforms. You may not necessarily use this information on all the platforms listed below. However, you still may require it in other things (for example, setting up your email newsletter or your website blog). Product name Company name Company Logo Main website Company Location Employees number Funding Raised 4-5 product screenshots Product video Year of foundation Name of the founder(s) Awards/Nominations Brief description Long description Tags/Hashtags Target Audience The business problem Unique value proposition Social media channels Pricing packages Top 5 best startup directories to gain your first users The listing's primary focus is on the most active and popular platforms based around startups or new digital products. All of that was also backed up with the DR (Domain Rate) parameter. It is a grading scope that shows the likelihood of getting your website on the first page of Google. Exactly that can also play a massive role in your marketing. Since it is a mixture of both the product reviews and the startup directories, both play a massive role in traffic generation. Simultaneously, the second one is used to gain more startup awareness and their business idea solution. The first ones are concerned with sharing the understanding and customer reviews on the startup digital products, which is still essential. Without further ado, let’s review each of them in broad detail! Crunchbase (UR - 85 & DR - 90) Crunchbase is a leading startup directory, with over 50 million active registrations. Most of them are investors, market researchers, entrepreneurs, and startups. Typically, the platform has only four distinct ways of sourcing the data: machine learning, in-house data team, venture program, and the Crunchbase community. G2 (UR - 83 & DR - 89) G2 is one of the most reliable product reviewing websites out there. Here you can actively encourage your customers to leave reviews for better recognition. G2 profile reports allow your startup to show your product’s current performance. And if you upgrade your profile, you'll access the sponsored content to reach more target customers. Capterra (UR - 83 & DR - 89) Another trustworthy product platform where you can just create a free listing and add customer reviews. Your profile will also be added to Capterra, GetApp, and Software Advice as they are part of the Gartner Digital Markets network. You can even upgrade your account to the "Pay Per Click" listing for more visibility. Finances Online (UR - 53 & DR - 84) Finances Online is a comprehensive platform, which specifically concentrates on the SaaS and B2B products. All the reviews are analyzed and backed up with expert product reviews. Just submit your startup profile to the platform, get some reviews, and you can already expect stable traffic to drive on your website slowly. ProductHunt (UR - 85 & DR - 90) Product Hunt is a free platform with thousands of users, where new startup digital products are discovered every day. Every user has the opportunity to test your product and leave their honest review to get your startup going. Submit your startup product in any kind of state. It doesn’t matter if it's in a beta or alpha state. As long as you have the guidelines of your product usage, it'll work out. Furthermore, you can get highlighted in a daily email newsletter. There are far more various communities out there. However, we took a glance at the most important ones. To have a more broad list of all startup platforms and get the maximum value out of it, download it right here! Marketing step in startup directories For creating stable inbound traffic, you can market other startup profiles via your social media. Thus, creating more potential clients and targeting the right audience. Word of advice, though. Before you push the traffic from startup directories, make sure that your website has all that it needs to attract potential lead customers. Set up all the lead magnets and CTA buttons to fully capture your customer for your startup services. Besides, once you register on the previously highlighted startup platforms, you can partner with other similar startups. Along with that, all directories serve as backlinks to your main website, which will boost your content higher in search engine ranks. Conclusion We hope that the presented best startup directories or startup platforms will assist every entrepreneur reading this article. By receiving more awareness and gaining more targeted traffic on your main website. You can find even more startup platforms to get the most leads possible, but don’t concentrate on them for too long. Spend your time wisely and allocate, prioritizing each task accordingly. At JetRuby, we provide help and assistance to young startups. Especially when they are not entirely sure how the development process of their product should be done. To cope with and solve this issue, we have created a technology called Product Development Strategy Session. This meeting is oriented to assess your project scope and give you a ballpark estimate of your product development flow’s correct guidance. If you got interested, contact us today for a free session, and we’ll schedule a meeting for you tomorrow! Otherwise, if your concern is about your marketing and where you should begin, we can assist you with the Design and Discovery Phase. This technology is concentrating on producing the project plan and testing your digital product’s marketing hypothesis. So if you think it will fit you more, drop us a message, and we’ll discuss your business idea together. ### Ensure your startup growth with the right tech stack! “So many choices and so little time! Which one should I choose?”. As intriguing as this quote may sound, various startup tech stacks and programming languages are chosen by a variety of criteria. For example, did you know that Facebook manages its platform on a PHP server with the React scripts? Though there are others, far more functional stacks, they are staying at the roots of the LAMP tech stack. It’s 2021 and various entrepreneurs are beginning to ask themselves: “What kind of startup tech stack will fit me?” To answer this question, JetRuby prepared an insight into the most trending tech stacks that are going to be a blast in 2021. What is a Tech Stack and do I need to care about it? A tech stack or a solution stack is a mixture of various programming technologies used to launch a software platform or an app. A regular tech stack consists of the following 5 core aspects: front-end tool & backend technologies, programming language, a database, a framework, and infrastructure. When you start your business or try to form a startup, the question regarding the choice of the right startup tech stack is important. Even though all tech stacks can give you the majority of your app requirements, some distinct from others. Some other not less important questions that may arise include the following: What is the cost of developing a mobile app? What is the cost of the app design? How much time do I need to develop all of that? What should I do after its initial launch? What is the cost of the ownership? How hard it is to add more app changes or revisions? If you skip this step, it will impact the app processing from the customer’s side. That’s why to be attentive when you’ll have the opportunity to look for various options. To better understand what you can choose, the JetRuby team has prepared it all for you. Which startup tech stack should I choose in 2021? We’ve done the research and have put the puzzles to estimate a future vision for the 2021 year. Behold the results! Ruby on Rails RoR or Ruby on Rails is a neat framework that as you might guess helps various developers build websites and applications. The key aspect that defines Ruby on Rails is its convention over configuration processes. This means that you don't need to spend your time configuring everything by your hands. Ruby is kicking hard RoR or Ruby on Rails is a neat framework that as you might guess helps various developers build websites and applications. The key aspect that defines Ruby on Rails is its convention over configuration processes. This means that you don't need to spend your time configuring everything by your hands. Ruby is kicking hard Did we hear the echoes of the lost developers, who said that Ruby on Rails is dead and everyone should forget about it? Well, it’s quite the opposite, as we can assure you of that. Here are 5 reasons why that is not true! Time-Efficient Development Speed - The increased development speed comes from the fascinating number of available plugins. That allows developers to cut the unnecessary time to write default chunks of code. One of the Ruby on Rails researches proved that the vast majority of RoR apps are developed 30% to 40% faster. Scalability - If you developed an app for a fast MVP, Ruby on Rails can scale your product according to your business needs. If your users are increasing or your app is beginning to slowly evolve, there is a place for taking high traffic loads. Dynamic Community - Apart from all other stack communities out there, the RoR one is staying active by this day. It is open when it comes to development or asking any development questions. Variety of Tools - The extensive amount of tools discovered in packed dependencies is astonishing. What's more interesting is that most of the tools can apply to different amounts of common issues. What are the Ruby uses? We saw that RoR has the guts to hold. But there is another question: “What kind of business fields does the RoR tech stack use?” Here are a few trending ones! MVP - Due to Ruby’s simplicity, the choice of startups falls on the MVP, due to fast and efficient development preparations. Here, you can update, upgrade, and test new functions to further advance and scale your initial version into a grown digital product. Social Media Apps - Ruby as a language itself is a reliable one, for connecting and managing heavy-traffic platforms, such as Twitter, for example. It’s no wonder that Airbnb is based on it. Since it is capable of taking huge data chunks of bookings or payment transactions from similar apps. E-Commerce Platforms - The E-Commerce market has grown and it's no wonder that RoR has taken a huge leap in it. For example, Shopify is a good example that provides places for over 800k online stores. Ruby on Rails is a flexible and cost-effective solution for many developers seeking fast development and heavy traffic management. MERN / MEAN / MEVN Every developer has most likely at least tried once to implement some kind of app on the MEAN, MERN, or MEVN web stack. And it's no wonder, all of them are popular since you don't need to build the application right from the scratch. All of them have lots of various dependencies and approaches that allow you to achieve faster and streamlined results. MEAN or MERN or MEVN stacks are similar since all of them are based on JavaScript frameworks. All of them include MongoDB, Express.js, and Node.js. The distinct difference among all the three is the front-end technology that they use. It's either Angular.js, React.js, or Vue.js. But what combines all the three ones? First, all the tool are open-source Second, all of them are fast-paced in web development processes. And, third, they are multifunctional tech stacks that can implement web apps and mobile apps. MERN/MEAN/MEVN Reasons to Use Short Loading Time - All the JavaScript frameworks out there are running their code on the client workstation. This means that there is no point in heavy and unnecessary use of the servers. Since not only it assists in replacing the need of the hoping server, but it shortens the loading time. Thanks to every JS framework for being asynchronous, as it communicates with its backend technologies without interrupting the current user engagement. Singular environment - All the described tools used to deliver the best application for your industry are based on JavaScript language. Thus, it is much easier to get around it and configure the given framework for your needs. And that's where the efficiency of this language arises. As developers have to know only JavaScript and JSON. Easy to Learn - In terms of learning any JS-related framework all of them are easy to learn for new developers. Because the JS syntax is very flexible and simplifies the composition of the app code structure. Popularity - Currently, the MERN/MEAN/MEVN stacks are popular among lots of technical industries. This means that you can have a huge pool of various IT professionals that can understand your startup idea and find the right solution. MERN/MEAN/MEVN Popular Usages Video Streaming Apps - One of the best examples where any of the given JS frameworks can show its true power is Netflix. A platform that uses a huge amount of tests that will build a rich experience for its user base. Another thing to note on the achievement list is that Netflix has achieved a 70% reduction in startup time. Payment Apps - Most online transactions should be fast and secure. That's why lots of companies prefer to choose MERN/MEAN/MEVN stacks as their primary ones. PayPal is a good example for this case and it's not a wonder. Since not only it resolved the milestones with their security but allowed them to merge the frontend and backend technologies. Shifting everything under the JS tech stack basis. Project Management Apps - Another not a famous one, but a solid and interactive project that you do with any given JS tech stack. Trello is one of those examples. Good use of Node.js as its primary backend technology made a single-page app to update and manage various updates in other companies or organizations. LAMP Most of the old-school developers have started with this classic web stack that passed through years of constant enhancement. It is popular and considered to be one of the common web development stacks while being outsourced. Such CMS platforms as WordPress and Joomla are still using it since they provide concrete stability and simplicity. LAMP creates a new path for creating fast and new web apps. LAMP Reasons to use Even though the LAMP tech stack has been on the Internet for a long time, it is still being used to this day. Surprising, isn't it? Let's take a look at the reasons or benefits of why the LAMP is still dynamic. Flexible Scalability - The LAMP stack is easy to manage and operate. Along with that, it allows modifying your app according to your business requirements. Besides, the majority of the services (MariaDB, PHP, Linux, and Apache) are open-source and you don't need any additional expenses from your budget. Linux Hosting - The majority of demonstrated tech stacks are hosting their apps on their backend technologies or other services. Meanwhile, the LAMP stack utilizes Linux servers for that. And not only you can change the settings, but make your hosting server much more secure. OS Independence - You can use whatever operating system you desire. Be it a Mac, Linux, Windows, or any other one, the LAMP stack is accessible across all platforms available. Mature Stack - LAMP stack is still being used by this day, for 23 years. Meaning that all of its components have developed into a stable stage where no unexpected bugs or errors may occur. That also means that there is a community that ultimately supports and assists every early developer. LAMP Popular Usages Social Media Apps - As we mentioned at the beginning of our article, Facebook started and is still utilized by the LAMP stack. Mark Zuckerberg is constantly updating it with various tools and features but keeps the same stack nonetheless. Social Messaging Apps - Have you heard anyone say that they are using the chatting app and based on PHP? Well, maybe you never knew this one, but the LAMP stack was used to build a Slack app. Yes, the one specifically created for various organizations and corporations. The creator explained that even though PHP has flaws, the LAMP stack shows its best when it comes to developing large scale apps. A friendly word from our CTO Lots of people have different views upon every startup tech stack available to them and each has their own opinion on that. For that reason, we approached our own CTO and asked him a couple of questions that might significantly interest you. Take a look at the results! - Suppose the client that wants to partner with us and develop a product of his own, doesn't have any experience in a technical field. How can we help him choose the right tech stack for a startup of his own? - It rarely happens when a client with no technical knowledge or experience comes to our team. Since most of the time, the client will already know what exactly he wants to accomplish. However, there were certain scenarios where such a thing happened. Depending on the provided list of requirements we try to find something both suitable and considerable for the client's idea. We also take a look at his business idea and the goal that he wants to achieve. Suppose a client comes to us, and we see that he has very little knowledge regarding the backend technologies or any tech stack. Then we would recommend him to go through the Design and Discovery Phase. Within it, he will pick the right tech stack suited for his project, and put on the right track of his business path. Right now, we simplify this process even more since we provide a so-called Product Development Strategy Session. It's completely free. We adjust the client's vision of his app development path and produce a ballpark estimate for his project plan. So, we highly advise everyone to go and try it out. It won't hurt nor you or your business, since it is free. - What do you think, what is the best startup tech stack as of right now and will it be popular in 2021? Hey, that question is illegal! You can't ask a Ruby developer, like me what is the best startup tech stack in my opinion. The answer is obvious! But let's put that aside first and discuss it in detail. If you look retrospectively at the popularity state during the past 10 years, I can say that RoR has never been so demanding. However, as of right now the most trending and popular tech stacks are the Node applications and SPA (Single-Page Application). Meaning that both frontend and backend technologies are occupied by JavaScript tools: Node.js and React/Vue.JS/Angular. Since right now the market is flooding with JavaScript Development works. At a time when RoR started to take its popularity place till it achieved its highest peak by this day. Now it is stability holding a stable, trending development path. JavaScript, on the other hand, has a bombastic and rapid increase in its popularity. By this day it is increasing day by day. But I think that they will stabilize sooner or later, just like it happened to RoR. So, will the JavaScript stacks be popular at least during the next 5 years or so? Yep, definitely. However, will it be at this level of popularity? I can't say that. I think it will probably diminish its infamous popularity and will become stabilized. Ruby on Rails on the other hand will stay in the position that they are currently holding. They won't get low nor spike higher. They will stay still in the same position. Another stack worth mentioning here is the Phoenix and Elixir backend technologies. At one point in time, they spiked suddenly and out of nowhere. But as of right now, I can't say anything definitive, as there was little to no news about them recently. - What kind of recommendations can you give to the young entrepreneurs who have issues when selecting the right technologies for their startup? Every businessman desires to invest less money, and gain more results. If you are from that type of person, then you should look for something that is extensively popular on the market. Thus, less expensive. For now, this is JavaScript, since the market has lots of JavaScript developers. Making it easy to start your development production. If we're talking about a proof of concept that should be tested on the market, then you should go on with Ruby on Rails. And your solution will be finished rapidly. Compared to JavaScript front and backend technologies it takes time and energy to finish up a project. And the vast majority of startups don't survive up to the time when they can develop something of their own. For that, I would suggest going through the Design and Discovery Phase, to enhance your product development path and prepare yourself for the MVP. There you can test your theories, make prototypes and unveil your product value. Go ahead, leave your inquiry and we’ll assist your project from start to finish. - Can you name 3 reasons, why do you think Ruby on Rails is still popular by this day? Well, we have to go deeper into the Ruby on Rails tech stack and try to understand it. First, Ruby on Rails was created at the dawn of times when no solid release of any stack has been created. It was 2004 and most likely you'll be using basic frontend PHP, while all the cool stuff was done by Google. Meanwhile, JavaScript was used for animations. Since those times, lots of things have changed in requirement terms of apps. Now, most companies concentrate on the interaction between the user and the app. And Ruby on Rails has walked alongside with all the relevant changes. For example, as JavaScript was rising its popularity, Ruby on Rails was focusing on various integration for JavaScript within its development processes. The stack stayed actual at all times. Second, they are much faster during the development process. Most Ruby on Rails packages come with prescribed solutions for all default development scenarios. The libraries are bug-free and are supported by the Ruby community. Compared to JavaScript, the latter one has lots of dependencies scattered across the Internet and may be outdated. Third, I think the most iconic one. JetRuby has a huge amount of various and successful projects on the Ruby on Rails stack. It's a good startup tech stack to get your project with and a solid tool for rapid, stable, and scalable digital solutions. We welcome every entrepreneur or businessman who tries to implement his or her idea. Hit us up and let's discuss how we can assist you! Final Conclusion As you saw different technologies, even though can apply to every industry, are better to be used in some specific industry fields. We suggest you be careful whenever the question arises regarding the startup tech stack you have to choose for your next application. Changing some core programming languages in various stacks that are available may have consequences when you’ll be growing your business. You might have guessed what kind of stack JetRuby uses in most of the projects that we have done. Some people might say different things about the “Ruby on Rails” stack. We assure you, that during the 10 years of mastering and creating various applications, our team is one of the best ones out there. What kind of idea do you have? Is it the next healthcare creative app or an E-commerce platform for traveling services? Let us know what you have in mind, and we’ll launch your project with no excessive expenses and a strict time frame! ### Optimistic strategy of a solid business pitch Any startup needs substantial capital to start its own business. Otherwise, they won't be able to survive that long until they hit their success. For that reason, entrepreneurs are doing various pitch techniques to win over potential investors’ trust and get sweet capital investment. Pretty much every entrepreneur knows that, right? But not many knows how they should conduct a business pitch. Not many wins the required investment plan and continue the struggle of a constant fight. So, how do you succeed in winning the battle of the many? What should you talk about? How to pull yourself together? All of that and even more was explicitly prepared to assist you, young entrepreneur, to understand how you can perform a successful business pitch! What does “business pitch” mean, and why is it important? A pitch deck, startup pitch, or "pitch an idea" is a short presentation done by young entrepreneurs for attracting potential investors. The main point of a business pitch is to let your investors know what your business is all about. Surprisingly, most of the startups think that the main point of pitching is to secure a good amount of funding. Along with prolonging the life of your startup at least for another year. This indeed is one of the final outputs that one can get from a successful business pitch. However, the main goal of any business pitch prepared for initial investors is to make it out to your next meeting. The most notorious and biggest issue that haunts entrepreneurs during the presentation is that you won't have time to cover everything about your business. That's why you need to create a presentation that covers only the most important topics inside a PPT slide deck. For now, let's explore what exactly do you need to prepare before conducting the business pitch. Pitching Essential Points Understand business pitching essentials There are tons of things that should be considered when you are presenting your business idea to the group's potential investors. Starting from your presentation font size and ending with the sharpened speech. However, we want to highlight three essentials that every entrepreneur should know about and should get right. Make it Short and Concise As we mentioned, time is a very limited resource when you need to pitch an idea. Once you start to present your business idea the investors can tell you whether they want to continue on or stop immediately. This happens during the very first 30 seconds when you start the presentation. Make every second count and make your business pitch short and concise to win the interest of your potential investors. The simpler and faster the pitch is, the easier it is for the investors to understand your business idea. By the time countdown is up, your audience should understand the market need, your solution, and the product's target audience. A small entrepreneur tip: make your speech clear and valuable. Don't throw your business pitch examples on the investor's desk. Set a flow for your business idea, be bold and simple. Don't try to tell a story to investors. They've lots of them, and they are interested only in the value of your startup. Highlight your Team The majority of startups who present their business idea tend to either do it by themselves or with another co-founder. However, what's missing is to show an inner insight into your team's value during your startup operations. As it can significantly impact the first impression for your investors. Try to highlight the key aspects where your team excels and demonstrate how valuable it is for the target audience. For example, say you took along your technical CTO and are describing his work in a few sentences. Avoid sentences like "Bob has developed a new feature that allowed users to open the app faster". Say: "Yesterday Bob has found a few client reviews that were complaining about the app speed. He immediately rushed and fixed it, which significantly boosted our brand image for our customers." All of these small things makes your team look credible and valuable during the presentation. Each comment for each employee will provide a realistic insight into the members' work and what kind of role do they fulfill. Another thing is, you will affirm your leadership skills and resolve to lead your company. Light up your own market spot During the pitching session, you're going through the market size slide, which identifies the potential market for the product (or TAM). Many entrepreneurs are showing confidence in their eyes when they are saying that they can take over an identified market segment. It might seem like a very solid decision to actually go ahead with this path many have walked through. However, nearly 95% of space consisting of bigger and stronger companies are occupying this space. Therefore, you need to show something that none has yet encountered, since targeting a broad market is futile for a beginner startup. The investors are expecting you to show a target market that is very specific for your solution. Which can pick your business ship onto higher tides with slow and constant uplifting. That way, you'll show the right path of market occupation for your given solution. We've seen the important aspects of a business pitch that you should take note of. Now let's finally look at the breakdown of your presentation slide. What should your presentation look like? You’ve traveled through many startup stages. Now you are wondering: “How should my product pitch deck look like?” and “How do I gain the attention of my investors?”. Listen carefully, as this simple advice may play a good card in your favor. First, let’s focus on the optimal number of slides on your presentation deck. We suggest having at least 10 pieces. Less and you won’t be interesting. More and you’ll be boring. Number 10 is a good one to portray and present the essential information to your potential investors. To have a practical demonstration, we'll demonstrate to you one of the best product pitch deck examples that our startups have shared with us. The Product Slide A business pitch slide that depicts the product for the given startup project. The first slide should present what is your product and its short description. If you want to make it more attractive, add the images of the companies who have tried your product and support it. The Business Problem A business pitch slide that depicts the problem statement for the given startup project. The next slide that should come is the actual problem that your business is trying to solve. You need to state where your business plays a key role in solving identified problems. Who is your target audience and show the demandable level of your topic as of right now. A word of advice, try to use a more simplified example during your presentation, like infographics or bullet points. Highlight your problem and make it feel like it is a big one that requires attention to your target audience. That is a trick to make your investors believe you. The Solution A business pitch slide that depicts the solution statement for the given startup project. Solution slide has to be both simple and constructive, especially if you are developing a digital app. Apart from that, it has to be scalable. That aspect will show the investors that your product won't be left on the forgotten shelf of yet another store. But it will evolve and envelope into something much more revolutionary. Try to forge the right moment in the global world when you should present your solution. If you do it early, you'll be rejected. If you do it late, you'll be outnumbered. The Market Size A business pitch slide that depicts the market size for the given startup solution. Third slide focuses on the market sizing of your solution. The territory that you prioritize. Demonstrate the power of your TAM, SAM, and SOM research. Give lots of evidence/citations/reviews to support your claim for the chosen to market size. The Team One of the no less important pitch deck slides is the startup team members. It will define who is at the wheel of your business ship and how they are sailing across the ocean. If you are confident in your own team, it'll be no issue to guarantee your startup growth and win the investment plan. Although, there is a workaround for that situation that JetRuby is trying to bring up and that is the Product Development Strategy Session. Where our experts will assess your idea, your plan, correct your development path and even suggest various enhancements. All of that for free! So, if you are worried about the uncertain results that you might produce, we can guarantee that with us your chances will rapidly increase. On the other hand, if you are a first-time startup trying to get its funding, it's quite opposite. When someone invests in a startup like that, they will also invest in the errors and mistakes that may appear on your way unexpectedly. The Early Adopters A business pitch slide that depicts the early adopters for the given startup project. The adopters or better first testers of your new solution who have given their feedback and are supporting your startup. This could be both the big, famous companies or simple user reviews. Both will show that your solution is valuable and is desirable for your target market. The Competition A business pitch slide that depicts the main competitors for the given startup project. The slide above demonstrates one of the best pitch deck slides where your product is being compared to your competitors. Make a diagram or infographics where it simply shows what kind of benefits you have and what others have done. What value do you hold and what others are missing. It is optional, but you can include the amount of money, which was invested by your competitors. This will give an insight into how much the market is paying and could become your trump card when negotiating for an investment plan. The Business Model The business model slide is basically the core slide for your presentation that you must have. It plays a critical piece of your business that you should present in both simple and accurate terms. Here, the group of investors will understand how will you get the revenue from the generated sales and how will your customers pay you. If you put the estimated pricing plan, that will help too. Anything that can imbue confidence in your business model into the minds and hearts of your investors will be a big bonus. Including the market validation. Which is direct evidence stating that your product is demanded by the market (aka sales as maximum, or client's reviews as a minimum). If you want to research more on that topic, you can check the materials that can assist you in our article. The Revenue Projections A business pitch slide that depicts the revenue projections for the given startup project. The projection's slide purpose is to let the investors know that their invested money won't go to waste. To prove that, you need to explain why the investors' money will attract more customers. Since, before you even asked for an investment your sales were growing slowly. Once you'll get the right capital amount, your sales will grow rapidly. Since you'll be spending this capital as fuel for your growth engine (marketing, salespeople, etc.). The diagram from the slide above can be projected from your startup financial model. The Ask A business pitch slide that depicts the ask statement for the given startup project. Obviously that right at the end of your presentation, like the ending credits for your movie, you'll be asking the investment. Thus, do be very strategic and don't smash that bold number tag right on the slide. As demonstrated above, put a range between your minimum investment number and the maximum amount as desired. This will allow other firms to have an opportunity to invest in your idea and become a part of your main supporters. Try to gain as many supporters as you can, go with ranges rather than numbers. To be ultimately prepared for presenting your potential business idea, the JetRuby team highly recommends going through the Design and Discovery Phase. This is a crucial step for any startup beginner. Not to solely prepare for the business pitch, but to develop a solid ground for your launch. Worried that your aimed results won't be fulfilled? That's not an issue, since JetRuby has successfully launched lots of other startup projects that are continuing to grow and scale! Go ahead and see how we can assist you with your project! In addition to the highlighted slides, don’t forget to come early for your meeting. At least 5 minutes earlier than your investors. Come a bit later, then forget about winning investment for your product. If the meeting is going to be conducted online, email your slides 10 minutes before the actual presentation. That way the chances of your meeting being canceled are low. It might be stupid to say this but be prepared with a physical backup of your slides version. Since these days, you don’t know what to expect from the investors. Final Words All in all, the key for a successful business pitch is to be straight with investors and tell a clear vision of your company. Use the allocated time for your presentation to wisely deliver the major value of your product. JetRuby has extensive experience with a vast number of projects completed in various business industries. If you need to implement your idea within a concrete time and a limited budget, we can assist you with that. That’s why we help young businesses to connect both the business part of their company and the technical one, providing a bulletproof foundation! See what we can offer you with the Product Development Strategy Session and how you can benefit from us! Be ready to answer some hardcore questions from startup veterans. Since they have passed through difficult times, they do know what is a success. So try to expand their vision with how your business can become part of their own successful chapter of their own book. If you have succeeded in pitching your business idea and securing your first investment plan, congratulations! Your next step is to place your neat idea plan into the hands of a confident and strong technical partner. ### Take a Right Path of Your Business Roadmap! How many times have you stumbled across a milestone that gave you a headache? You'll be looking for various solutions, but none of them will work. The right one will be a business roadmap. A business roadmap is much like the journey path that you outline for your company. A stable platform for your business ideas to grow successfully while avoiding expensive mistakes. There are many ways to make it yourself. However, where are the direct guarantees that your business will pull through? Therefore, as a digital product development company, we want to share a tour approach to save your time and expenses—a business roadmap or a startup roadmap designed explicitly for young entrepreneurs. Our team presents you with a special interview about the development process in the Design and Discovery phase. Business Analytics - Hello there! Could you introduce yourself to our audience? - Hi Mark, my name is Server Ashyrov! I’m a lead business analyst at JetRuby, who specializes in providing essential and mandatory artifacts for startups in their preliminary preparations for the MVP phase. - How long have you been working as a business analyst at JetRuby? - Well, technically, I work already five years as a business analyst and still enjoy it to this day! In my previous companies, I have worked as a project manager for various business and IT projects. - Why did you decide to change your career path to a business analyst suddenly? - As I have been working and involving myself in many different projects, I have always found myself attracted to initial digital product development. There’s something magical in it, I swear. When you try to visualize and glue the puzzles in a singular picture (both from the client and your side), it feels truly unique. When I just started it out at this digital product development agency (JetRuby), I remember that when I sat at my office and started our first project, I cannot go back to anything else. The process of creating all niche and necessary tools has seriously interested me and found what I truly wanted to do. If we roll back just five years ago and look at our company’s state, we’ll say that we didn’t have any analytical team members and any working platforms for startups. During the time of hard work, our department had undergone some profound changes. Apart from team assembly, we gain an insight into how analytics work in companies, what they do, and their central role in startup roadmaps and projects. After gaining enough experience and knowledge, we formed a Design and Discovery phase. We are continuously supporting it to assist various startups in their early development days while providing multiple business analytics services. Some of them would be: filling up the business canvas model, researching product competitors, and determining entry requirements for a new product in a given business field. All of that will assure a solid product launch of a startup. - Can you briefly describe the Design and Discovery Phase and how important it is for startups? - Yes, of course, I guess every reader has already thought to himself: “What is Design and Discovery anyway?”. I’ll get straight to the point. JetRuby and me, as a co-creator, define the Design and Discovery Phase as an initial stage of any product idea that creates a clear vision of a future product and the correct development path. It's like a business roadmap, specifically designed for young and aspiring entrepreneurs. The ending deliverable artifact is a project plan with projected deadlines and an estimated budget prepared for an MVP. We typically help fresh startups or those who may not have full insight into their product business goals during it. Design and Discovery Phase is a very flexible tool that helps to launch your project, understand its goal and avoid numerous surprises along the development stage, where you’ll be motivated to work productively, as you’ll gain an insight into what you want, how you want to accomplish it, and how much work you require to do. In short, this is a definitive guide on “how to develop a digital product by yourself”. This phase or step is a simple solution for the core functionalities to gain a precise understanding of your future creation. It is also about laying a correct business roadmap for the outcomes to guide you towards a successful and selling product. - How did you or anyone else form the idea of the Design and Discovery Phase? Where are the roots of it?  - Oh, that’s an interesting question! I think I remember the very first steps towards the Design and Discovery phase. It started when we noticed a sudden spike of creativity waves that soon defined a new design trend, which resulted in the generation of many design sprints. We carefully examined some trending ones from various companies that have shared them publicly and based on the default ones, and we created our innovative ones! While this creativity wave was still in the sea, we caught it, and surprisingly for us, we got ourselves the very first client! He expressed his desire for this kind of work, and we executed it specifically for him. It wasn’t the same Design and Discovery phase as it is right now, as it was just the cut version. Once our head of client engagement has completed it, we understood that we could further develop it and assist young startups. - When you handle the project, are you the only one who is in it? Or you cooperate with your BA team too? One business analyst is responsible for one project only. So he is making all calls to the client and manages the entire process of the Design and Discovery Phase. Sometimes, if there’s a need, we can discuss some uncertainties or questions with the team after the client’s call. When a business analyst is getting assigned to a specific client, he won’t be transferred to any additional work. The Design and Discovery Phase is a pervasive and complex project. And one business analyst will be in charge of constructing every future app aspect. And if, in theory, you’ll get assigned to another project and you’ll be creating another business roadmap, you’ll deliver a single project with two ideas combined. This can happen because you continually involve yourself in these solutions. - What exactly makes you motivated in the work that you do? All of the jobs that I am doing are interesting. And what makes me motivated is that you are prototyping and projecting the initial steps for future digital product development that might change the world for the better. You are at the wheel for launching the future of the product. This is an intriguing creative process that I execute with various professional tools along with certified practices. They involve the iOS, Android, or Web applications guidelines that have been adjusted for easier product releases. We combine them along with the client’s perception to get the desired result. - Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk with you. I’ll be keeping in touch with you for future topics! - No problem, see you soon and Happy New Year! Project Manager - Good day, Dmitry! Can you introduce yourself to our blog audience? - Hi Mark, of course! My name is Dmitry Baklikov. I am the head of the client engagement department. - How exactly did you join in the process of the Design and Discovery Phase? - Honestly, it depends on the role that I am taking during any given project. Sometimes, I am acting as a “Sales Manager.” In that case, I’ll be signing the contract during the engagement stage and observing the project development process. The agreement itself consists of 2 parts: MSA (customer relationship management) and SLW (all stated work tasks and results). However, most of the time, I act as a “Project Manager'' during the Design and Discovery phase. The very first thing I do is launch a kick-off meeting. Its purpose is to introduce the team, get acquainted with each other, present the required steps and deliver results in the Design and Discovery phase. Also, while doing so, I discuss all questions from the client’s side. Once the entire phase finishes, the final step is to present, together with the team, a complete plan for MVP. Inside of it, we describe what kind of product functions will be done, how it will be done, what kind of technologies will be used, etc. So we can say that this is pretty much like a business roadmap or startup roadmap, which comes way before the MVP stage. Once the client sees it, he has two options: he accepts the proposal and moves on to the MVP stage with us, or he’ll go to other digital companies with the complete plan and ask to assess his idea. - Can you tell me more about the very first project that happened during the Design and Discovery phase? How was it? - Well, it was quite a long ago. Since that time, the Design and Discovery Phase has undergone various and massive changes. That’s why the very first results that we achieved were a simple spin of the wheel. The results that we produced were good, and the platform was launched. However, the difference between what was done before and now is colossal. The client of the “Help My Task” project came into our Lviv office in Ukraine with only an idea. At that time, one of our sales managers was right there, so he successfully explained all the benefits and advantages of the Design and Discovery phase so quickly. I have thoroughly described all of the required steps necessary to be implemented for the project to succeed. His platform’s idea was born from a few analytical articles that Google has expressly given us on the search, a marketplace for freelancers. If I were to summarize the overall score of the very first project that we did, I’d say that it was completed in a raw format and its only purpose was to get the very first and initial results. We didn’t think through further digital product development (aka MVP) cause the stated two weeks of research and development wasn’t enough for us to cover up every aspect of the app. However, as of right now, the Design and Discovery phase has mutated very quickly. The majority of the projects have changed their direction of development. For example, our fellow project “Beazzy”. A business selling marketplace is now heading towards the MVP and further scaling plans necessary for its healthy development. Overall we are glad that the Design and Discovery phase has changed so much. Now, it is correctly sending various startups on their right paths! - What exactly do you enjoy the most during the Design and Discovery phase? - Didn’t expect this question to pop up here suddenly! I can say that I pretty much like every stage in the Design and Discovery Phase since every step is an inalienable continuation of the previous one. Some of them are a bit complex if viewed from our point of view. If broken down, one can easily label it as instruction on "how to develop a digital product with a solid business roadmap." Any step could involve any effort that requires the creation of specifications, like, for example, the user journey maps. There is practically a lot to be covered and visualized. It is a huge step that defines the app’s concept and how it will look like. - In your opinion, how should one improve the Design and Discovery Phase? - I think that as of right now, we miss more qualitative competitors and market research processes. As you might see, almost every digital product development company is actively starting to focus its attention on testing various business ideas and gaining more business audience. Each makes its relevant products/services more professional and reliable towards this type of audience. And this connects directly with us! Our team perfectly knows that any business has two parts: the product and the marketing/sales part. Our team handles both aspects well enough. However, what we are currently trying to do is to teach the right guidance of business development. In this direction, I think that Design and Discovery Phase should be further progressing and making further improvements. - Appreciate your opinion and for your time. I guess we’ll meet another time, for another topic? - Yes, I think so. I’ll be waiting for more “podcasts” stories from now then! See you next time! Conclusion Without a clear and distinctive business roadmap, lots of startups won't launch their products with success. As a digital product development company, we were glad to share some insights and spread how you can solve it with our proposition. Next time, we’ll tell you the JetRuby startup story, so wait ahead and be prepared for it! We value your time and appreciate every effort that you pull to get closer to success. That’s why we want to reach out to you and show exactly how your business roadmap can benefit from our Design and Discovery Phase. So check out why and how our digital product development agency can assist your young startup in walking on the right path. ### Plan your product development process successfully! At JetRuby, we believe that any product consists of two main components: the business model and the technical core. We love both of them and assist entrepreneurs in their needs and businesses. That’s why below, we would like to describe the importance of the Design and Discovery phase in every detail and how much of an impact it can do on a startup product development process. What is the Design and Discovery Phase? The Design and Discovery Phase is the very initial and most collaborative part of the product development process. This phase’s primary goal is to analyze such essential things as business goals, competition on the market, user groups and success paths, business model, product evolution stages. And create such artifacts as detailed project specifications, visual mockup, clickable prototype, software architecture - everything that requires precision in your startup launch. Eventually, this phase’s value is defined by the cost of avoided mistakes due to the consistent product development strategy and definition process in the initial phase. The cost of such mistakes can be fatal, as it could be seen in the Shoes of Prey startup story, where a company was too focused on the current fashion trends that it completely forgot to do the market research. Their website concentrated too much on shoe customization, which wasn’t so attractive to the customers, what they wanted instead - an inspiration by the design and demonstration on precisely what they will wear. It’s a simple thing. However, as you can see, the cost of a failure can be both an unpredictable and a prominent factor as well. What does it consist of? The three core domains of any product development process at JetRuby are the essential components that describe a Design and Discovery Phase: Product Business Analysis, Project Planning, and Visual Presentation. Each of them corresponds to the given categories of the Design and Discovery phase. The “Product Business Analysis” concentrates on analyzing a client's business idea, core goals identification, and visualization of future app logic. It is drastically important for any rising startup or business to have a solid ground for a product that the potential customer will be willing to buy since more than 70% of them will die out without it. It consists of the following product development steps: Identify Business Goals Business Model Canvas Market research Product Vision Document Product Evolution Canvas User Story Map Wireframes The “Project Planning” focuses on the significant preparations for the future launch of the project. This phase takes a visual presentation and business logic approach. By correctly estimating your business idea’s structure and architecture, one can produce a project launch plan. There are typically five iterations to consider: App Graphic Design Clickable Prototype App Business Logic Scheme App Architecture Project Plan The “Visual Presentation” is mostly focused on the marketing aspects and promoting the product benefits while testing their customers’ potential marketing niche. Obviously, there is no product yet. However, it is important to check things out on the market for the arriving product development process and test its target audience. Its main elements are: Branding Elements Online Landing Marketing Campaign Now let’s review each of the product development phases in more detail, see the kind of deliverables they provide and the benefits one nourishes from them. Client Interview Before initiating coordination and project implementation, the JetRuby team will first clarify all of the client’s core and fundamental questions. Some of them include future product outlook, client’s business goals, expectations, and potential customers. It is done to further understand what topic should be discussed at the first meeting and the client's motivation and objectives of the intended business. What indeed contributes to this process is that this step may look very typical and primitive. However, what you might not notice at first glance is that the majority of entrepreneurs may not question the same questions that we do at JetRuby. Perhaps these kinds of questionnaire lists may not be super unpredictable, but they weigh a great thing and impact the startup product’s success and survival rate. Business Canvas Model Once clarified, a kick-off meeting is launched to make a Business Canvas Model together with the client since it will help to understand how the product will function as a whole business unit. Based on the previous questions and meeting discussions, all critical data will be put into the Business Canvas Model to correctly identify the key customers, partners, channels, resources, value prepositions, revenue, and startup cost structures. The outcome of this step is the project's key features and value propositions. Competitors analysis The next step is to prepare simple market research with the SWOT analysis to compare its competitors’ current product opportunities. Our team will identify main direct and indirect competitors and product analogs while breaking down all strengths and weak points. Here the primary deliverable identifies key opportunities that each competitor product provides in each relevant sector (trust, support, and influence). If there are no opportunities in some sectors, then an open one will be provided for your product development process. Product Evolution Canvas In Product Evolution Canvas, we break down the product launch plan into three waves which are: MVP (app release focused on the base functionalities with a base customer base). Core Product (every functionality required to complete your product). Full-Scale Product (various directions of product development process or scaling). Each wave has its own business goals and is divided into the corresponding stages of new product development. We break down the product functionalities in separate steps and arrange them in priority order. Depending on the proposed functionality and how close it will bring us to the business goal, our team can approximately identify the section it should belong to. Product Vision document Produced visual analysis (which was visualized in Miro Board) and a generated list of business tasks combined in the Product Vision Document, which will serve as a base for further work on MVP and initial Design and Discovery Phase conclusions previously identified. User Story Map After constructing a single document with tasks and goals, we’ll prepare the user story map. It will visually represent the interaction between the product and its potential users based on previously identified business goals. User stories will also define the types of users who will use the application—thus giving a full list of potential customers with their own goals, methods of usages, revenues, etc. Besides, our team will describe how exactly each type of user will interact with our product. By examining each user action and asking relevant questions to put up the product interaction process’s chronicle, our team makes a detailed scenario for every involved user step. This entire process will be going through during the interview with our client. Building Wireframes Once the user stories are finished, our leading UX/UI Designer is getting his hands on wireframes. They are a sketchy markdown of how the future app will look like. Each wireframe will be attached to the corresponding user’s action inside the user story map. Not only will it allow our client to interact with a future creation, but it will serve him as a UX prototype of a future product. Once both the user map and wireframes are complete, they will combine in one file, where each user iteration and interaction is in thorough detail. Our client receives a neatly packed document covering all key product opportunities by summarising all of the previous stages of new product development. To break it down, it is data that will tell you what kind of benefits and outcomes your future product can gain. Future Visual Concept Our main designer will start his work on the 2 to 3 main pages of the application. This is made to fully understand how the concept of a future product will look like. This UI aims to make the user’s interaction simple and efficient in terms of accomplishing user goals. Once every user action will be clarified, and further enhancements will be identified. Interactive Prototype The goal of a prototype is to answer critical questions by interacting and observing the app’s logic. A simple prototype will tell you more than you could imagine. It'll help you find the right solution and not lose your budget. “Invision” or “Moqups” are the tools that deliver an interactive prototype. Visualization of any idea helps convey your message better than just words. Once you get a released prototype and customer feedback before development starts, it'll save time on any additional revisions. The prototype also helps avoid miscommunication when everyone is talking about the same thing but does not understand it. Describing a Business Logic Following up, our Design and Discovery Phase team will focus on constructing a business product logic. Most of the previous steps focused on the user's interaction with the product (user stories, wireframes). However, this one revolves around the app’s logic underneath, something transparent for a typical user. For example, our team will divide it into several parts for a clearer perception of a bigger product concept. Designing an architecture JetRuby’s app architecture designer is joining to build a theoretical design of the app’s infrastructure. He will focus mostly on the future structure and the accomplishment method for the chosen product. Our architecture can even estimate the approximate costs of the servers required to host the desired application. However, such confidence depends on the stated requirements and the heaviness of the application’s data load. Project Planning Finally, our project manager collects all of the available information and prepares a product launch plan. It will include the scope of allocated work in MVP, the approximate budget, deadlines, and further product development plan. Producing Branding Elements Here our design and marketing teams prepare and produce a whole pack of brand attributes for the rising client’s product development process (aka MVP). Based on the wishes and requirements and market trend analysis, questionnaires, and identified needs of the targeted audience, a mockup of the brand elements (name, logo, typography, color) is getting ready for approval or changes client’s feedback. This task usually takes around 1 to 2 weeks, involving the potential target audience and future customers’ pool. After the product branding, the next step is to create landing preparations. Preparing a landing The initial landing preparations mostly concentrate on the client’s impressions and analysis of the given functional requirements. Next is the construction of the landing skeleton and its relevant, significant blocks. The most prominent ones are the heading (main UVP), product description, company benefits, trustful blocks, and a CTA. This step takes around two weeks. As a result, a client will get a Tilda landing with some optional analytics setting (if requested). Ending with the marketing campaign Lastly, our team is preparing various marketing tools for pre-launch testing and analysis for the business infrastructure, where the client is actively building his product. Various advertising channels (PPC) are being chosen during this step depending on the target audience’s main interests. Several test ads run to test the constructed brand theory and Design and Discovery Phase concept. Overall, it takes around 1-3 weeks since the marketing results depend on the time and effort put in during the ad campaigns. The first results of a test marketing phase will be a small base of potential customers and the configured advertisement channels on the target audience, and the price of user attraction. The Conclusion There is no doubt that each of the stated product development steps may start in parallel with the other ones or even require less time in total since it all depends on the given requirements and project deadlines. We transfer and share access to every piece of information directly to our client via Google Documents and Slack. After the Design and Discovery Phase, we prepare our partner for the next big step - the product development process (aka MVP). This is where the real action starts: setting the implementation tasks, scaling the team, and lots of other useful product development steps. However, this is the topic for another article in another galaxy. ### Finance model of your startup: what is it, and how do you apply it? One of the most significant factors for a startup’s success is a thorough business plan that includes reliable financial projections for startups. The more accurate economic predictions you perform, the higher is the chance of success. Also, it makes it easier to ride out the market storm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and other instabilities. In this article, we give you an understanding of the following points: Essential purposes of financial projections for startups The prime purpose of the financial projections Two main methods of financial projections preparations for startups  Methods of creating realistic projections Types of statements which financial projections include Final thoughts on how to create a starting advantage The importance of financial projections Choosing the right financial model and creating financial projections are a crucial aspect of the core small business plan, especially for newer companies. By considering factors like production costs, market prices, and demand for your services, you can clearly understand your financial situation and discover your full profit potential. When you have projected expenses and income, it becomes significantly more comfortable with making business decisions. Financial projections help you plan your startup budget, forecast the break-even, and set benchmarks for achieving financial goals. If you’re already running the business, creating brief financial projections every 6 or 12 months will help you keep your startup on the right track. Besides, a defensible financial projection model can reassure investors that the entrepreneur has analyzed the business’s potential, and there is a path to earning a return that justifies the early-stage risk significantly. It’s always best practice to create a robust financial projection model before pursuing a business venture.  Two main approaches to creating financial projections for startups There are two methods of making financial projections for startups – top-down forecasting and bottom-up forecasting. What's the difference? Top-down forecasting The top-down approach assumes that you work from a macro/outside-in perspective towards a micro view. Usually, industry estimates are taken as a starting point and narrowed down into targets that fit your startup. In fact, the top-down model helps you define financial projections based on the market share you would like to occupy within a reasonable time. The most straightforward way to precisely perform top-down forecasting is the TAM SAM SOM model. The TAM SAM SOM model reaches the market size on three levels: TAM (Total Available Market) the section of that market you approach with a specific offering (your startup niche) adjusted for a particular geographical reach.  SAM (Serviceable Available Market) – The part of SAM you can realistically capture, given the existing competition.  SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market) is equivalent to your sales target. It defines the value of the market share you aim to achieve. Based on the sales targets you set using the TAM SAM SOM model, the next stage is to evaluate all costs needed to build or deliver your product or service. All expenses are necessary to perform sales and marketing, research and development, and general and administrative tasks for your startup to stay afloat. Evaluating these indicators keep in mind that you need to aim for profitability within a reasonable timeframe.  Bottom-up forecasting The top-down approach’s trap is that it might seduce you to forecast too optimistically, especially sales estimation. To avoid this unpleasant moment, you should consider combining the top-down model with the bottom-up approach. As opposed to the top-down method, the bottom-up strategy begins with an inside-out view.  With the bottom-up approach, you calculate expenses, costs, revenues, and investments based on the research and assumptions. The problem with this method is that it might fail to show the confidence needed to convince others of your startup potential. If you are a startup founder and are looking to raise funding, the bottom-up strategy might not help you. Remember that most investors usually expect startups to grow fast and gain significant market share quickly. The bottom-up approach might fail to indicate that. Which method to chose? It is almost impossible to estimate factors such as virality or word of mouth with the bottom-up approach. Further, the whole reason why external financing is needed is often to expand capacity and grow faster than a startup would do organically. That is why when you build your startup’s forecast, you need to combine both the bottom-up and top-down methods – especially when you plan to achieve a healthy growth curve utilizing external funding. For the best financial estimation, use both models. The bottom-up method is mainly used for 1-2 years of forecasting. While a top-down approach is more suited for the longer timeline of 3-5 years. This way, you can complete and secure your short term objectives very well. And your long-term targets will show the desired market part, and the ambition investors are searching for.  How to make realistic assumptions No matter what approach you choose to build your startup’s financial model, it is essential you can prove your numbers with realistic assumptions. The main problem is that previous data is not available, so you need to find a way to present the proof behind your estimated numbers. When you start discussing with investors, they are interested in knowing the argumentation behind your numbers. They are considering putting money in your startup, so you do not want to give them the feeling you are selling baloney! Assumptions can be anything that validates your numbers: Market research Web search volume Contracts with suppliers Pricing validation  Conversion rates Okay, that is more than enough to get started. Let’s get to it, then! We will begin with questions that reflect the challenges behind creating financial projections for your startup. What statements are included in financial projections Financial projections combine three financial statements that are necessary to better understand the financial performance of your startup. Income statement It is also known as a profit & loss statement, and it focuses on the startup revenue and expenses generated during a particular period. The four estimates included in the income statement are: Revenue Expenses Gains Losses  Combining these four gives you the net income, which is a metric for your startup’s profitability. In the first year, you need to create a monthly income statement.  In the second year, quarterly statements, and in the years to come, you will just need an annual income statement.  Cash flow statement A cash flow statement aids you in understanding how startup operations will run. It will show more detail on how much money will flow into and out of your startup business in income and expenses. A cash flow statement’s three fundamental components include cash flows from operating, investing, and financing your startup activities. Operating activities include any changes made in cash flow, accounts receivable, inventory, depreciation, and accounts payable. Investing activities include cash inflows for sales of assets and cash outflows for any fixed assets, such as property and equipment. Financing activities show a business’s cash sources from investors or banks and cash paid expenditures to shareholders.  The cash flow statement and income statement are both tightly connected by net income.  Balance Sheet A balance sheet presents a general overview of your startup’s financial health. It includes assets, liabilities, and owners’ equity in a specific period of time.  Here is an overview of each balance sheet component: Assets are resources with a financial value that a startup business owns and estimated to provide a future benefit. That includes generating cash flow, enhancing sales, and reducing expenses. Assets usually include property, inventory, and cash.   Liabilities are, in general, obligations to the third party. They are monthly expenses that occur during business operations. It usually includes accounts payable and loans.  Owners’ equity is any amount left over after paying all liabilities. It’s usually categorized as retained earnings: the sum of all net income earned minus all paid earnings since inception. The balance sheet is split into two parts – with assets on one side and liabilities and owner’s equity on the other side. Projecting three years into the future could make it possible for you to estimate a break-even point. When your startup ends performing at a loss and begins to turn a profit. The break-even point for most of the startups is in about 18 months. However, that threshold will fluctuate based on your business model, industry and niche involved. How to create an advantage  Planning financial projections for your startup when it’s not yet up and running can be a challenge. At that point, you do not have any real data to give you a better understanding of future projections. Still, with a little market and industry research, you will have a lot of data to work with, helping you to create realistic financial projections for your startup. Here are some things to have in mind. Use your own industry experience Before striking out on your own, consider the industry you have been working in and have experience working in. That way, you will have a better idea of what realistic financial projections look like, what growth rate is ideal, how long it will take to scale, and what profit margins are average within your industry niche.  Be a realistic optimist Potential investors know that your startup’s financial projections can’t be 100% accurate, but you need to make sure they are realistic. Lending institutions and investors have seen too many entrepreneurs who are overly optimistic about their businesses. So as a future startup owner, you need to make sure your projections are reliable, and your business has the capacity to grow. Start making your financial projections today and pursue your dreams with passion since they will not come to pursue you!   ### The Zen Value of Business Analytics in Startup Essentially when we hear someone say something about startups, they will typically think of a huge chunk of issues. Starting from budget limitations, team management and ending with lots of uncertainties, inexperience, and lack of clear actions. The key solution that will come forward to assist every startup business process is business analytics. It may sound very strange at first since various startup roles can solve all of those issues. Even though it is true, it may not be exactly like that. You see a financial manager can properly distribute his resources required to complete a project. But he does not know what are the base requirements of how much he should invest in developing a product feature. That’s also where business analytics in every startup will join the force. A bit confusing isn’t it? Don’t worry about asking yourself: “How exactly business analytics can impact my startup?”, cause we’ll explain that shortly. By the way, stick to the end of this article, to find out a bonus we prepared for you! Business analytics? Never heard of that! Business analytics is a data analysis that focused on achieving business goals and predicting the milestones on the product development path. To be more precise, every business analyst is processing business information through various methodologies to make smarter data-driven business actions. Some of the key points for any given business analytics team are: Forecasting: Analysis of historical data to an approximate estimation of either future events or behavior of the market. Predictive Analytics: Various techniques for making predictive models that will identify the patterns and provide estimates for organization outcomes. Optimization: Simulation process of techniques that will identify the best scenario for the right business actions. Data Visualization: Either a dynamic or a static mockup of how the product’s future vision can be implemented. To give an example let's take an instance that happened during our Design and Discovery Phase. “Sortly” project came into our hands and the client had trouble with the further product vision of his idea. After conducting thorough research among the product competitors, our team identified the best development branch. According to the past market trends and the users’ requirements, we specified which functionalities had to be developed first. This decision was reasoned by combining both must-have features and the client's desires in the modern inventory app. That was back in 2015, now “Sortly” is the #1 inventory app among its competitors. Most of the businesses, before they began to expand and grow spontaneously, have always analyzed their products and tried to predict the right development path. Together with various platforms, tools, and observations, they utilized them to achieve the results where they are right now. Ergo, it is rational and important to lay down your ground requirements for your startup product. How important it is for startups? Business analytics allows various organizations to correctly set product outcomes, according to the founder's goals. It is extremely important for any type of business. As it can give a future insight on how the product can operate and function without the actual code or software product itself. Any entrepreneur who is using it can outcompete the ones who don’t. This is happening because business analysts show why some specific results are achieved while predicting certain outcomes. First of all, for startup business analytics offers coverage for businesses to produce the most effective decisions. Also, it allows you to correctly automate the decision process. Since most of the risks will be already covered and all of the solutions will already be in your hands. By collecting the right data to work with, it allows various organizations to gain core business insights. That makes your decision-making process much easier and coherent. Improving the efficiency of your business organization is one more area where business analytics can greatly assist startups. By comparing and analyzing various volumes of data on time, allows various businesses to make a concrete decision much faster. Risk reduction of any business decisions is yet another useful feature every organization will benefit from. By correctly identifying project decisions based on the received information (project scope, customer types for example) and by applying it at the right moment, a business unit can greatly benefit from both the long or short-term project risks. All of that combined can be used to build a solid ground for your beginning business. Yes, you heard me right, it helps you understand certain patterns and take actions far before the development phase. Since JetRuby was a startup originally, we understand how, where, and why data behave in specific ways. During the Design and Discovery phase, we define all of the required steps for your successful business path and can guarantee that your project will not fail as 80% of all others do. Business analytics impact on startup We clarified how business analytics is important for every startup. The next step is to understand where and how exactly it can apply to a given scenario. That’s why here we want to give you an insight into how it can result in a real-world scenario from our perspective. App Visualization An app design is a complete responsibility of a designer lead or a team in any given business. However what we meant here is an actual representation of an app, before the development stage can kick in. Since, once you know all the fine points of your working business model, you probably need to have a set of wireframes along with the graphical prototype. And business analytics will come in to help in accomplishing this early task. By carefully analyzing your product vision, technical requirements, and your mind perspective on the product, a business analytics team will present a set of rough mockups. Only later on, based on the approved sketches and dynamic visual prototype, the designer team will be able to construct an actual graphical representation of your product. You can easily take an example from a client of ours who came with an idea of a business selling marketplace. He explained his concept to our team, citing some common functionalities that he wanted to see in his product. However, what he had trouble with is visually expressing how the app should look like. Here’s how our startup business analytics team assisted him. They gathered the necessary business-related information and began to do their research. First of all, they go through the business canvas model, research your product competitors, and determine the entry requirements for a new product in its niche. Next, they analyze the success path through the user story map, and only in the end they will have a real basis for producing the prototype (aka Wireframes). Meaning that the design is the logical continuation of justified business decisions. Not several assumptions based on a wild guess. After that, they produce a few frames of the graphical design, and together with the client, they make some changes, according to the wishes of the client. As a result, they managed to produce not only some sketches, but a whole interactive prototype, and the client enjoyed it. Together with him, we gave his business a name: “Beazzy”. It is not an easy task, however, the combined effort both from your side and JetRuby can become a gem. Even if you don’t understand some specific technical requirements or even the cost of your product. We are here to assist you. So check out the Design and Discovery Phase, to see how we helped others and we can help you. App Unique Aspects To have an outstanding position among your competitors and have more confidence in your product, you should have features that are both unique and solve the customer pain points. However, it might not be exactly an easy task to pinpoint the right features at the first sight. Since, you may listen to anybody, even your gut, but the real truth will lie directly in the competitor’s research that you should do. By investigating your product analogs’ weak and strong points, a business analyst will be able to tell where exactly can you add unique value to your product. One of our clients has stumbled upon this typical, yet deadly issue that some startups tend to do inaccurately. During the Design & Discovery phase of, “Cash Out My Car” project our client didn’t know how exactly can his product be both original and at the same time solve customer’s pain. After long research, our business analyst informed him that a specific feature can be developed from his simple marketplace. To be more precise it was to instantly set the bet to the specific product via SMS without even connecting to the Internet. That way he managed to score a goal in the customer’s gate of pain points. App Target Audience Every company has to research and investigate its potential customer audience. What parts do they find annoying or what kind of service they find uncomfortable? A business analyst can analyze both things simultaneously without the implemented product. After understanding an approximate social profile of your product, he draws two more profiles: current customers and potential customer groups. By comparing both of them not only he will understand where the perfect middle profile is, but also see where exactly you can take advantage of your product or special offers that you can advertise. A business analyst dives even more by analyzing your product with the competitor ones. Conclusion Without a doubt, analytics plays a huge role in various businesses. The presence of an expert team that will estimate and correct the pathway for your product vision has huge benefits. As you’ll research your way towards the right approach for your product development path, lots of opportunities will be revealed. That’s why without an analytical consultant, you would have to keep reinventing the wheel again and again while staying in the dark. Since business analytics can assist in many ways. It can tell you what you should do first and what can be less important, what outcomes you can forecast, and what has to be done to eliminate the blind spots. When you’ll truly require assistance on the black spots of your project, business analytics will be able to put you on the right track. We suggest that as much as every other part of your startup makes an irreplaceable place, so don't ignore business analytics. Motivate and encourage your entire startup team to make more data-driven business divisions. And when you finally integrate business analytics at every iteration stage of your product development, eventually your business will begin to make its first successful scale. JetRuby is one of the globally recognized companies that are actively involved in assisting startups with new product launches. We believe that every person can implement valuable and unique products, after deep and thorough research. That’s why we offer you a free Product Development Strategy session with our Business Analyst to assist you in the early stages of your product planning. Make sure you leave your contact details below and we will be in touch shortly! ### Minimalist Guide to Social Media for Startups Social media for startups is a great tool, which helps to push forward the marketing campaign. Without it, most companies would have turned to a more traditional and conservative side of marketing. But thanks to the giant technological breakthroughs, now we have all of the famous social platforms used for communication purposes and for advertising a product or a service. Did you know that just at the beginning of this year, lots of entrepreneurs were putting up various advertisements and engaging content on TikTok? Even though this platform was initially created for youngsters and social influencers. This is a prime example of how user traffic can significantly change, depending on your target audience. This particular case raises excellent questions, such as: “What are the other social media channels for startups you can use to gain more marketing advantage?” and “What kind of social platforms can assist me in my startup journey?”. Here we would like to present a list of the most recent and active social platforms and channels to help you with your startup. Importance of Social Media Marketing for startups Let’s say it out loud: “Thank you, social media, for existing and making our business life easier, compared to just 15 years ago”. Just think about it: all of the enormous corporations had to put their ads on TV or radio, and they will be run at a specific timing of the day. Of course, during that time, these tricks were working, attracting customers to buy more Coca-Cola and popcorn. It still works, but only for B2C in the fast-moving consumer goods companies and consumer electronics mostly. So what are the essential core points of social media for startups in the current time? Here are four key points. Customers Feedback Social media dedicated to the startups’ development process, is a great place to receive your community feedback or to attract a potential one! Most people will give you either a positive with notes of what they liked or can get a negative one too. But take both of them seriously and actively respond to your followers, asking their detailed opinion. Every user interaction matters since a few ignored comments on your “Google Play” app page may affect your branding image and can even go viral. So listen to your audience’s feedback, grow your startup, and identify the problems that the community considers an issue. However, don’t judge them too quickly. Otherwise, you are risking losing the whole business. The testing ground for your ideas Another relevant and yet sufficient benefit you can gain from your audience is sharing your alpha or beta app version to test your implemented solution. While testing your app’s functionality in your startup’s headquarters is an excellent idea, what’s even better is to let the public do the same thing! Apart from various bugs that they will find and the personal impressions that they will talk about, you can measure their patterns of interaction and engagement methods. Exactly that will push you closer towards understanding your audience’s desires. Market Research Every single analytical data that you can collect from your social platform is recommended to be researched. It is an excellent reason to check up on this data at least once or two times a week: this action will improve your traffic ranking among your competitor websites, and you will understand better how to improve your current feed. Don't limit yourself to social, or blog pages ranking only; check your audience’s activity, traffic sources, content strategies, demographics, the peak of user activity, response timing, and even more. Branding The broad awareness of the startup idea from various social media sources is a good strategy to get more popular in the initial phases. Especially for those who don’t have any capital and require to build up their brand image. That’s where they start to create custom business pages on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. To spread their piece of mind and reach the desired customer base. If their idea is truly unique and has never been seen before, they have a chance to go viral on the Internet. It is true that you can use any social media for a startup's brand awareness. However, you need to spend quite a lot of time and effort to actually understand the correct ways of accomplishing it. And you won’t have any idea neither when nor how your project will get the attention it truly deserves. If you want to test your landing or a sketch of your product in a local experiment to get noticed immediately, go ahead and see how Design and Discovery Phase can assist you with that! For now, let’s dive into this topic a bit more deeply. To understand what platforms are dedicated to your marketing and others for growing purposes. Social Media for Startups There is no doubt that everyone knows the popular social media for startups and uses them every day. That’s why, in this section, we would like to highlight the key networks that every entrepreneur should have in their pocket for understanding and growing a startup correctly. On the other hand, we will also cover the most popular ones, but highlight the points on where and how you use a media channel beneficially. Business Growth Angellist Angellist is an incredible network specially created for startups. Its goal is straightforward: connect a startup and an angel investor! One of the exciting sides of Angellist is its acceptance rate for companies. As many various startups are continually rising, Angellist carefully checks and monitors the permissions to use their web platform. Once accepted, it will suggest a list of potential investors for your local area. If you want, you can also search manually. Otherwise, you can post some jobs if you are looking for some team members. ResearchGate The platform is launched by researchers and scientists, whose primary goal is to make the information and research process open for everyone. Similar to Angellist, ResearchGate also has a strict policy on user acceptance. But overall, this is an excellent platform to get your hands-on research and information about any scientific topic around the whole world. Entrepreneur Entrepreneur.com is a pretty comprehensive platform and even can be compared to perhaps one of the biggest publishing USA agencies. It aims to share and make a difference through the voices of professional and successful entrepreneurs’ ideas and opinions. During the last four decades, “Entrepreneur” was and is still standing on a pedestal as the top provider of valuable and premium content for young startups and small businesses worldwide. StartupNation StartupNation was initially founded in 2002 and was one of the first platforms that provided inspirational and innovative content for startups. Additionally, they shared lots of network connections, which everyone could add to grow their network and business. Entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs carefully craft the platform itself. CoFounder CoFounder is a network for all startup-like minds, where ideas, entrepreneurs, designers, programmers, investors, and executives all come together! The primary goal of this network is to start a new web venture and find your startup members. As the platform is considered under the private network, you won’t view members’ profiles unless you are already registered. The Startup Network Since 2008, The Startup Network has defined itself as a quality and effective platform that spreads its insights into startup communities. As they continuously encourage various organizations to collaborate and cooperate with multiple startup communities. How do they do it? Through valuable and original content divided into two groups: business events and research materials. Marketing Facebook Leisure and pleasure are two adverbs that you can describe on Facebook. A platform for easy and straightforward connections, where you can share your idea, freely interact with your audience, chat with your followers, and maybe demonstrate your business’s insights to warm up your community. As you already understood, Facebook is the right place for entertaining, intimidating, and communicating with your potential customers. Some facts that you might find useful: 41% of USA small businesses frequently use Facebook More than 1.09 billion people log onto Facebook daily Facebook users are 54.7% female and 45.3%, male Twitter Almost every startup out there has a Twitter profile, and with another 300 million active users every single day, pretty much every single person knows it. It is an excellent place for sharing your new content publications, collaborating with other professionals or institutions, and just spreading the word about your unique idea. Here are some general statistics you might want to know: The primary audience consists of 25 to 34-year-olds adults. 63% of users primarily use their phones for Twitter. 61% of users follow small businesses, interact with them, and share their feedback. LinkedIn With over 450 million active users, this is the most prominent place of all businesses and companies, which is LinkedIn. It is a platform designed to make a network of connections, get acquainted with other specialists, find startup mentors, advertise your feed, and has lots of different business uses. It can also be used to find perfect candidates for your startup or establish credibility in your industry. Did you know? More than 40 million students and graduates registered on LinkedIn. More than at a rate of 2 users, various experts are signing up. 45% of all LinkedIn members are in their upper management positions. Instagram Instagram is your shop window, where you can easily display and even demonstrate all of the right sides of your product. A visual demonstration for any given business product will speak better than any words. It is also a good platform for your startup to let your audience feel and almost touch your creation. This is also an excellent method to build up a momentum of trust for your business and make up the right brand image. Here are some of the basic stats that might be important for your business: Facial pictures get 38% more attention rather than any other ones. Mostly used by females. Considered the most essential network by the majority of American teenagers. Pinterest Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is also a good platform for showing off your product or services you provide in a visual appearance. However, what makes it different is that the amount of traffic you can get from Pinterest is much higher, rather than Instagram. If you want a full-fledged guide on how exactly you can do that, let us know in the comments! Another good point is that this platform is ultimately the best place for startups whose focus is on running a chain of restaurants, art installations, E-Commerce, and clothing shops. Exactly these business fields are trendy on Pinterest. To add up, here are some statistics that are worth mentioning: As with Instagram, 80% of Pinterest’s users share and create various pins. Up to 40% of E-commerce traffic is coming directly from this platform, compared to others. Almost 89% of all users have purchased a displayed product they pinned. YouTube YouTube is pretty much the best for anything. But the most useful function for startups is that you can simply broadcast your service or product to others online. It's a good addition to your brand awareness. On the other hand, you can use this platform to teach your audience some tips and tricks from the business you are working in or just let them see how your startup journey unfolds. Additionally, it is the ultimate place for searching for a social influencer. With him, you can boost your product’s advertisement pretty drastically. You can also find an influencer via Instagram. However, the majority of the traffic will come from YouTube channels. Since most of the adults spend their time watching their favorite videos here. Here are two facts worth taking a look at: Rather than any TV Show, YouTube reaches more adults from 18 to 34. Second largest media channel on the Internet. A platform to raise your business It is ultimately true that social communities for startups are great when it comes to uprising startups. Especially when you want to see whether your brand image and small product idea is worth the job. However, it is not the only thing you should be concerned about. In most cases, it is the search for the right investor. While in others, it is the construction of the business processes. As a former startup group, we know how challenging it is to properly understand and identify all of your business field’s little details. And success may seem far away from the point where you are currently standing at. The failure counter just keeps on ticking further and further. But don’t worry, as we had countless failures, we passed this stage and are ready to present a platform for your startup to launch successfully. Meet Design and Discovery phase, a unique program that JetRuby has polished and structured for your entrepreneurs’ needs. During it, not only you’ll understand how exactly you should test your hypothesis and identify your potential customers, but you also get a vision of your future product plan. Visit us here and let us know what you think! Conclusion All in all, social media is a unique channel created for multiple purposes. It can be used for different purposes, and the implementation methods vary from the goal you are following. Therefore, understanding what you want to achieve and how it will work is essential for any business. So, make sure you’ve got at least core things for an active startup: business and finance plan, budget, dev team, business model, and proper market research. There are more things to come once your startup moves forward. So don’t forget to keep in mind what your startup needs and how you can help it. Stay tuned for more exciting articles to come. Don't forget to check out the Design and Discovery Phase that we prepared for you during this warm New Year! ### Stop making apps; solve business problems! How many times have you heard people say: “I wish someone could have implemented that idea in real life!”. It sounds engaging to go out and solve a bunch of business problems. Most people imagine that they will be placed on a throne alongside Microsoft and Apple. However, these people fail to notice and recognize the underlying reasons for what could go wrong. It is completely normal to have a desire to implement your app and spread the word about it. However, the code or an app itself means nothing without the applied business logic, which comes first in line. So, that’s where we want to address an issue that many of the entrepreneurs are mistakenly doing: “Stop focusing on software implementation, concentrate on business problems to solve for your customers.” In this article, we want to highlight and address the business problems that need solving before diving into app development. Obvious Mistakes So what kind of mistakes may potentially trigger your downfall and cause you to forget all the pulled effort? The answer is many. Each may depend on the situation that you are currently facing and experiencing. Below we describe just a few ones that are frequently overlooked. According to our clients, if you want to know which ones are the most recognized, go and check out the top startup mistakes you should avoid. In the meantime, here are some other mistakes to consider avoiding. Lack of market research You may have a great idea and be confident in it, but market research is a mandatory step to take since there will be no point in creating your product that no one will find value in it. It does include various research stages, such as the need for your product, the competition, suppliers, relevant laws & regulations, information about the target demographic, etc. You can’t take a wild guess, shoot in the sky, and claim that your product will be bought and adored by millions. The concrete market research, focus group testing, and feasibility studies will challenge your theory and take it into the real world. That’s why if you know or understand that you are completely wrong about your product, change your path immediately. We do understand that, as much as any entrepreneur has a passion for developing a truly unique product, it takes time and knowledge to master or grasp all business aspects at once. It can be hard to be handling it all by yourself, especially when you are entirely new to this. JetRuby’s product is developed precisely for those seeking a fast and correct approach to implementing their project. As you’ll be involved in multitasking operations, you’ll get to know everything you need for your business to launch successfully. So go ahead and check out the Design and Discovery Phase, which was created specifically for you! Too Fast Launch Launching your startup is a significant process. However, establishing a startup before it’s completely ready is not a pleasant thing. Especially when you go around saying, “it’s not perfect, but at least it’s somewhat complete.” And the entrepreneur should be utterly confident that his new system will manage incoming client traffic. More than that, your application should handle all of the core functions that any app should have: payment system, customer communication channels, UI interaction, etc. Otherwise, you’ll have holes in your business, and every potential client will drown your product before it hits a severe marketing stage. Seeking Early Publicity Some entrepreneurs may discuss and tell you a central idea of their own, stating that it will be a significant breakthrough. However, they will only have an idea in their minds while asking for publicity for their attention without showing or demonstrating them. There may be nothing wrong with discussing your app concept. However, a real problem arises when you start advertising, and that means spending money. Maybe you’ll get the awareness and the attention of the publicity, but on the other hand, you’ve spent too much budget, and your business is going under. So, don’t start marketing yourself before your business will be able to launch. Otherwise, you are risking yourself for a relatively fast fall down. Area of Focus So, where strictly should you be focusing on your full attention? Where could your next possible idea be hiding? As long as your audience will have business problems to solve, they will desperately look for the right solution. Faster and smarter, that’s the key to finding the solution every consumer needs. These are three things to focus on when developing your idea and are still far from your active development startup phase. Concentrate on creating must-have functions instead of “cool” or “beautiful” products. - As we have already entered the 2021 year, the times change drastically, and consumers are changing their tastes rapidly. Simple products aimed to solve some simple problems that every second app won’t be recognized or wanted. As an entrepreneur, you have to deliver something extraordinary and much more significant than just another product on the shelf. Solve the real problems of people. - Many big companies were aiming for some fundamental issues that their customers were dealing with: Amazon gave us simplified online purchasing, Uber made the cab pick-up easier, and Google made searching faster. Based on these examples, how will your product solve your audience’s problem and make their life easier? Identify crucial business problems that need solving and demanded by the public, implement them effectively, deploy your solution to the market, and create a real business worth millions of dollars. Let your business be your passion - Some startup founders are passionate about solving the pain points they have identified. They get so interested and enthusiastic about it that they overlook some mandatory business processes entirely. You need both the inspiration for your work and the concentration to focus on all significant tasks. Do not let yourself enjoy your path too much, as you might get lost along your way. Seek business problems to solve Perhaps you’ve already started to code your first app or at least began to brand your very first startup. However, just stop for a second and think: “Does your product solve the problem better and more engaging rather than market alternatives? Have you done your research first to see if there is even a need for it?” If you’ll answer is mostly no, then you’d be just wasting time and money for nothing. The code itself or your concept means nothing if you don’t know any business problems to solve or any unique idea to provide. Since this is a real base ground for your business to grow from. To understand how you can find and solve one, follow these four steps we prepared for you! Combine the public necessity and your capabilities You might have already seen or heard how many startups burn out due to not having concrete business goals or a framework to operate with. So think carefully when you are trying to juggle lots of ideas in your head simultaneously. It might be lethal for your business. Before assembling any business team, just take some time and think deeply about three major questions that every successful entrepreneur asked himself: What does the marketplace or the people need? Where does my passion lie? What am I able to deliver with my capabilities? Think carefully and write down everything that you can think of since your business project is divided into two parts: your passion and your business plan. And you will need the motivation for both. Ideally, for your startup to break the glass of uncertainties and make it through, it needs to fulfill both of these criteria. If you don’t enjoy the work you are doing, but you want to process your idea’s public needs, you’ll be starting over your business more times than you’ll ever wish. Otherwise, if you are working hard, but your product has no value, you won’t generate any sales whatsoever. As an example, here are a few trending fields: clean energy, robotics, cybersecurity, transportation, and AI. Probably hundreds, if not thousands, of startups, are trying to succeed in these emerging fields. Although only a few ones will be able to pull it through. Define your problem Congratulations! You are one step closer to constructing a business model of your own. Currently, you have a complete list of “what you can do” and “what does the public want.” Time to form a plan of all business problems to solve and trim all the unnecessary ones. You may order them in priority towards the audience that you are going to be doing it for. It’s fine to start with something small and take the time to develop it into something big. Otherwise, if you are going for a big and unique one, have confidence that your capabilities and skills can implement it correctly. Locate the problem that you genuinely want to solve. Make sure you will be capable of solving it and choosing the one with many development opportunities. Know your competitors So, you’ve got the business problems that need solving, and you are ready to be doing just that. However, don’t think that you are the only one who has done it or tried to solve it. Believe us there are thousands. But don’t get upset! Research the companies that failed and learn from their mistakes. Was it the lack of proper budget management during the critical moments? Were their expectations far from reality? Or was it the absence of the business model they completely forgot to do? Use this information to avoid similar situations and take your business to the next level. However, let’s say that there are already companies that have succeeded. What should you do? Examine the offers and services that they have. Maybe even ask someone to buy it for you, to see the companies advantages and disadvantages. Analyze them and look where you can find a place to add value compared to other competitors. Make your story So, you’ve finally come to the point where you feel that you already need to build your company, right? Well, not so fast! You are already close enough, but first, explain the identified business problems you want to solve and your resolution. This is important because you’ll be telling this to your customers, investors, team members, and your partner, after all. Show what lies at your company’s heart, which makes you feel the fire in your heart, and work all the way through to reach success! Find out how your story can never get old or boring. It is your passion, so express it so that the people could feel it. At this point, you’ll have a problem statement, unique business aspects, and the burning motivation. Follow them and make your dream come true! Where we can add value You have seen how you can prevent any issues during your initial startup implementations with the method provided above. However, let’s say that you did all of that, and you still have some fears and doubts over your business, or you think that your idea will burn out pretty quickly. What will you do? You’ll probably try to seek the solution and reach out to the maximum number of people. But in the end, you’ll either forget it and create another one, or somehow you’ll forget about your doubts and move on with it. Only to find out that numerous problems will appear somewhere in the middle of your core product development cycle or marketing advertisement campaign. Not to mention that you’ll be wasting your time and effort in space. “So how can I be sure that my idea is viable and it does solve the customer's problem, even though I have searched everywhere, got nothing, and still didn’t find the ones whom I can trust?” In that case, JetRuby can significantly help you cut the unnecessary amount of time, roughly estimate and deliver a projection of our idea’s product vision. To prove our words, we present to you the Design and Discovery phase. A must-have step in any startup given work that requires thorough and careful preparations. Our program will solve most of your misunderstandings and cast the doubts away while providing you with the answers and results that you probably hadn’t even had in mind. Check it out right now and discover how we can assist your project! Conclusion At last, the entirety of your business is based upon the concept of your idea and your business goals. However, this is only a part of it. The other is to solve an actual and common problem that every potential customer faces every day. Since the code or prototype alone means nothing, as you won’t even know how you can sell it. That’s why right now, we are offering a free consultation on product development strategy, where we will assess your product idea and roughly estimate how exactly it will be able to launch. Otherwise, if you already have acquired some parts of your startup, but you have doubts about the possible results of your business or don’t completely understand how you can sell your product, then Design and Discovery Phase is a perfect suit for you. Exactly where we will lay your business foundation and avoid the most expensive mistake by concrete planning and through discussions. More on that you can find in this link. Stay safe, and watch out for the new flash article from our HQ. See you next time! ### Top startup financial challenges to avoid in 2021 “I want you to deal with your problems by becoming rich!” - an iconic quote from the iconic movie “Wolf of the Wall Street.” Depending on what people truly want, they get the spirit of becoming ultimately wealthy. But how can one achieve that with a recently launched startup while stumbling across various challenges in obtaining financial support for your project? Just imagine this: you open a young business. You are immediately challenged by finding the investors while estimating every detail in your financial plan and gaining trust to win your money over other people. Have you already come across a similar situation? Or perhaps you had a different experience but still can relate to the spoken troubles? Specifically for young startupers, we prepared an article packed with a few pieces of advice and tricks that you can follow if you happen to encounter intimidating challenges in obtaining startup financial support. Types of Funding Before we dive into critical financial challenges faced by startups, you need to know just what kind of funding will suit your startup product. Once you'll understand that, you will learn how to approach an investor, interact with him, and when is the right time for asking the right amount of capital. That’s why for now, let’s take a look at what your basic options are to get your funding. Loan A loan is provided to an individual from a bank or any other financial institution, expecting a payback when the startup fails. And as you might already know, it is impossible to get a bank loan without some kind of collateral. If you already have a business up and running, a proper market niche, stable cash flow management, then getting a loan is not an issue! However, imagine you get one, and everything just falls unexpectedly. What’s next? Well, once you hit bankruptcy, you must sell all of the company properties to the bank. If you don't have enough, you can extend the due time payment. But in that case, you’ll have to back that extension with your personal belongings (including your property). So, a piece of straightforward and useful advice from us: Do Not Apply For Loans. There exist other options, which are far more suitable and convenient for opening your business. Grant Grant is money that can be received from any state, region, institution, or even individual you can get without payback. What’s the catch here? To get the grant, you’ll have to go through a bit of a long battle: apply for it, compete with the other startups, and if you win it, then you have to spend every single dollar only on the proposed project plan and nothing else. Additionally, you'll have to track down outstanding results and present them to the person responsible for the given grant. Furthermore, some grants are particular in some business fields. They seem like a good option, right? However, you may not always find the right grant that you are looking for. On the other hand, some specific websites are oriented toward providing sufficient funding to small businesses, including startups. Take a look at the list we gathered. See if you can find what exactly you are looking for (especially during the COVID pandemic): Grants.gov SBIR.gov Small Business Development Centers USDA Rural Business Development Grants National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) FedEx Small Business Grant Contest Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) Angel Investment An angel investor is an investor for small startups, whose net worth is more than or equals 1 million dollars. As they were startups themselves and became huge companies, they are willing to invest in small startups. However, the amount that they give is not that big and is not more than 100,000 $ on some occasions. Looking for a larger investment? Then, you probably need 5 - 10 angel investors, as the average seed amount is around 350,000$. We suggest you be polite to your investor and try to get him some kind of return or get him a good position for your startup. Also, never tell an investor to sign an NDA with them. It will only turn them away immediately. You have to be completely honest and open about your product. That being said, if you still want to secure your product from stealing, you can just effortlessly patent it. That’ll be more than enough. Otherwise, your potential investor will be offended and ignore any further requests from you. Venture Capital Venture capitalists are also one of the key investors that can make a substantial portion of your startup funding. These are the people from different institutions who mostly focus on professional startup investment. Compared to “angel investors” motivated to see their funded startup succeed, venture capitalists are focused on gaining profit from them. The reason is straightforward: startups are very risky to invest in. That’s why VCs are making many investments in different ones so that at least a few will achieve their result and pay off big. For this reason, the investments mostly focused on those startups that have meager competition in their market niche and have lots of potential development branches. Early Startup Financial Challenges Now, let’s see what kind of milestones you may encounter during your early journey. Financial Plan The very first challenge in obtaining startup financial support is your financial planning. By creating a detailed budget, tracking down all of your expenses, and comparing them with the projections, you make some cuts accordingly. However, to succeed in operating the business expenses, you’ve got to stick to your goals first. So the first step is to highlight all of the sources of income. It could be your accounts, sales profits, or your investment. The second is to identify the ongoing expenses: rent, equipment leases, etc. After that, write down the costs that can be either altered or changed every month(business traveling, wages for contractors, marketing). Don’t also forget to cover the expenses if any emergencies will arise. At JetRuby, we assist young entrepreneurs in assessing their requirements necessary to complete their project idea successfully. Including the precise estimation of the budget expenses. Most of our clients have already launched their software products and are looking forward to their businesses’ next scaling phase. See how exactly we assisted them in the process of their early day. Unforeseen Expenses One of the startup financial challenges that startups face during their first year of launch is unforeseen expenses. According to Clutch’s survey in 2018, around 35% of all small businesses have reported that their main concern was the expenses of emergencies. Therefore, when you start planning your budget expenses plan, do estimate some money for emergencies. Then it won’t be that much of a surprise nor stress for you. However, sometimes a whole big bang crisis may occur. And then you need to think about how to minimize the incoming damage. Perhaps you can cancel your business trip? Or maybe you can cut down some marketing expenses for the time being? That’s why you need to try and predict the most obvious ones to make your business more stable. Networking Networking is one of the things that your startup can’t run by itself. Forging the relationships and connecting with other businesses in your field is a pledge for your success path. There are various ways to make a perfect network of your business partners. Start from connecting with different founders via social platforms (LinkedIn, Angel.co, Facebook) and to meeting them in person at various startup events. Suppose you formed a team of entrepreneurs and are ready to dive into your product’s development process. You’re still at it and are wondering just how exactly will you sell your solutions or what kind of business model you should use. In that case, a few mentors or even ex-startup people in your network net can assist you in solving these issues. Plus, they can also be your business buddies in producing valuable and unique ideas for your future projects. In our case, one of the most frequent times when we use our network contact data is when our team wants to share our business insights. Be it a tweet regarding our recent news feed or a LinkedIn post about a new article in our blog. We are glad to deliver valuable information to our partners. If you’d like to get a chance to know us better, follow our blog and see what we can offer to your rising business plan! Investor Hunting That's the first thing that will be on your mind when you will start to uplift your startup group. It can be also identified as one of the financial challenges in the startup communities. Since once you’ll know all of your product features, work around your theoretical marketing campaign, finish your financial plan and start to work on the first digital prototype of your product, you’ll be hitting an investment wall. It is good to properly determine and research what kind of funding your project requires. By identifying the right type of investment, you will already know just how serious the company is. However, some people are determined to jump from one interested company to another, just to “cut the unnecessary time,” which they can spend on more important things. However, this is not the way you should choose the right investor. Because you need to research the potential list of investors, understand what type of businesses they are investing in, and what stage they do it. A small word of our advice is to spend more time on your pitches, and you’ll construct a more specific funding approach. "A Laser Beam Shotgun Approach" by BigFoot Networks So, you overcame all financial challenges and your startup reached a point where you need to make a pitch for your first investors? Then it is time to present a method of “BigFoot Networks" for finding the right investors. Let’s start by saying how exactly this approach works. The “Shotgun” part in the naming concentrated on connecting with every possible investor you will identify first. The “Laser beam” part points to the in-depth research you have to do to find the right investors that should follow specific criteria. These criteria are the rules that are suggested for every young entrepreneur to follow by. First of all, an investor has to have money. It sounds frustrating and stupid, but just hear us out for this one. Every investor may indeed attend meetings, social events, and may be interested in investing in your business. However, it doesn't certainly mean that they do have the money at the current moment. They may just stay active with the local community while observing the startup ideas and getting the chance to invest in them once they get more funds. To find out whether an investor truly has the money, you can check whether their funding is still open, look up their website or recent news from the company, or you can just simply ask them directly. The second thing you should look out for is whether the investor has your business type’s investment experience. Ideally, it could be companies mostly tied with B2B or B2C companies. Same as before, just by checking their websites, news or asking them directly will do the thing. The last criteria are to avoid investors who have either fired certain founders or have too impractical tactics. You won’t get that kind of information that easily online. However, if you were to ask the people around in various startup communities in your local area, then you’ll probably get the idea of whom you should avoid. Now, when you start to look out for investors, you may find out that your choice is limited to maybe 4 to 6. Why’s that? Let’s start with the VC investors, which are relatively easy to find. A quick Google search for “VC investors in [your local area]” will give you a good amount of results. But don’t limit yourself to your local area only. Other big companies in your country or cities that can sponsor local startups and the international ones. So it’s worth trying and giving a chance to get your own VC investor. It may or may not be a long process, but it will pay off in big results if you secure a good VC investor. If you consider the angel investors, you probably won’t find them so quickly. They don’t post or share any of their social contacts online. Therefore start searching for them by networking. Look for the angel groups in your local area. Occasionally, they meet other angel investors, compare notes, and sometimes invest in startups. In some instances, you may need to pay an entree fee just to get a chance to speak with the angel investor. It’s OK to do that once or twice to see their reaction and your results. Two consequent rejections from them mean that you should find another path to them. Some of the other angel investors are hidden either on Angel.co or LinkedIn so good luck finding them! Once you’ve narrowed your choices, it is time to choose all of the investors on your list and approach all of them! This is why this method has a part of “shotgun” since you contact all potential ones to get a few replies. You’ll get 90% of rejections in most cases, so it is entirely normal to get that. Most importantly, you should get at least a few positive ones to get the chance to pitch your idea. The last tip comes from JetRuby itself, which is about the presentation of your product. Sharing all details and discussing every bit of your idea is essential to build trust between you and your investor. However, to gain much more stable and confident assurance that the investor will agree to your terms is to present a working prototype, which is about 5% to 10% of your entire product. As of right now, JetRuby is offering you a free business product development strategy session. Where together with our business analyst, we will assist you to adjust your product vision and help you to create a feature list based on your idea requirements. For more information, you can read it on our Design and Discovery Phase. Conclusion Finding the right investor and overcoming financial challenges is a very tough path for finding a suitable investment at the right time. Most of the financial mistakes mentioned before are directly connected to how much effort and work you are putting into your startup since most young businesses are rushing too fast without predicting or even researching their development plan. During the time we assisted various clients, we carefully listened to their stories and saw what kind of troubles they were facing and milestones they encountered. We gave them our tips and advice that we had followed when we were only a startup ourselves. Today we’d like to introduce you to a major step that will increase your chances for success in times called the Design and Discovery Phase. This step is specifically designed for startups and young entrepreneurs. We create a detailed development plan according to your business goals, estimate your budget expenses, and analyze how exactly your business can launch with the minimum amount of risks. If you’d like to learn about what more we can offer to you in this program, you can check out our main Design and Discovery Phase. ### Startup Success Story: Sortly, #1 Inventory App! How many times have you searched for your favorite social platforms on Google? Or perhaps a funny video on YouTube that you haven’t watched for a long time? All of that has one thing in common - we Google what we want to see. And this time, for our client, it was no different. One peaceful night, when pretty much everyone was either sleeping or watching Netflix... A very professional developer was googling a “ruby on rails company” that would help him in implementing his desired idea. That's basically the beginning of one of our startup success stories that we want to share with you today! Meet our Client "Sortly" founder contacted us directly five years ago. Since that time, we have extensively worked on his awesome project and produced a complete startup success story. The concept of his idea was pretty simple. Just as any “Animal Crossing” game, which is - make an easy, yet flexible storing system for any kind of possession. With its help, anyone can manage almost any activity – from regular movings to art installations. He urgently required a web inventory platform to gain a better marketing advantage among other inventory product analogs. Along with that, he showed his current working prototype. You won’t believe us, how, how impressed were we. Not only has he managed to implement his idea into a prototype, but he also did it by himself. With so much dedication, passion, and courage for innovations, our client has written some core and basic functionalities. After sharing every detail with us, we made a detailed proposal with a precise quote and recommended approach. Yes, he did like it so much that we solved all the paperwork and started to work very quickly. Diving into issues and requirements It has been years of exciting journeys with “Sortly,” along with various development stages. However, in this article, our team wants to share the problems encountered during its initial iterations in "Sortly" startup success story. Behind so many years in active development, our team has learned lots of new things and implemented various cool features. We built a robust and high availability infrastructure that can easily handle high loads. That's why today we want to share some of our primordial milestones. After the first discussions were finished, we outlined a list of critical tasks requiring an immediate attention, and it was better to go through the Design and Discovery rather than straight to the MVP. Reason? Without proper UX/UI research, prototyping, business logic architecture, and detailed project specification, our client would get into more trouble. Along with the unforeseen expenses and sudden changes within the project. The very first highlighted requirement was that the product had no structured business analysis on the identified tasks and goals. Our client truly knew how the product should look and how it should function. However, he had an issue with future aspects. He didn't know how it should evolve, and what should be the next step after its core features are implemented. That’s where our product vision plan is taking action. Next, we suggested to create a series of graphic interfaces and make a working prototype. The client did the prototype by himself and had a set of user stories. A visual representation is a must-have, at least for some core functions. Additionally, having a UI/UX mockup and a prototype will answer some critical business questions that he may not ask himself. Another essential point is to have reliable and concrete business logic and app’s architecture. Both of the schemes are extremely important for any software product. The first one is responsible for all the inside functionality joint work. While the second is responsible for the app’s future structure and the given product’s accomplishment method. If both combined, the chances of getting a reliable product with a prosperous future on the outcome are much higher. Finally, prepare the MVP development plan and estimate the budget for the future app. Our client had some vision for his product, but it wasn't a detailed one and no there was no vendor. And once we were spotted on the horizon, our client required concrete and detailed business planning. Signifying the start of our important startup success story! Unveiling the corresponding solutions Our client knew precisely what he wanted to build and what were his business goals. However, we advised him to go through a custom Design and Discovery Phase that was explicitly assembled for him. If you want to know more details about this stage and what kind of perks it provides, see more details here. We proposed this solution because he agreed that his product lacked a proper foundation for an MVP. First, our team broke down all of his business idea aspects into the Business Model Canvas. By careful and joint discussions, together we divided his business into several sectors or fields. That way, anyone will know exactly what his business model looks like. Some honorable areas to mention are key partners, customers, resources, and revenue streams. Once the canvas was full, we reviewed the competitors using SWOT analysis. This one was done solely for identifying all of the potential competitors or product analogs. By doing that, our client saw where exactly his product should be moving forward. Here, you form a perspective vision of your product, and lots of unique ideas will infest you. As we have identified all of the development streams, we started to draw out some of the leading graphic screens for his platform and developing his prototype. Well-done visual content can attract the attention of your customers and resonate with them. And the simpler your graphic design is, the more successfully your idea will venture into the user’s mind. The next step was to construct both the business logic architecture of the future app and its technical architecture. The second one is required to lay down the sequent functionality roadmap and identify the best methods of developing your app structure. But what about the first task? To be honest, the entire purpose of building a proper business product logic focused on how exactly the product itself will interact among its different constituents. Our team was slowly coming towards the final stage of the Design and Discovery Phase; it was time to put a reasonable effort into making an MVP plan. As we mentioned earlier, the client had only a thin layer of understanding of the development plan. Plus, he couldn’t find the right vendors who could implement his idea. Why’s that? Well, it is tough to pick the right and not make a mistake at the same time. Lots of digital companies may lie and ignore some minor points that could efficiently save your budget. In our case, we covered all aspects our client had to know. Highlighting even those that may set the alarm in the time of crisis. All of the described actions took around 1,5 weeks. During this time we finished the MVP iterations plan and started the development progress. JetRuby team can confidently say that you have a good chance of producing a prosperous digital product future with the Design and Discovery Phase. Business Outcomes of our Startup Success Story "Sortly" has passed through lots of stages, iterations, implementations, and changes, since its initial state. Right now, it is a #1 inventory app in AppStore, which is still continually enhancing every single day. Since its first launch, the app gained more than 5,000 positive reviews on AppStore, with over 300,000 installations worldwide! Lots of users are already using it across the whole globe, while various enterprise companies are actively discovering its value. The list contains HP, Sanford Health, Yale, Pepsico, Lyft, and many more! This is just one of the startup successful startup stories where a client has understood the significance of initial preparations and how to form a product vision. Together, JetRuby aims to bring startups and young entrepreneurs onto the correct development path. While at the same time delivering a risk-free future product vision plan. If you’d like to consult with us regarding your idea and understand how to avoid expensive mistakes, check out our Design and Discovery page. There we will have all of your questions answered and uncertainties dissolved. ### Startup failure story: lessons of a Hivebeat team Every startup has a story to tell. Be it a success story that resulted in a huge company formation. Or a startup failure story, full of regret, mistakes, and learned experience. No matter what direction you'll take, you’re going to share the same feelings as all of the other founders once had. So be ready for any milestones you may have on your way and may the force be with you. A Startup Failure Story Overview A long time ago, in another galaxy… Well, not quite that far, but close enough for everyone to share with. In 2014 a young and full of energy group of people with shared interests and goals have cooperated to create a unique product. A product where every youngster will try to ease up his college life, that is a “Hivebeat”. The founder, Jonas Bogh, believed in a digital solution that would connect every student in their respective university, to track down what kind of activities they are holding. That way pretty much any student will know where they can hang out during the week time! Additionally, the startup was also assisting students in building up their businesses, by sharing knowledge and experience during university activities. This is a startup failure story full of hope and different mistakes. So read carefully, as you might learn some things that could save your business. Problems and Requirements Since the initial launch, Hivebeat spread their entire network and platform for 15+ universities and more than 15000 students have immediately started to use this platform pretty rapidly. Thus, the founder understood that soon their startup product has to expand and scale according to the number of active users and students they will keep getting. As the number of students has dramatically increased during the first year of release, Hivebeat customer office started to receive lots of suggestions from its main audience. Most of them were suggestions to the current system and the major target was to add the lacking features. The team got the flow of it and began to listen to them, adding more functionalities to their current platform. The team had a great idea of an app that would connect all of the uni activities altogether, but they didn’t put much effort into the actual feature’s implementation. Therefore, an MVP launch will be a good idea to start putting more effort into development production. In 2015, Hivebeat got itself into a 4-months incubator program for young startups and entrepreneurs. They did it to grow their business rapidly by gaining more customers, expanding revenue, improving conversions, and get more funds. During this huge startup booster camp, they decided to change their business ship direction. They ventured into the development of a SaaS digital product for the organization’s management programs. Outcomes & Key Takeaways In this section, we want to highlight all results from this startup failure story and analyze them to provide our own piece of mind. As you might expect, the idea and the implementation processes scored really well. However, the company never did hit the right market ground and failed to develop the product in the right direction. All of this resulted in an unfortunate failure and became one of the startup horror stories, that everyone is afraid of. So let’s review what kind of issues they encountered and what kind of conclusions our agency has deduced. Startup Scaling As the customer tides have started to get bigger, Hivebeat has pecked upon the upcoming bait and started preparing for scaling. However, what they lacked at the moment of this decision is the knowledge of who their customers were and what exactly they wanted from them. Scaling is a prosperous event for any startupper since it doesn’t signify a time for branching out, it’s more like a level up for your team. And what you should take into account is to carefully plan on a long-term basis, since most startups aim for the short ones. Once you’ll hit those, you’re gonna be in the shoe of your future self. Who is going to know exactly where and how your product should move on! In favor of Hivebeat, the team should’ve spent more time with the customers and getting to know them, before throwing money at various acquisition channels. One shouldn’t spend an eternity of research and analysis, while all of his potential competitors will start to rule the market. However, once you’ll understand the path of your product, don’t let anyone stop you from publishing multiple ad campaigns. MVP Launch Initially, the Hivebeat platform was a very basic one and its major focus was on design. That’s why since the startup team started the MVP phase, they decided to go all the way to build it up to the core product. As they keep constantly adding and integrating more functions, to give it a more vibrant and polished look. As an experienced digital solutions company, we know that an MVP is relatively much more complicated. It should only be initiated after early startup preparations every entrepreneur should do. This is the reason why entrepreneurs fail to realize that by not covering all core product aspects (ex. a business model or even a simple prototype), a founder is risking his whole company. At JetRuby, we always tend to analyze and foresee all of the possible variations and combinations your product may take. That’s why we strongly recommend going through some initial preparations like the Design and Discovery Phase we made. As a result, most of Hivebeat’s developed product features were not properly tested and had tons of various bugs. Meaning that they concentrated on the current features and the technical debt, while everything else has faded in their vision. All of that can be named “ignorance of creating a product development strategy”. This is yet another one of the expensive mistakes that our team is discussing with every young entrepreneur during the Design and Discovery phase. Customer Feedback As the company entered into the startup incubator and focused on producing a SaaS product, they started to do too many things. For example, they focused on the back / front end development, while deploying various market strategies. Most of the things were coming directly from the voice of their customers. You should assess feedback from the audience of your project, to understand their core problem and what to focus on. However, in this situation, the team should have followed their business goals, analyzed their product analogs, and simplified your app. Unfortunately, the Hivebeat team actively started to listen to their customers, who directed their development path. Your potential customers may know the list of your app issues, but they don’t know the right solution. That’s why you are in charge of your idea and responsible for solving or implementing any required features. Bootcamps vs Digital Solutions Companies Startup incubators or accelerators are not direct solutions for the issues that you might have. Yes, it is a great place to gain new insights and achieve breakthroughs in product development. However, in all other cases where your startup truly needs a solid development path, clear project planning, and concrete deadlines our agency does recommend digital solutions companies, and in particular, JetRuby offers a Design and Discovery phase, where all of these highlights are being covered in just 2 to 3 weeks. In the case of Hivebeat, they had a pleasant time getting acquainted with experienced specialists and young entrepreneurs. What they missed however was the sense of the right direction. Rather than the major goal that they were aiming for. They were confused over unnecessary development processes too much. Eventually becoming listed in various sources as one of the "bad startup stories", for good reasons obviously. Conclusion Overall, startups are a great thing and Hivebeat is not an exception. It's a valuable example for the next generation of startups that can learn from the produced mistakes. One should not underestimate the difficulty of running a business infrastructure of any size and type. And also the power of startup failure story. As they could bring you more experience points than successful ones. We suggest reading more startup failure case studies and gaining more insights into proper business management. There exist lots of various solutions that may solve all of the issues that the Hivebeat group encountered. Experienced mentors for young startups or perhaps careful and detailed research may be one of the solutions. For our agency, which was a former startup group, JetRuby has produced a Design and Discovery program for young entrepreneurs. All of the uncertainties thoroughly and carefully discussed with each client individually. The majority of our clients truly believe that by following the Design and Discovery Phase iterations, a simple company owner can drastically decrease the chance of complete failure. ### How to find a strong technology startup partner? From time to time, we come across a situation where we desperately need the assistance of a technology partner. Be it a broken iPhone that you accidentally tested for hoaxed prank hacks or an urgent task for developing a unique piece of application. Pretty much everything that we use is completely digitized by various technical cofounders. That is why every young entrepreneur is greedily trying to build his own child. However, when they stumble with the development for the first time, they are knocking their head with the following question: “How do I find a good technology startup partner and not regret it?” Intro It’s a good idea to start collaborating with a trustful technical partner, especially when you have little to absolutely no expertise in the development domain. By combining the efforts of both the business-wise person and a software developer you can come up with some unique and innovative product while delivering a working business model. However, the market expectations of your potential audience are really at the stake here, since every day lots of breakthroughs are done, so you have to be both fast and explicit. The main question here is obviously: “Which one to choose?”, since if chosen incorrectly your whole project would become a blast. You bite the bullet and see how your app is constantly crashing. Your dev team is completely silent and your customers are slowly turning sides. The last thing you ever want to see on this list is when your investors will roll back their loans or venture capitals. That’s why things can go bad fast and if you want to prevent it, you should know who is going to build your project. And while it is true that your product is like a central core of your business, it is done to solve the customer pain points. Overall, the consequences may be a complete disaster that you don’t want to happen. On the other hand, if by analyzing the list of potential developers, you can make the most of it. Not only will a reliable technical partner support the development from start to end, but also manage other developers. Without further ado, we present a list of criteria that every startup and company owner should take note of while looking for a technology partner. Criteria for choosing a technology startup partner References There is no doubt that the very first thing you want to do is check the company’s official references. You can either view them on special platforms or request documented project examples or a list of successful stories. For us, we stick to providing quality-based success stories on our online resources and during the first contact with a potential client, we are glad to provide access to them. If you want to learn more insights into our success stories you can actually head to our official blog and UK platform. If you’d like to know what kind of expertise we have in different business industries, you can head directly to our official website. And specifically for young entrepreneurs, we have created a Design and Discovery page for the proper initiation of a project development plan. Once you’ve seen them, don’t be shy and approach the company’s customers. Ask them all of the questions that you might have in mind. For example: "How good was the communication between the client and the project manager?" or "How fast and productively the company completed his work?" Ask as much as you can before preparing for the meeting with your partner. Perhaps they might not have the same field of expertise that your project does. However, if there is a good number of references that are filled with satisfied customers, it is a great sign of a trustful technology startup partner. On the other hand, do ask your partner about the negative side of their cooperation. “What went wrong during the project execution?” “How much impact did it do on the development progress?” “How exactly did your partner manage it and overcome it?” All of that is completely relevant and can be also applied to you. Since not every project is going on a straight road to success. There are cases where something unexpected or unpredictable has happened. Therefore, understanding how exactly the technical partner is dealing and solving all of the potential project mess is also another criteria to look at. Another thing to note is to know just for how long the company has been operating. It is another factor that will show just how dedicated and loyal this partner is compared to other ones. Expertise The next point on the list is the actual expertise of the potential technical partner. Even though you already read the references and listened to their ex-clients, it is drastically important to be 100% sure that they do have experience in what they claim to be. Since the job of the outsource companies is to bring their client closer to a successful business. The ones who have produced more successful projects in a good number of years are the most prominent. For example, whenever we get a contact link with a potential client, we already assess it and think: "What kind of value can we actually give to the client?". Once we get to know each other, our business analysts will propose a whole branch of suitable solutions for his idea. If he accepts, our Dev team will start executing tasks and requirements according to the identified success factors. A professional partner will assist in utilizing all of the trending tech stacks while guiding you through your project. This includes implementing each feature rationally and consequently. While applying business logic to the relevant goals and achieving the maximum value for each development iteration. Product Future An iron characteristic of a technical partner is to provide several options for the development plan initiation. Be it different technology stacks or paths of slowly releasing the product to the market. The important key point from here is that a partner has to offer variations, to fit your requirements. But keep in mind that as the businesses are growing, so do the products that they release. That’s why a technology startup partner who can foresee all these change waves may appear before you, only once in a blue moon. In JetRuby’s case, our team proposes the best methods that are both trending and demanding in your market niche. Once chosen and all of the uncertainties are thoroughly discussed, our business analysts will go ahead and prepare an estimation of the product development directions. When the project finishes, we show them a proposed trajectory of further development and assistance. And depending on the client’s answer, we take action accordingly. If you want to read more about the importance of business analytics, follow our article here. Another thing is to keep in mind that you are looking for a custom app solution, not a jack-in-the-box. Since you are working on a long-term basis, putting effort and money into it. Transparency Whether you do have experience in software development or not, make sure that your future partner is always transparent about what he is doing and can easily explain it. He and his team have to walk in sync with the business goals and requirements you had in mind. At the same time, a technical specialist should always notify regarding any changes or development progresses he had, along with providing access to the necessary documentation and some of the tools. To have a more accurate estimate of the business goals and requirements, assemble the prototype, set clear deadlines, and implementation steps, one should conduct a Design and Discovery Phase. It is a JetRuby’s program that can guarantee to you that the risks of your business failure will decrease by almost 80%. After it, you will have confidence in what is your market niche, what are your current and future goals, and more concrete data for your project. If you want to have direct access to the project development steps, JetRuby advises to look out for Agile or Scrumban methodologies. In both, all tasks will be done in priority, with a visual representation of each finished one. In most cases, whenever the project implementation is going through previously mentioned methodologies, various sorts of documents are generated. The ones that are truly important and can definitely guarantee you the project status are: Sprint Report - basically a document that records all of the encountered issues in each sprint, a feature list that either was or was not completed during the indicated sprint and a comparison between the estimated efforts to the spent ones. Sprint Commitment - while the first document focuses on sprint results, this one contains the goals of a sprint, estimated dates of sprint start and end, total duration, the list of features in the current sprint, and team information. Project Report - a final document with a fully detailed explanation of each feature implemented and project results. Where can I find good technical cofounder? For various reasons, people tend to use only 2 known options in finding a partner: send a mailing for every contact and utilize the most popular social platforms. The last one is designed for hiring a broad variety of minds (like LinkedIn, Monster.com, Indeed.com, etc). “So what if I do?” - you might ask. Well, it’s not a bad thing honestly. But to find a qualified and experienced technology startup partner, you might visit specific platforms. One of the best examples is Clutch - an excellent resource for finding partners. It records phone interviews of various company owners and based on them creates reviews for each one of them. Now that is pretty awesome! While Clutch is a slick platform, there are plenty of others to consider. Some contain the most trustworthy and popular website platforms that can assist you in finding great technical partners. Others, have people who are looking to fill the role of co-founder if you would require any. Here are some of that example, which you can use: YouTeam Goodfirms Angel.co Dev.to Why go outsource, rather than freelance? You might actually want to hold your arguments back away for a few moments right now. We truly understand that freelancers also have stand-in project implementations. And in some cases, freelancers can actually give you a slight boost in the production of your product. However, it is not always the best way to let the freelancers do all of the startup work. Even when it comes to our internal company business matters, we do not use nor recommend using freelancer’s assistance. It may sound like a good idea to have an independent worker for some specific project. However, there is more to it and most of it is being missed out. Based on our own observations, the majority of the companies who used freelancers help have a tragic story to tell. As most of the freelancers will either not support their process of work or simply abandon the requiruter since the company didn’t legally hire him. But once again this is just the tip of an iceberg, the real tough adventure is just beginning. If you decide to walk on the freelancer’s path, you will have to put up a lot of work. For the most part, the main person in charge of an app will be responsible for preparing its architecture. He also should have experience with managing the freelance team, while allocating the required resources. Since it's pretty much impossible to do it as a single man army. This means they all have to choose the correct technical stack and put up some core business foundation logic for your project. But wait, here's more! As you might know, a freelance is typically a person who is typically involved in multiple projects at once. Thus, it is in his interest to finish the digital product, hit all of the requirements, and quit your project. Meaning no further supports or scaling on the app you just created. So, you will have to actually assess all of the freelance developers. And be completely sure that yours is the chosen one. And once decided, you will have to keep on observing that your development process is moving in the correct direction. More than that, your freelancer has to provide you with a high-quality result, achieved in the arranged deadlines. If you still don't believe what we just told you, then in that case there is one definite thing. You will have to spend more time observing, managing, and communicating with your freelance team. While you get to spend lesser and lesser time with other sights of your growing startup. On the other hand, if you are not confident in challenging the freelance pool of mess, you can easily try to ask for assistance from the outsourcing companies. From them, you will see how they can provide, give, and assist you in more ways than a freelancer can. Since you'll be granted access to multiple resources and platforms, accompanied by the right experts interested in making a successful product. As we'd like to say at JetRuby: "It doesn't matter what are the roles, what matters is the cooperation and valuable results". Our experts have 10 years of working in various market segments, constantly enhancing our client's projects. They don't give up or get bored with doing the same project. You actually have it backward. They look at how a given digital solution can operate more efficiently, generate more unique features, and improve the encountered bugs. In short, cooperation with a technology startup partner will definitely get you on the right track. You can say that they can show you a whole new world, from the startup's perspectives. And of course, by sharing all knowledge and expertise, suitable for your specific business field. Besides, you don't need to manage the Dev team all by yourself. It will be already under the control of your partner. They will also scale it accordingly or you can do it by yourself. After all, most of the partners who are actively helping startups were a startup once too. They can help you with questions, uncertainties, development, and project planning with no issues. While giving you an extra slice of experience that you can apply for your case too! Conclusion Be it a great company name or an excellent product, everyone is competing for leaving a big gap in this world. And it’s always not that easy when it comes to practice. Since your technology startup partner can actually put up a good strategic plan and develop a solid and secure app. However, by the time you’ll release it, either an analog will be already on the market or it won’t be that valuable. That’s why it is important to have a reliable technology partner and a business analyst at the same time. Every professional specialist is in high demand and trying to get one will be a rat race. That’s why our JetRuby team is always out there for those who desire their product to become a successful one. It can be both for the big company fellas and for the young startup ones. For this reason, we developed a special program to prepare your product for an MVP stage. All of both technical and business uncertainties will be clarified, while your idea will slowly become a real one. So, go ahead and check out our Design and Discovery phase, in the meantime let us know your thoughts or stories regarding the choice of the right technical partner. Until that time, stay positive and keep up the good work! ### Top 10 startup mistakes that should be avoided “An idea is worth a gold dime, a perfect begging for a new business to run its wheels into the market space.” - a quote that perhaps visited every startup mind from their beginning. Most of their ideas are truly awesome and take some very unique approaches, although not all of them can survive the startup mistakes they will encounter. Aside from the obvious challenges and milestones on the path, most of the entrepreneurs make some of the biggest startup mistakes or might have a real struggle to start operating their business, since they have little to no expertise. They might have great standards, awesome workers, potential prototypes, but all of that does not make up for the lack of experience and understanding of business logic. So, they also meet the same fate as any common startup does: closed down, before even opening up. According to BLS, it was estimated that more than 20% of all small businesses who are initiating their work for future products are already failing in their first year. So how exactly do you ensure the integrity of your business goals and surpass the startup mistakes on your way? Especially for you, JetRuby has reached out to its partners as well as referred to the well-known public examples, to prepare this article. As a result, we present to you a list of the 10 biggest and most expensive startup mistakes that every entrepreneur should avoid. No value to the targeted market Building a product for a specific group of people, which pain points will be solved is the correct approach for any startup to initiate their work. Since by correctly identifying the hidden potential in their future product early on, one shall avoid the failure of the product’s lost market purpose. One of the great examples of mismatched market needs is the story of the “Patient Communicator” startup group. The owner initially targeted a digital product that will organize and structure the office work for medical doctors. However, he never really assessed the market needs or interviewed any doctors and only referred to the opinion of a close relative, who worked in the hospital industry for a long time. In the end, as the digital product was deployed, the company owner understood that no one really wanted it. Since the main concern and focus of doctors are their patients, not the complexity of their office work. All in all, it is really significant for every startup to correctly analyze and understand which market niche his product is accustomed to, in the first place. Since, even for a JetRuby case with a new client, our professionals will estimate that the person in charge of his idea will know better all know-hows, including product marketing aspects. Therefore, by having enough knowledge and expertise in your field, or by doing preliminary research, you can gain new customers and solve their pain points consistently. There are many ways to avoid such brutal and expensive startup mistakes, the Design and Discovery phase is just one of them which already proved its value for many of our clients. I walk a lonely road Sharing is caring, especially when you properly divide your work among your partners or friends to gain a more successful and dynamic start of your business. So don’t try to weigh down everything on your shoulders, work on your project with the people you trust the most. “It is essential to find a trustworthy partner to discuss your business ideas, challenges and goals. Coincidentally for us, it was JetRuby that listened to our requests, internalized them and compared them to other projects to produce value.” - Jack Green, CTO of NameCoach A single startup company unit may not have a large number of tasks to run. But it doesn’t really mean that a single person can actually handle all of that. Just imagine that you have to properly structure down a marketing plan, find the right investment partners, nail down your project plan, and lots of other important details that one person cannot physically take all on by himself. Otherwise, you'll make tons of different startup mistakes with no clear solution for even one of them. Yes, there are examples where a startup began from a single person, like the owner of Oracle, Larry Ellison. However, once he opened up his company and started putting his focus more on his product, he delegated his work among his other 2 tech-savvy partners, which resulted in the very first and most successful customer ever - the CIA. So don’t try to push every single task on your shoulders. A little help from here and there didn’t hurt anybody. Incorrect budget management When someone mentions any topic that is somehow related to a startup, the very first thing that comes to your mind is the budget limitations. That’s very obvious, since every startup has a limited budget on their hands, granted to or earned by them for one solid reason - make a successful product. A founder, who received a large amount of money may spend it very irresponsibly for various little and unnecessary needs. Since, he might think that by purchasing all of the expensive goods, his product will be the best one on the market. But, what if after spending all of his received money there is a huge change in the product structure and everything has to start from the beginning? In that case, it would mean the end for everybody in the startup. By properly managing your budget and building a financial plan, you can’t drown in the guilty pleasure of spending money. You can take an example from our project “OSRAM”, where we have implemented an indoor vertical farming system. Our team summarized the required resources, how much time and scope were estimated for planning and budget while staying transparent and yet simple. It wouldn’t be possible without the right processes which we run through the very preliminary stages, analyzing the user journeys and creating detailed project specifications. The bottom line - the budget has to consider the potential of quick tweaks of a product right after its launch to make sure it fits the needs of users and satisfies them better than competitors. And of course, the marketing portion of the budget has to be very well planned - many great products made similar startup mistakes, due to a small marketing budget. Launching / Scaling too quickly One of the most significant moments that every startup team is impatiently waiting for is to finally release their product and wait for the first client's feedback! Although for that, one has to be sure that all of the core functionalities are working as they should do, so it can handle new, incoming traffic. That also applies to the proper scalability of your business. If you plan to upgrade your business to a new level, be sure you know all of the aspects of a new product, a targeted market niche, and the services you provide. Because if you don’t, you are risking an entire enterprise for a fall down. During one of the projects, our client has actually shared with us his rigorous startup mistakes with the healthcare application that he wanted to implement from the start. However, fortunately for him, he didn’t meet the same fate. “We had an idea for creating a unique, yet simple solution for both patients and the medical institutions. It was a truly great one and in the beginning we had really good hopes. However, what we failed to overlook is that we didn’t put our software to testing and focused on its constant scaling, which resulted in tremendous halt, till the time we asked JetRuby for proper assistance.” - CTO of Healthcare App Wrapping up, a launch, or a scaling process is always a big thing, especially when you build your very first startup ever. Thus, understanding all of the core business needs and product aspects can be a deciding factor for the existence of a startup group. Wrong location & Wrong timing Pretty much everybody knows such an idiom: ”Nothing personal, you just got here in the wrong place at the wrong time”. And that applies to the business terms too! Mistiming or even launching your product in the wrong location may make a young startup fail miserably. For example, let’s say you want to build a travel agency with lots of benefits along with a mobile app. You’re very passionate and almost fall over hills for your idea and try to live it out. However, what you don’t notice is that most of the travel agencies in your area have much more beneficial opportunities and their numbers are gigantic. As much as you will try to successfully push on your services, the main user traffic will still go to your Big Brother competitor. Based on this scenario, what our digital agency would suggest is to investigate a local area where the competency of travel services is relatively medium and try to analyze their main product strength and weak points. Once you get that, you should prioritize your actions and functionalities to understand what exactly you should do to achieve a Minimal Viable Product. Overall, the key takeaway of this startup mistake is to know where and when should you launch your solution. It will not only produce the benefit of the correct marketing plan but also will correctly align your product development path according to the analyzed conclusion. Hiring too quickly One of the most interesting and yet deadly startup mistakes is starting the hiring process for a project almost immediately after initial formation is done. Sometimes, it is noticeable in hiring full-time staff or employees instead of part-timers or even contractors that may do the same amount of work, while still reducing the amount of spent time and expenses. Another side of this flaw is that most of the young entrepreneurs are just trying to get the right amount of people, not the right people that will fit the project scope. Perhaps a friend of yours didn’t have enough expertise in the field of your job or maybe an employee had a high temper and just didn’t fit inside the team properly. So, be sure you feel exactly what kind of people are working within your startup and understand what kind of tasks your startup team is executing. According to that, you can already estimate whether you really need a full-time or perhaps a contract can easily handle the given task. All of that should be thoroughly considered in the development process. By implementing proper project planning, you can launch your idea in time and prevent any unnecessary dev team scaling, according to the initial requirements, produced in the Design and Discovery phase. Poor marketing Essentially, product marketing is like a beating heart for your business: you breathe in the leads coming through the blood flow; you breathe out and the project avenue is basically in your hands. Most of the startups don’t really focus on the marketing stage or they don’t really see the point of promoting the product. However, executing a proper marketing strategy, advertisement plan, and pushing your product to the desired audience is considered to be one of the most important traits of a successful business. The reason why startups don’t put too much emphasis on the marketing aspect is that the technical founders are only interested in coding and building the product to its perfection. To prove it, we have analyzed our clients who were mostly involved in tech development products before they came to us, to understand what they share in common. As a result, we found out that they were solely dedicating themselves to building and creating digital products, discarding the marketing process. They believed creating a product comes first, while customers can wait. Instead, one should balance between implementing a digital product and listening to the client’s feedback. When they approached us, we were able to point out this concern, while they understood their issue and asked us for proper assistance Absence of a concrete business model Probably one of the less recognized startup mistakes every entrepreneur has encountered, but still common nonetheless, is the correct comprehension of building a straightforward business model. Typically this issue exists, where one dedicates himself only to one, singular channel of work while risking a loss of a business. Young entrepreneurs get too optimistic about the way they will be able to acquire new customers since they will build an eye-catchy digital product of their own. It may happen with the first few ones, however, after that, it becomes a desperate nightmare of huge costs for attracting the right audience to buy what you have built. One of JetRuby partners already had a similar story, before they came to us. As they were just a tech startup group, they started to implement their digital product and chose to provide it to pretty much everyone: from SMB to big enterprise companies. However, later on, when they decided to go through the Design and Discovery Phase, they immediately understood that it would be in their best interest to only focus on corporate and enterprise companies, which suited their business logic the best. The potential to bring in revenue from your product is the most important indicator for any startup. And that comes directly from properly setting up your business model. Without it, not only you won’t understand how to properly charge your customers, but also how to interest potential investors. Hard Competition “Investigate and analyze your competitors, they will bring you prosperity.” It might sound very strange for any entrepreneur to grasp it, however, this sentence truly does make sense. Having enough competitors in the area of your product deployment will give you a solid point where you can easily launch it for experienced customers. On the other hand, by having large competitors you won’t stand a chance to put your product on the line (as their shares are close to 90% of all the market). While in an area with close to no competitors, you might want to analyze whether the solution that you are trying to achieve is a widespread one, to successfully harvest its results. And it’s not only that, according to our statistics from the clients that we worked with, it was estimated that almost 70% of all businesses are burned down in their first few months, due to the lack of competitors' knowledge. That’s why we strongly believe that discussing and debating all of the product possible development branches is essential when it comes to web or app project implementation. All in all, properly identifying all of your potential competitors and product analogs will properly allow you to know how your product can give new value to future customers. Once you’ll get it, it will be no issue to deduce how to advertise your product. Listening only to yourself There’s nothing wrong with listening to your inner voice and trying to make things out as you imagine. But you actually have it backward. By ignoring the people who are cooperating with you or even potential customers who are trying to suggest significant information, you are risking your own business. In an instant, you may have great potential and a prosperous future product. You can almost grasp the sense of success and walk alongside other big companies. However, what you don’t really notice is that by deploying more features onto your product and getting it more unique you don’t get the corresponding feedback from your potential customers or users. In the end, you produce a product which nobody really needs anymore, since you didn’t hear anyone’s voice. That’s why you have to be careful to pay attention to your customers and your partner's words and adapt to the needs accordingly. Even one of our close partners agrees with this statement. “JetRuby's exceptional value sets them above competitors. Showing a genuine interest in the product, their team listens closely to feedback and maintains a thorough understanding of the business. Their ability to create optimal solutions to sustain a lower budget is impressive.” - Moments Inc., Julian Safford On the contrary, there are cases where startups listen to their customers too much. Having that kind of overwhelming focus on what others speak, may also put in danger your entire business. Therefore, you need to have a strict balance where you actually listen to your audience and keep an eye on what your members say too. Conclusion And there you have it, 10 simple, yet crucial startup mistakes, which should be noted and acknowledged for your future product. As JetRuby was a startup once, we have walked across the same road that every young startup entrepreneur is walking now. We cherish and know what kind of fears and troubles you have in mind. Whether you really want to go for it or should back up a little bit more. And we value that and your time, that’s why we want to offer you a solid solution to cut down all of the troubles you might have! The Design and Discovery Phase of JetRuby is a starting point for proper definition and assembly for your plan goal. If you’d like to know more about it, check out our Design and Discovery Phase for more information. Otherwise, you can share with us what kind of worry or milestone is troubling you and we’ll be on our way to you within the next 24 hours! ### Top Five Database Management Trends for 2020 Did you realize over 55% of the businesses in the United States use big data analytics? If you are a business owner, your main goal needs to be getting to know your core audience. The best way to achieve this goal is through the use of big data and analytics. The more data you and your team collect, the harder it will be to store and access. Fixing these problems will require you to set up a database. With the right database configuration, you will be able to access information with the touch of a button. Making sure your newly setup database functions properly is no easy task. Adequately managing and optimizing your current database is only possible with the latest tools and technology on the market. Read below to find out about some of the database management trends you need to think of embracing in 2020. Using the Power of Cloud-Computing Keeping data accessible is the main priority most business owners have. If you have team members working all over the globe, sharing information with them is essential. Without a cloud-based server in place, you will have a hard time keeping your remote team in the know. This is why you need to consider leveraging the power of cloud computing, especially when it comes to managing a database. Already, we are seeing businesses move databases to the cloud to make them easier to manage. If these important databases are on the cloud, integrating and securing them will be much easier. Luckily, there are a number of database as a service (DBaaS) providers on the market. These DBaaS companies specializing in problem cloud-hosted databases for business owners. Using a third-party to meet your database needs can help take a lot of stress off of your plate. If there is a problem with this database, it will be up to the DBaaS provider to fix it. In most cases, cloud-based databases are very affordable. This means there is no reason why you shouldn’t use one. Fully-Optimized Data Warehouses The larger a business gets, the more complex their data needs become. If you have a number of databases spread throughout the world, you need to invest in a data warehouse to keep this information accessible. A data warehouse pulls from all of the data resources a business has in place to produce helpful information when needed. Data warehouses are used by email verification companies and a host of other industries. If you are looking for more information about how these services work, be sure to read this article from AccuWeb Hosting. For most businesses, using a relational database management system (RDBMS) makes sense. These systems are designed to integrate and work easily with outdated or older database systems. However, the only way to take full advantage of an RDBMS is by taking your database to the cloud. While this may sound like a big hassle, it is actually quite beneficial. By moving your database to the cloud, you can make it more accessible and scalable. This means that if you need to expand your data collection and analyzation capabilities, you can do so with ease. The key to having success with a cloud-based database is working with the right supplier. More Business Intelligence Tools are Being Used One of the main reasons why business owners invest so much time in database optimization and management is because of the information this technology can provide. When paired with other business intelligence tools, a well-organized database can help you plot the next move your business should take. Some business owners fail to realize just how difficult it is to anticipate the needs of their audience. While a database is far from a crystal ball, it can help you figure out what consumers are responding to and what you have to do to capitalize on the momentum your business has. Modern business owners are motivated and passionate about using the latest technology. This is why business intelligence and database management tools will continue to grow in popularity. Don’t Let The Data Revolution Pass You By Rather than letting new technology intimidate you, embrace it. With the help of an experienced IT professional, getting the right data management solutions in place will be simple. We are here at your service. ### What is a Minimum Viable Product? | Conspectus Introduction Minimum Viable Product refers to a product that consists of its smallest and least featureful embodiment with the containment of basic functionalities for the purpose of necessary demonstration. In terms of mobile application development, Minimum Viable Product is considered as the introductory version of a mobile application or mobile technology where the new product is originated with its core functionalities. Minimum Viable Product always helps in examining, designing, evaluating and delivering the end product. It is a necessary process for mobile application and web development. Purpose of a Minimum Viable Product The primary purpose of a minimum viable product is to set up and launch a product immediately with a relatively small budget which is based on an idea. This specific approach helps to gain the user’s feedback upon the primary product along with nurturing the ideas for a better experience and relatively less time consumption. Another very important purpose of the Minimum Viable Product is to test and examine the possibilities by minimizing the occurrence of error. Benefits of a Minimum Viable Product There are certain benefits which can be obtained from Minimum Viable Product which are respectively: MVP is specifically meant for the starts-ups with a low budget which permits the applications to be examined with a minimum amount of risk. MVP helps in gathering user’s opinion and feedback. MVP permits market substantiation and helps in achieving an understanding about the target market. MVP provides a lesser development time and cost for improving the application and launching an updated version of the same. The Necessity of Building a Minimum Viable Product There are certain necessities for constructing a Minimum Viable Product which can be respectively described as: Creation of an initial model for the purpose of discussion and offer reference of a visual point. For the purpose of approving initial ideas by sharing the models with prospective users. MVP inaugurates the preparation of starting a journey. The Steps of Building a Minimum Viable Product There are a few certain steps for building a Minimum Viable product and pursuing its development process accordingly. Those are respectively: Becoming enlightened and getting familiarized with the purpose of Minimum Viable Product. Closely monitoring the benefits and rewards of minimum viable product creation. Properly defining the challenges and obstacles which are needed to be solved. Searching for the correct solution for creating a minimum viable product. Closely analyzing the respective market. Demonstrating the features of the minimum viable product. Monitoring the primary metrics for measuring success. The Process of Building a Minimum Viable Product The minimum viable product is all about configuring, testing and examining the ideas and properly work out which is essential for the target audience and target customers. MVP is designed in order to meet customer satisfaction and demands. If the initial product is well comprehended then the final product will bear good results. The necessary steps for minimum viable product creation are as follows; Market Research From times to times, it may happen that the product doesn’t match the necessary market criteria. That is why, once an idea is initiated, first it is needed to be ensured that the necessities, demands, and expectations of the user are fulfilled. It is always better to possess more quality information which can increase the chances of success. On the other hand, you need to take into account the competitors’ offerings to keep the product unique. Expression of your idea In order to properly express an idea, it is necessary to know about the product value and benefits of the users and customers. A clear conception must be held inside the creator’s mind about the necessary product estimation and value outlining. It is what the minimum viable product implies and depending upon that MVP must be developed and formulated. Consideration of the design process and user flow The application designing must be conducted in a way which is commodious and convenient to the user. The application must be made in a way that fits the user’s perspective keeping in mind the opening forum to closing the final process including the purchase and delivery, as well as maintaining a thorough user flow for keeping the user satisfied. User flow can only be defined if the process stages are properly determined. The necessary explanation of the steps for reaching the core objective must be clear ahead. Once the basic tasks are figured out, the next step is generally defining the features. Listing out the Project Features The very basic requirement for building a minimum viable product is listing out all the features which are needed to be incorporated inside the product. After the building process is completed, then it is needed to be checked with the list. However, at first, the features must be properly prioritized. If the priority is ordered on a high, medium and low basis then the scopes of incorporation in the initial version of the product remain simple. Building your minimum viable product After realizing the market necessities and primary features building the minimum viable product is easy. Prototype or final product, both demands betterment and all it requires is the fulfillment of customer’s necessities, user-friendliness, engageable capacity, and suitability. Building, measuring and learning Everything inside the process is a part of it. Serially, first the extended scope of the work is defined, then the product proceeds to the development stage. Afterward, the quality assurance engineers conduct the very first testing stage when product development is concluded. A thorough and detailed review is necessary after launching the minimum viable product before the promotion. The client’s reactions and statements will tell a lot about the product’s acceptance in the market along with its possible competition and revenue etc. The users are the best interpreters of all the deficits. After receiving their feedback a continuous process goes on of testing, checking, examining, learning and measuring the quality and constantly improving it till the ultimate finalization. Conclusion Hereby, all the above steps and processes can be precisely declared as the ultimate ones for building a minimum viable product. At the same time, you should never hesitate to ask the users as well as always listen to them, and keep customers’ concern always prior to anything. Author Bio: Name: Maria Baeza Bio: Maria Baeza is a Content Marketing Manager at TopMobileTech. It is a blog where I cover all the tips & tricks related to Mobile and more related to tech. Stay connected to the rest of the world with Top Mobile Tech. We bring latest and critical news to your mobile and computer devices. ### 4 Types of Push Notifications That Users Enjoy The world of technology has gotten us closer and has shrunk the globe. The more technology progressed, more things were redefined to make comfort and convenience easily available at all times. We are all surrounded by a world of applications that we are glued to. Most of these applications again concentrate on the comfort and convenience factor. Probably, one of the many reasons why they are so popular in the first place. Applications these days have changed the way people do almost everything. Be it the way they shop and purchase items or the fact of how to watch movies and now even read. With millions of apps available, it becomes a challenge to be one that is the most preferred and often app developers think that the number of times their application is installed is the means of measuring its success. But, in truth, just like in the case of emails sent to subscribers world-wide, just mailing the numbers brings no result unless there is the final outcome of a person viewing an email and let’s say completing the purchase. If statistics are to be believed, there are close to 6,140 applications that are released every day on the Google app store! If this number doesn’t amaze you, we wonder what really will? With so many options, another important criteria for measuring the success of an application comes with the fact of how many people will come back to your application each day dedicatedly even after having downloaded it initially? As an app developer if you are wondering just how to break the monotony and become an app that is preferred and used well, then let’s just say you need to try a little harder and put in that extra PUSH. And, this extra push can come in the form of push notifications. The Pushy, but Productive Push Notifications Do you remember those advertisements that intrigued you by releasing something new and exciting every week? Advertisements that constantly reminded you about a certain product or service? In the case of applications one of the role push notifications play is to keep reminding the user to be loyal to the app. With their being so many options when it comes to applications, apps need to become more than just an overnight wonder and this they can only do by ensuring that their users retain their information and keep coming back to them. They play the role of those teaser ads where you push someone till the time they actually buy your product. To gauge a better understanding of the miracle that is push notification, let us first wrap our heads around understanding the different types of push notifications that exist. Types of Push Notifications The Meticulous Mechanical Push Notifications You happen to ponder upon an E-shopping website and decide that you like something there and just happen to add that product into the virtual shopping cart. Now, for some reason you get busy and forget that you haven’t completed the purchase. This is when the role of Mechanical type push notification comes in. These kinds of notifications need the buyer/user to carry out an action or activity and then a message is sent in the form of a notification to alert the buyer “hey your purchase is incomplete”. With attention spans decreasing almost each day, a study has shown that a whopping 75% of the times most shopping carts are left abandoned on the E-retail sites. Image Source  Imagine that you are using Facebook and come across an event that you really want to be a part of. You click that you are interested in getting there and then you forget about it. Mechanical push notifications are internally linked to your calendar and the moment that event is round the corner you will be alerted. Mechanical push notifications are time based as well. Every time you upload and do something on an application like Facebook or Instagram, it results in another action of people liking it. The moment someone likes your latest photo uploaded on Instagram you get another mechanical push notification triggered in response to the activity of liking being carried out. These are the ways in which a mechanical push notification works. The Biased Behavioural Push Notifications Imagine this event! As a user of several applications, you use the Google search engine to look for something. Post that you happen to visit Facebook and there again you are reminded about something linked to the very topic of your search on Google! As scary as this phenomenon may seem (where you feel someone is spying on your every search), there is a reason why this happens. This happens to be the work of the behavioural push notification that alerts you on things based on previous search history and things that you either liked, shared or bought. If you have ever watched the movie “Home Alone” on Netflix or Amazon Prime, you will always get an alert when the next sequel “Home Alone 2” releases on either of these platforms. This sort of a notification that you get based on new releases and past activities is how the behavioural push notification works. Suppose you happen to be a regular app user of “Nykaa” and purchase all your cosmetics from there. In such a case, whenever Nykaa has something new to offer it will send you a behavioural push notification that will alert you about their new arrivals. Image Source The Chivalrous Cheer Up Notifications Imagine that you are playing an app based game on your mobile. After a while, you leave it midway. A cheer up notification helps by sending an alert to the player. Something along the lines of “you won the last round, don’t stop now and go on to win an additional bonus”. The moment watches got replaced by smart watches, the job of cheer up notifications became huge. Every time a smart watch user walks or runs, these cheer up notifications alert you about your success and congratulate you for completing a task or activity. This keeps a person motivated to do more and be inclined to receiving that next cheer up notification. The Lively Location- based Notifications This particular notification is the newest kid on the block to join the notification family. With Google maps always following you and acting like the mother who always keeps tabs on your location and roundabouts, these location based geo specific notifications alerts a user of the venues and spots closest to them. So, if I am at point X and am searching for Italian restaurants, I will be alerted with the option of the one which is closest to where I already am. Another major role of location based notification comes when people use applications such as food delivery apps. Once you have placed an order you will be alerted of the delivery boys location and will know exactly when he will reach you with the food. These are the basic categories that one finds when it comes to push notifications. As and when new applications are developed, we will see a time when there are more types of push notifications introduced to help make apps more efficient and long lasting. ### JetRuby Agency Appreciates Its Awesome Customers While mobile devices are quickly becoming the main way we consume content — and mobile apps take a whopping 50% of that traffic — websites are still a huge content driver. But having a top-notch website is important to keep users coming to your page. 40% of web users will leave a page if it takes longer than three (!) seconds to load. So how do you make sure that you’re getting those visitors to stay on your site? And how do you determine whether an app or a website is the best platform for your product? At JetRuby Agency, we can help advise you on those crucial decisions. Our customers can then stay under one roof to get their web or app content designed and built out. We’re thrilled to say that B2B ratings firm Clutch's research shows that we’re a top Lviv-based web developer. We’re also among the best web agencies, as listed on Visual Objects, Clutch’s sister site. We couldn’t have gotten here without our number one supporter: our clients. One of our satisfied customers is an electronic manufacturing company that needed help building an MVP of a web app within a short timeline. The app involved lighting controls and sensor feedback — features that we integrated into the platform. We also built the frontend UI and a physical demonstrator for showing off the prototype to stakeholders who were both internal and external to the company. We delivered the prototype on time — even after a minor expansion in scope — and hit every requirement on the nose. Our usage of sprints and project management tools such as Slack ensured that we were constantly in contact and that nothing got overlooked. As a result, we earned high ratings over every category. “JetRuby is very customer-oriented, which impresses me. … They really make us feel that we’re being treated well, that we have their attention, and that they are supporting us.” – Business Field Manager, Electronic Manufacturing Company Another success story involved a photo editing app. We’re designing and building the product for iOS devices. Although the project is still underway, the app is coming along well. We’ve met our client’s standards for quality and led an uneventful collaboration. We received nearly perfect scores for our meticulousness, as well as our ability to meet every deadline and request so far. “They're very thorough, providing lots of updates and documenting everything they're working on throughout the engagement.” – Managing Director, Photo Editing App We’re pleased to present these success stories among many. Feedback from these trusted voices drives us to grow and improve our services every day. They’re also the reason why we’re ranked on The Manifest, a company resource site, as one of the top app developers in Eastern Europe. Want to learn more about why our clients trust us with their web and app needs? Let’s talk today. ### Writing A Brief For A Software Development Project: 4 Things To Consider When writing a brief for your software development project, there are some things that you must consider. Keep in mind that you will be presenting your brief to your team, potential investors, and other important people, so you must make it the best you can and show your professionalism with it. Here is an outline for your project brief. Overview The overview is the first of the four main sections of your brief. The overview must explain what the project is and talks about its aim. You must include an explanation of the business problem your project solves or the goal it achieves. The goals of the overview to be a kind of a bird's-eye view of the project. It's okay if you only have rough outlines and expectations instead of preset results. You should still include these predictions as long as you are able to support them by calculations and possible similar examples from other software development projects. Of course, the more practical information you can include, the better. Make sure you know the answers to all of these questions when writing your brief: What is the main goal of your software? It doesn't matter whether it's a mobile app or a desktop program, you must know the main goal of the software you are developing. What are the software's primary functions? Make sure that you know what the primary functions of your software are. These will usually be closely related to the main goal. What are the platforms of your project? You might be developing merely an online tool or creating a full pack of options with Android and iOS apps, several desktop versions, and so on. What is your budget? You will elaborate on it later, but be sure to include rough figures in the overview anyway. What is your deadline? You don't have all the time in the world to create your software, so have a schedule with deadlines for each stage of development. Do you have mockups and wireframes? Considering you decided to start writing a brief, you probably already have some mockups and wireframes, so make sure to include them. Requirements The next part to include in your brief is a section with requirements for your software development project. Even though it may seem very similar to the next section, these two parts are actually different. The requirements of your project are very important as you will be describing the tools you need for starting the work. These will include the tools you will need at every stage of development, so make sure you include even the smallest details. Along with the tools you will need, be sure to mention all the members of your team that will be working on the software. Maybe it's only you and your friend or maybe it's a group of thirty professionals. You must describe every position and what each person does. Don't go into details about your budget in this section though. Along with that, don't go into specifics just yet as these will be elaborated on in the third part of your software development project brief. Use these tools and services to help you write your software development project brief: Grammarly: This tool checks your text for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Trust My Paper: This online writing service is perfect for hiring a professional to write your project instead of you. Hemingway Editor: This tool highlights adverbs, passive voice, and complicated sentences asking you to get rid of them. Studicus: This is another great online writing service you can opt for if you want someone else to write your project. Google Docs: This online equivalent of Microsoft Office Word allows you to share documents and edit them in real-time. This is especially valuable for teams. Specifics This section is perhaps the biggest one in your brief as it goes into the details of the general ideas you described in the overview. Here's what you must include: Core Ideas: The core ideas of your include both your project's aims and the things that will be done first in the process of developing your software. Talk about what your software's target audience is. If you have a customer persona, then it will be easy for you to do this. Talk about your inspirations. What other software projects were you inspired by? You will also have to talk about your competitors. Every project has them, and you must be able to inform your potential investors about them. Be true to yourself and don't lie to them. This may be something you will forget at first, but talking about a monetization strategy for your software is essential if you want investors to take you seriously. In addition to all of the above, outline your first steps in software development. Secondary Ideas: Core ideas must be supplemented by secondary ideas and things that can be dealt with later. These are the things you will be doing after your first stage of development. Keep in mind that they are still as important as the initial steps you make, so be sure to describe them as thoroughly. You can include some possible additional features of your software that you have been considering but haven't decided on yet. Sketches, Diagrams, & Wireframes: These are not mandatory if you added them to the overview, but it's still great to add them again. They will be a visual representation of your plans helping your potential investors or partners imagine your future actions better. You can include such things as wireframes, sketches, diagrams, mockups, logos, images, graphic designs, and so on. Internal Systems: In case there are any internal systems that should be integrated, you must explain them. This is not a mandatory part though, so if you think that you won't need them, feel free to leave out internal systems. Project Platforms: You already briefly mentioned these in the overview, and now is the time to go into details. If you are making both a mobile app and a desktop program, make sure you create designs for both of them. If the iOS and Android versions will have any differences, talk about them. Don't forget that you may have a free demo version and a paid one. Will the paid version include a one-time purchase or require a monthly subscription? Maybe you want your app to have paid options but be free in general. Think all of this through carefully. Delivery Last but not least, this part describes the delivery of your project. You will need to include such things as the project timeline, possible restrictions, and your budget. All of these should be described with great detail to make sure that your investors know that you are serious about your project. Make a timeline of what you will be doing and when. Set supply dates for each stage. The more details you include, the better. Set deadlines, both general ones and for each separate stage. Following these deadlines later during the development stage itself will make you look professional. You may know of some possible or current restrictions. Make sure to include these in this section for your investors to be informed about. You must have solutions or counter actions you are planning to start in order to solve these problems or get around the restrictions. Lastly, talk about the budget. Keep in mind that this is the most painful topic for your potential investors as the main goal of your software development project brief is to persuade them to invest their money in your work. You will have to be very convincing for your brief to have a positive outcome. Don't be afraid to include any risks either as well as unexpected bills. At some point or the other, you may find yourself in a situation where you will have to spend more money than you originally planned to, so make sure that you have a bigger budget that will cover these. Finish your brief in a logical way, summing everything up and leading up to the budget. Try to make the transition as smooth as possible, but don't hide any essential details. Be open - this will show that you have nothing to hide and that you are not a fraud. Final Thoughts All in all, writing a brief for a software development project is not difficult once you know which parts you have to include and how you must do it. Follow the tips in this article and write a great brief for your project. Author Bio Diana Nadim is a writer and editor who has a Master degree in Marketing. She combines her passion for writing with her interest in research and creates thought-provoking content in various fields. Besides working as a contributor writer for GrabMyEssay, Diana also runs her own 3to5Marketing blog. What inspires her the most in her writing is traveling and meeting new people. Follow her on Twitter.   JetRuby Agency has been selected among the Best App Development Companies by DesignRush. ### Monitoring Social Media Trends For Business In 2019 - Part II Social Media has become a basic necessity for businesses to market their products online. It is evident for leveraging their marketing online; brands are resorting to social media. Today, as many as 75% internet users are likely to purchase something they saw on social media. Interestingly, social media marketing agency around the world is working on decoding the latest social media strategies for helping businesses. When we think about social media, major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. comes to our minds. How do these social media sites work? What is it like to become a legit brand on social media? We keep talking about social media trends and its importance as finding relevant topics on social media is a must-need for keeping the brand ahead of the competition. In our previous article, we discussed how different social media algorithms work on Twitter and Facebook. We found out, that on Twitter, it is a hashtag-driven system, while Facebook’s trending section is more personalized to each user. However, finding trendy content is not an easy thing. You need to know the ways of how to determine the trending content, which is widely shared outside of the circle creators. In this article, we’ll take a look at different ways of how you can monitor the rapidly challenging trends to always keep your business on the top. Decoding social media algorithms in 2019 Social media algorithms can be complicated to comprehend, especially if you are not very thorough with the whole thing. The most influential kind of algorithm would be the type that controls the flow of information people receive. Algorithms are vital for marketers and business owners to be able to make an impact online. It helps people understand and shapes their thinking and perspective. In a way, any information that we perceive online is backed up by algorithms. Even search engine like Google and social media sites like Facebook, twitter run on specific algorithms. As we explored these leading social media apps, we found that Facebook focuses on meaningful conversations where the customer can learn about the brand through a personalized approach. However, on LinkedIn, famous companies and professional users openly share their thoughts and connect with their audience through status updates. What are the latest social media trends? As we can see, there has been a shift in the overall trends on social media platforms. Over the years, the concern has become central to how people both, communicate, and receive information. Social Media definition has changed from a place where users connected and networked to a platform where people share and distribute information. Social media networks are now prioritizing on a real connection between their users. Social media icons a.k.a influencers are getting popularized because their created content connects with the people easily. The customers crave for something of utility from any social medium. Perhaps, there is a need to understand the latest social media algorithms for our businesses to thrive. Additional Helpful Resources: 7 Social Media Trends to Watch in 2019 Best 20 Social media tip and tricks for small businesses Tips To Grow Profit With Social Media Marketing Platform Social Media trend for Facebook The infamous social media platform, Facebook has an active user base of monthly 2.27 billion making it one of the busiest networks for social media agencies to market. As we have already discussed, meaningful interactions have been prioritized by Facebook. The users are captured through the interactive content that can be easily targeted towards them. Facebook has been continually evolving to provide better value to its users and marketers. However, one of the significant challenges that the Facebook page owners come across is that the Facebook algorithm has been depleting their organic reach and exploiting advertising. Facebook pages run more advertising campaigns than anything else. As a result, a lot of negative media coverage and exiting users made a Facebook change for the better. According to the latest trends, meaningful interactions including comments from friends and family, likes, sharing links on Messengers, engagement with the post, reactions on posts will be giving more weight to your content. The number of likes and the length of comments can also be contributors to your post's reach. However, the post is initially shared with a small group of people to check engagement before sharing with a broader audience. Another factor to keep in mind is to be consistent. It adds credibility and affects your brand page's rankings. Keeping your profile up to date can surely help you be on the right side of the Facebook algorithm. Social media trend for Twitter Twitter, as we know, is a niche social media platform favoured by media, political elites, and some of the most influential people in the world. This is because it’s easy to use interface where users do not have to work a lot before drafting their content. The algorithm of Twitter is designed to provide users with the content that's relevant and recent. When a user logs into their Twitter account, even a tweet from an hour back may show at the top of their feed while a recent tweet may be found down below. This is because Twitter ranks tweets on three bases: relevancy to their users, in case you missed it, the remaining ones in reverse chronological order. The user can opt between algorithmic and chronological timelines, which has made the timing very crucial for social media marketing on Twitter. Twitter algorithm shares some aspects with that of Facebook. If you time your tweet correctly and it gets a sooner engagement, then it is more likely to be shared with a larger group of audience. As per the latest trend, engagement on your posts like retweets, likes, replies profoundly affect the credibility of your content. Users are likely to see more from profiles they engage with. Even if someone spends time on the tweet without engaging on it, the Twitter algorithm will push their content on their feed. For the right twitter strategy, timing is crucial. However, profile credibility is also an important aspect. Being consistent on Twitter can help increase your account credibility. Remember to add good engagement content under 280 characters and avoid broken links to help yourself in social media marketing for Twitter. Social media trend for LinkedIn It is essential to capitalize on the LinkedIn algorithm to understand what can be beneficial for your business. Similar to Facebook and Twitter, the LinkedIn algorithm also emphasize to push relevant content, prioritizes conversations and engagements, supports native content and shares your content with a smaller group of audience to check it's engagement before showing it to a broader audience. But that's not all about LinkedIn marketing. A LinkedIn algorithm is unique as it uses human intervention to determine the relevance and quality of the content. As you may have noticed, a lot of personal posts are doing well on LinkedIn, and that's a part of its algorithm. If your story is doing well in engagements on LinkedIn, ‘real staff members at LinkedIn’ analyse and spread it to an even wider audience. This makes LinkedIn the only open social media network to involve real humans in their algorithm. For better understanding, the trend on LinkedIn, do not limit your post to your network. Algorithm of LinkedIn enables content virility by showing it to 2nd and 3rd-degree connections of people from your system who engage with it. The key is to share something relevant so that your connections are more likely to interact with it. This builds a strong chance of your post being amplified and shared with people outside your connections.   Social media trend for Instagram Instagram is, without a doubt capturing a significant market share of social media by being the most relaxed social media platform. Instagram has an epic algorithm. It has turned the best platform for people to turn into influencers as the process has been made easy by Instagram. People from all backgrounds connect on this social media app, which has the content type that users generally interact with. Instagram users easily welcome genres like fashion, food, fitness, travel, lifestyle, and gaming, etc. Instagram algorithm somehow enabled people to look more influential than they are with the use of bots and services to provide fake followers. In the long haul, these can be noticed as their ROI does not match with their made up influence. It's a part of the algorithm at Instagram to showcase those posts on the explore tab, which is performing well. If your hashtag game is active on Instagram, people who don't follow you can see and engage with your Instagram posts. Similar to Facebook, the Instagram algorithm also ranks your content high if your posts receive engagement from the audience through likes and comments or in the form of shares through DM or reposts. Instagram also shares your content with a smaller audience initially. However, engagement is the key to ranking on Instagram. Consistency also bears weight in these rankings. The Bottom Line Social media websites continuously work on their algorithms by accommodating new features and removing the ones that do not provide value to its user base. Thus, it is very important to monitor social media trends for your business. Knowing these trends can help you formulate a proper social media strategy so that your business doesn't suffer. By the way, we're happy to tell you that we got in the category of Top United States Software Developers. Author Bio: Manan Ghadawala is the founder of 21Twelve Interactive which is one of the best mobile app development company in India and the USA. He is an idealistic leader with a lively management style and thrives raising the company’s growth with his talents. He is an astounding business professional with astonishing knowledge and applies artful tactics to reach those imaginary skies for his clients. His company is also recognized by the Top Mobile App Development Companies. Follow him on Twitter |Facebook| LinkedIn ### Monitoring Social Media Trends for Business in 2019 Explained As the saying goes that the one who owns the information, owns the world. When it comes to business, being able to efficiently process and leverage data stands on the first place. It’s crucial to take into account the social media trends for business so that you could always meet your user needs. According to Global Digital Report 2019, the number of internet users worldwide in 2019 is 4,388 billion people. Nowadays, social media became an integral part of our lives as well as a great tool for marketing. But how can you leverage this insane amount of power for your business? How to use social media for business? How can you spot the hottest social media trends and understand the current state of the market? First of all, you need to understand how things work from the inside. Secondly, you’ll probably need the social media monitoring software. But we’ll talk about it later. Short aside: We're happy to tell you that we are recognized as a top California Mobile App Development Company on DesignRush. We're really proud of it. How social media trends work on Twitter A trend on Twitter is a hashtag-driven topic that gets popularity within a period of time. Most of the companies dream that their hashtags become popular on Twitter. But how do you get from zero to hero on Twitter exactly? The algorithms responsible for hashtag trending determine what’s popular by monitoring and favoring spikes over any gradual sustained growth. The key aspect of determining whether the topic will be popular or not is its volume. To be precise, it’s the time taken to create that volume. For example, if a hashtag gains a specific volume in one day it’ll be considered as trending. On the other hand, if the volume takes a month to accumulate, it’ll be considered as news but not as a spike. In case you want your hashtag to gain popularity, there are several ways of how you can do it. First of all, you need to be creative when creating your hashtag. Here’s an example of well-written hashtags #nevergiveup. It’s a creative, simple and with one objective. The next step is to make sure that a tweet gets more than 500 tweets within the first hour. Keep in mind that it’s equally important to take into account both the number of tweets but also the number of people who are retweeting it. Make sure the hashtag, which you created, is unique. Such common hashtags as #success or #food are quite common and are retweeted every day. So don’t expect them to make a fuss. To find out whether the hashtags already exist or measure their popularity, you can monitor the following tool. How social media trends work on Facebook The Facebook trending system is pretty similar to Twitter. It simply shows a hashtag or a phrase that gained popularity on Facebook. Having clicked on the keyword or headline, you’ll be followed to a page with a full news feed of other posts that relates to this particular topic. This includes all the content published by your friends, commercial and celebrity Pages, even by some strangers who have made their status updates public. The main difference between Facebook and Twitter here is that Facebook’s trending section is personalized to each user. Such trends can be based on specifically on you location. These preferences may be based on various factors. including pages you’ve liked, timelines, and engagement. Facebook’s main goal is to reflect each user’s personal interests. On the other hand, Twitter trends are based on what the entire Twitter community is talking about. You have an option of choosing the location you’re interested in but the Twitter algorithm is standardized for everyone, while on Facebook it’s personified. Here is how you can leverage them The Internet consists of a tremendous amount of information. So the real question is - how can I handle it? How do you find the right information and spot all the trendy topics people are talking about? The answer is - social media aggregators. Simply put, web aggregators allow collecting the specific data all over the internet. How do we know this? Recently, we developed an application that allows both ordinary users and businesses to curate, filter, and engage through multiple social networks at the same time based on the preferences they mention. The flow is super simple. A user just needs to create a keyword routine that will be monitoring various feeds looking for the specific content. The application can aggregate tons of information from the biggest social media, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. However, it’s only one side of the coin. Since this application is capable of collecting a huge amount of information, a user faces another challenge - sorting all this data and choosing the most valuable one. For this purpose, we developed a solution for OSRAM to monitor the data collected by the app from where users can choose the data they need. Briefly, our team built a custom dashboard for managing IoT sensors that control various parameters, such as temperature, lighting, and others. This helped OSRAM automate the farming process making it more efficient. The same idea can be applied to data management, where users can simply set up parameters for data search and automate the process of data sorting. The Bottom Line No point in arguing that social media trends can be very helpful for your business. Behind these trends stay real people, who set the direction of marketing. And if you know these trends, you may foresee the wishes or concerns of your users. This will contribute to a better understanding of your audience, increased traffic, better SEO, improved brand loyalty, effective business strategy, healthier customer satisfaction and much more. Choose your own method of following the trends, whether it will be manual research or a unique solution built specifically for your needs. We always ready to help you. ### How to Choose A Dedicated Software Development Team In 2019 When you are looking to finish a software development project for your company, choosing the right development team to outsource the project to is extremely important. The reasons for outsourcing software development are abounding, from cost and time efficiency, to gaining access to a team of professionals who will take your project to the next level. The main question every business owner has to answer is how to hire a dedicated team, that will successfully deliver the best product for your company? Know Where to Look When searching for a development team, time might not be on your side and you might be finding yourself picking the first option that comes before you. Fortunately, there are multiple sources you can rely on, in order to find the best match: Word of mouth Everybody agrees that word of mouth is the best advertisement for any kind of service, software development included. Ask your friends or colleagues from the branch to recommend someone they’ve previously worked with and make a list. Afterwards, do some research and see who is the best suited for your needs. Look online Many software development companies advertise their services directly through their website. A well put together website has a lot to say about the company, so make sure to pay good attention to this. If you don’t know where to start, try searching for some relevant keywords, such as “app development services”, “dedicated web development services” and so on. Go to conferences In order to keep up with what is new in the industry, software developers often participate in conferences or meetups, which are usually covered in the media. Look for such events, attend, and discuss with developers face to face. The advantage is that you will get the chance to meet part of the team in person and have a more informal discussion that will hopefully give you an idea about them. Evaluate Skills and Experience After making a list with potential vendors, which should not be larger than 4-5 options, take some time to evaluate their skills and past experience, to see if they can meet your needs. In order to make an informed decision, you should take into consideration the following: Experience: if you need to outsource a complex project, look for teams that have at least 2 years of relevant experience in your desired field. While young teams do not necessarily lack the skills, they may not have the overall experience to finish a complicated project. Portfolio: ask about past work and clients and contact them for reference. Ask if they were satisfied with the project management, as well as overall product development. Looking for genuine reviews will give you much more perspective and will serve as proof of their skills. Product quality: request examples of their previous work or, if possible, try to use the services of previous clients. Try to see if their products are intuitive, fast-working and user-friendly. This will show you if the team can deliver high-quality services. Communication skills: managing a virtual team is hard enough already. Ask how you will be keeping in contact and how often you will be briefed about the development process. Ideally, you will be receiving updates every few days, but this depends on the deadline and the complexity of the project. Ask About Flexibility Throughout the development process, there is a big chance parts of the initial project are going to change, in order to meet your company’s needs. Look for a team who is open to those sorts of changes. Look for customized solutions that can be easily modified and tailored to your needs. If you are in need of a mobile app, for example, keep in mind that there are going to be operating system updates and your clients will need the app to keep up with those updates. If you choose to outsource to an offshore team, keep in mind that there is going to be a time difference between you. Make sure you keep communication open through various means, such as video conferences, phone calls and emails. If possible, try to communicate with every team member at least once during the process, to have an idea of who is going to be behind the product. Look for Transparency You will want to be permanently updated with all the details of the development process, up until the deadline, so look for a team does not have any issue in briefing you whenever you need it. Ask to have access to the project plan, as well as status and task assignments. Request to be kept up to date with any kind of issues and how they managed to solve them, to have a clear idea of the whole process. Another way to see the evolution of the project is to request weekly demos and briefings and collaborate with the team in order to have them deliver the best possible product. After all, you are the client and no matter how experienced the team is, they should be able to keep communication open and take your opinions into consideration. Discuss Costs Upfront Chances are, you have already thought about how much money you are willing to put towards software development. Before making a decision, discuss costs as direct and transparent as possible. Ask for a pricing offer from every team you are interviewing and see which one has the best offer. Keep your budget in mind, but be willing to go a bit over it if necessary. Look for quality over price, as you might be saving a few dollars, but it can cost you the image of your company and, frankly, it is not worth it. Focus on aspects such as product quality, delivery timeline and support. Some companies might charge you less, but will not provide support after delivery and you might find yourself having to pay more in case something goes wrong. Pay Attention to The Contract If negotiation goes well, you will have to sign a contract before starting the collaboration. The contract should typically include: Confidentiality agreement: pay attention to details and make sure the confidentiality is mutual and does not include any obligations other than secrecy. Masters Services Agreement: this is the main contract, which contains the main clauses that apply to the overall relationship you will have with the vendor. Pay attention to payment terms, as well as the non-compete agreement. You would not want the company to sell the same project to a competitor of yours a few months later. Statement of Work: The two main types of SOWs are Fixed Bid and Time and Materials. Fixed Bid refers to a certain work delivered to for a certain price, which does not fluctuate during the project. Time and Materials means you will be billed for the time spent on the project and not for the project. Why Hire a Dedicated Team at JetRuby? No need in recruiting By choosing the dedicated team, you won’t have to spend time on searching the developers for your project. JetRuby provides you with all the necessary specialists and cutting-edge equipment for implementing your project into reality. You’ll also save money on workspaces, office expenses, insurance policies, on various trainings and so on. Having team in one place significantly simplifies the communication, planning and the development process. Staff Management Having a permanent team working on one project is another big plus for a DT. Such team would be able to know every detail of the project. Moreover, the complete structure, a unique approach to every employee, and the distribution of social roles will contribute to starting a project without any delay. Full Control over the Project Flow You have a full control over the team activity and their workload. Set the direction of your project according to the priorities. Direct communication between the team and the client is a crucial factor in any successful software development projects. Dedicated team members have no reasons in hiding the possible issues in a product development. As a result, this allows client to react quickly and make the right decisions in the right time. The Bottom Line Summing up, dedicated team is a good choice if you want to produce your product while having a full control over the process and stay mobile in business decisions. A little degression – we are in the category of Top Web Development Companies Of 2020! We wouldn’t achieve it without your help. By choosing JetRuby dedicated team, you’ll get: A personal approach, adaptive way of communication A considerable experience in developing startups and MVP No need in recruiting, training expenses or administrative work Full control over the development processLet’s build the future together! About the Author Marie Fincher is a content writer at TrustMyPaper company with a background in marketing, technology and business intelligence. She frequently writes about datascience, BI, new marketing trends and branding strategies. Marie gradually changed her focus from working in marketing to writing about it. ### How to Protect your Content from Web Scraping For better or for worse but web scraping became an integral part of the Internet. In short, web scraping allows extracting data from the websites. All the process is carried out by a piece of code. It sends a “GET” query to a specific website. Hereafter, it parses an HTML document based on the received result. Having finished with it, it searches the necessary information and convert it to the format you’re interested in. There are two groups of people, those who are for it and those who are against it. In this article, we’ll look from the perspective of how to secure your content from web scraping. However, the truth is that there’s no reliable way of getting rid of web scraping. What you can do is just making it harder. Nevertheless, there’s another side of the coin. The harder you make it for scrapers, the harder you make it for legitimate users. At the same time, there are some effective strategies of how you can throw major obstacles in the way of a scraper. Terms of Use Before we come to all the strategies that we will mention in a few minutes, make sure that you declared explicitly that you disallow scraping in your Terms of Use and Conditions. Here’s an example of such condition: “You may only use or reproduce the content on the website for your own personal and non-commercial use.” It’s strongly prohibited to farm, scrape, extract, collect or mine the website’s content in any form and by any means whatsoever strictly prohibited. Additionally, you may not mirror any material contained on the Website. This indicates that no one can extract, use or mirror the content of the website for any other purpose than personal. At the same time, bear in mind that this strategy won’t 100% protect your content. So let’s take a look at other strategies. Rate limit individual IP addresses If you’re receiving thousands of requests from a single computer, there’s a super high probability that the person behind it is making an automated request for your site. The first measure you can do is to block all the requests from computers that are making them too fast. At the same time, take into account that requests from corporate networks, VPNs and some proxy services, which go from the same IP, may be used by people who are connected through the same machine. There may be another scenario. In case a scraper has enough resources, it can circumvent this method of protection by setting up multiple machines to run a scraper on. As a result, there will be only a few requests coming from a single computer. Using CAPTCHA Probably, this is the most common way of protecting the data from scraping. According to this scenario, a user is asked to enter captcha for accessing the website data. This method may be cool for systems, which data is accessed through non-frequent separate requests. CAPTCHA can be useful but it should be used sparingly. For example, you may add an option, according to which it would be activated only if a particular client has made dozen of requests in the past few seconds. Honey pots Honeypot is a link to fake content that is invisible to a normal user but it is present in HTML that would come up when a program is parsing the website. With a redirecting a scraper to such honeypots, you can detect scrapers and make them waste resources by visiting pages that contain no data. However, it’s necessary to disallow such links in your robot.txt file in order to make sure a search engine crawler does not end up in such honeypots. Change DOM structure frequently The great number of scrapers parse the HTML that is retrieved from the server. To make it difficult for scrapers to access the required data, we can frequently change the structure of the HTML. This would require an attacker to evaluate the structure of a website again in order to extract the required data. Require login for access Requiring account creation in order to view your content, is quite an effective method for deterring the scrapers. At the same time, it creates some blocks for real users. The good thing is that you’d be able to accurately track user and scraper actions. As a result, you can easily detect when a specific account is being used for scraping and, correspondingly, ban it. Thanks to the fact that you can easily identify scrapers instead of just IP addresses. If you want to avoid scripts creating many accounts, you should: Require an email address for the registration, verify the email address by sending a link that needs to be opened in order to activate the account. Require a captcha to be solved during registration/account creation (in order to prevent scripts from creating accounts). Requiring account creation in order to view content will drive users and search engines away. Imagine you make the users create an account before reading the article. Probably, they will go elsewhere. Change Website HTML Regularly The great part of scrapers relies on finding patterns in a site’s HTML markup. Hereafter, they use these patterns as clues to help their scripts find the right data in a site’s HTML soup. If your site’s markup changes frequently or is thoroughly inconsistent, this would quite frustrate the scraper so that it would finally give up. However, this doesn’t mean you need a thorough redesign as yours. Such small changes as changing the class or id in an HTML may be enough for breaking most of the scrapers. Obscure Information To make harder for the scraper to use the data, you may use various methods for obscuring the data. Here are some of them: You may use a part of the data in an image; Frequently change the HTML. In this case, an attacker would have to change the HTML parser in its turn. Additionally, you may mask/encrypt the data and use JavaScript for unmasking or decrypting. Change of the methods would make an attacker to change his methods as well. Geo-facing Using geo-facing means that sites are only exposed within the geographic locations, where they conduct business. This will create some additional difficulties for scrapers as they would have been run within a specific geographic location. This may simply involve using a VPN link to a local point of presence. The Bottom Line Despite the fact that we provided a bunch of techniques, there’s no single method that could 100 percent prevent web scraping. At the same time, if you combine few, you can make a pretty successful deterrent for scrapers. It’s a good idea to remain careful and keep monitoring traffic to make sure your services are being used in a way you intended them to be. Try to find a balance between usability for real users and scraper-proofness. Bear in mind that everything you do may negatively impact the user experience in one way or another. So find compromises. By the way, take a look at this post about Proxies for web scraping. ### Administrate vs ActiveAdmin: What to Choose? Administrate is a lightweight library for an automating generation of administrate panel. Basically, this library solves the same challenges as the other gems, such as Active Admin and Rails Admin. The main advantage of these libraries is that Administrate is a perfect solution for small projects with minimum customization. It has a minimalistic and user-friendly interface that can be easily understood. Since it’s super compact, it allows easily setting the administrate panel with basic operations set for working with data. A library is very easy to use. It’s divided into separate modules and doesn’t use DSL (Domain Specific Language) that a developer needs to know for setting the working admin panel. All of this significantly reduced the development time (this really helped us during the project development). However, the libraries have also some disadvantages. By default, it has only a basic set of tools so it’s not easily-customizable and extendable. Usually, a developer needs to rewrite and re-determine a great part of the functionality to meet all the business and client’s requirements. Moreover, this gem doesn’t support an adaptive and responsive interface. This significantly complicates the administrate panel usage on small-sized devices. One of the examples of how effective this library can be in practice is our real estate project - RBMalta. RBMalta is a real estate project that helps thousands of people buy, sell, or rent a property. Click on the picture below to find out more about this project. This project had only three entities to work with. The available operations over them were specified by the privacy policy. Except for the standard set of tools provided by Administrate (list, resource, create, update, delete, search) to meet the business-requirements, were added the custom tools, including filters system, group operation over the resources, an inline update of the dates when the real estate is available. ActiveAdmin is a highly effective tool for designing the administrate panel. The library provides DSL with detailed documentation. If we compare ActiveAdmin with Administrate, we’ll see that the ActiveAdmin adds more tools for working with data. This includes data export in various formats (XML, JSON, CSV), customizable filters system, group operations (Batch Actions), a basic system of system changes log. The library is highly customizable. We literally can change any part of the interface or logic. This allows designing an administrative panel depending on the business requirements. As an example, we made an admin panel on the NameCoach project. Thanks to the customization, you can insert tools for working with data just from other project’s services. The project, which we implemented, helps to solve an important issue of name mispronunciation and gender pronoun communication in as many important life settings as possible. The weak sides of the gem are out of date design and loaded interface. Neither Administrate nor ActivePanel has adaptivity or responsiveness. Additionally, this library uses DSL (Domain Specific Language) and this significantly slows down the development process for those developers, who have no experience with it. This proves to us that there is no ideal solution. Each one has its own pros and cons If your goal is to find a convenient administrate panel for a new small project with a minimum functionality set and modern design, Administrate is a good choice. On the other hand, if you need deep customization of an administrator's interface or you need more tools than Administrate standard tools, you know what to choose. ### How Can You Use UX-Design to Improve the Architecture of Your Project No matter what type of business someone has, the ultimate goal of every entrepreneur is to make some profit. What do you need to achieve that? You need to make the customers happy. It is reasonable that almost every website owner is realizing the importance of user experience. If the users aren’t satisfied with what they see and experience, they won’t stay there for long. That is why software developers and website designers should focus on UX design. If you want to improve your project, you need to acknowledge that positive user experience is the key ingredient. Why Is UX-Design Important? The main focus of any of your projects is probably to understand and supply to the needs of website owners. In order to create the website of their dreams which will bring the desired results, you need to think about the main element – users’ satisfaction. In a 2016 study, Forrester Research found that a well-designed user interface could raise the website’s conversion rate by up to a 200%, and a better UX design could yield conversion rates up to 400%. Isn’t that the dream of every website owner? An effective UX design can lead to higher engagement rates and the growth of the business. Even though the benefits of UX are to be visible once the website is activated, it is best that you prioritize it from the very start. While you are creating the concept for the website, think about all the important UX elements that you need to add. This will also help you to round up the whole idea and create a website that is both visually pleasing and caters to the users’ needs. As you will notice, some of the UX design tips actually work in favor of different elements of website design. You can start with these effective UX design practices which will instantly improve your digital strategy. Optimize the Website’s Speed Waiting too long for a page to load can be extremely frustrating to users. This fast-paced world has made us inpatient and everyone wants to get what they asked for right away. According to Section.io, an extra five seconds of page load time can increase your website's "bounce rate" by more than 20%. That can make a huge difference. Work on optimizing the speed because that is one of the first things that users will notice. Here are some tips for optimizing your website’s speed: Use a content delivery network (CDN) Use external JS and CSS files Have a catching system in place Optimize the size of images Reduce the number of plugins Reduce the use and size of web font If you want to create a high-performance website, this is a way to go. Use White Space Overcrowding the website can revert the users from further exploring. Too many bright colors and crazy designs can have the same effects. Therefore, white space can be a clever way to deliver clean and simple design and emphasize the important information for the users. Of course, this highly depends on the website owner’s vision but you can still utilize the white space around images and text to highlight them. It helps to increase the user’s attention. What you need to pay attention to is that you find the balance between the content and white space. Having too much white space can make the page look empty. Just use it to emphasize what is important and to give the website a certain fresh look. Add Noticeable Call-to-actions Call-to-action (CTA) is one of the basic elements of website design and it also provides value to users. CTAs complete the website’s purpose and they give cues to users which helps them to determine which content is important to them. Providing users with relevant information and clear direction is one of the most important parts of user experience. With that being said, it is obvious that you need to implement that in your UX design. Add attractive call-to-action which will be easy to spot. You can use some color which will go with your design but which will also make the CTA pop. In case you need some help with implementing the CTA in the content, you can even turn to online writing service such as Trust My Paper. With the help of professional writers, you will easily bring your design to perfection. Keep it Transparent Don’t overload the webpage with too many options and scattered information. As Scott Belsky, Chief Product Officer at Adobe says, “Rule of thumb for UX: More options more problems.” Transparency allows customers to easily navigate the website and find what they need. The quicker they find the information, it is more likely that they will take action. It helps if you map out the information and options you want to include and think of how you will display those options. Put yourself in the users’ shoes and imagine which options you want to see first and how you would like to access the information. Clearly display options such as shipping information or additional fees so that the users see that there are no hidden agendas. Use Responsive Design As a web designer, it is important that you keep up with the current trends, and one of those trends is a responsive design. People access websites from numerous devices. Mobile phones are usually their primary choice. If they come across a webpage that may be perfectly designed but isn’t displaying well on their phone, they certainly won’t go through the trouble to check it out. Creating a webpage that isn’t responsive could be a big mistake. Consider the fact that mobile traffic is responsible for 52.2% of internet traffic in 2018, compared to 50.3 % from 2017. Not to mention that by 2020, mobile commerce will account for 45% of all e-commerce activities. Just think about how will most consumers interact with the website and the answer will show you how important is the responsive design. Conclusion As a leading web design company, we know that UX design intertwines with many aspects of great website design. If you focus on delivering high-quality user experience you will also improve your general work plan. Include these tips in your project planning to ensure that you will create a website that will bring some real results. Remember, UX is the key to success. About the author Estelle Liotard is a seasoned content writer and a blogger, with years of experience in different fields of marketing. She runs a blog called 3to5marketing and loves every second of it. Her passion is teaching people how to overcome digital marketing obstacles and help businesses communicate their messages to their customers.   JetRuby Agency has been selected among the Top 30 Web Design Companies In California by DesignRush. ### The Top 10 Ways to Succeed in Mobile Applications Security Mobile phones have become part and parcel of everyone’s life. There is almost no work without using mobile phones. From everyday random checking, banking, online shopping, fitness level checking, health apps, water drinking apps, even working remotely and many more. So, using mobile phones for all activities is a multitude of mobile applications which include mobile software, API software. However, with the increasing usage of mobile phones, there are also increased threats. Carrying all the valuable information on your mobiles phones, it has become a must to secure mobile application. In this article, we will discuss some top mobile applications security measures to protect you from any sort of cyber-attacks or data stealing. 1. Include SSL Certification: In today’s smart generation, we use mobile applications for each and everything. The mobile app security is the primary focus for all mobile software developers. Most of the valuable data exist on mobile devices, so there are more chances of hacking. Well, to avoid such mishaps you should install an SSL Certificate. According to recent studies, on an average 70 percent of mobile applications are prone to cyber-attacks. It is easy for cyber criminals to attack mobile applications with low security. Thus, an SSL certificate is an essential criterion for improving mobile applications security. 2. API Authentication: Always include API authentication in the mobile app development stage. is a process in which the credentials are sent to the remote access server in an encrypted format. However, all the API’s are not authentic and sometimes will bounce back with the corrupted file format. This will be easy for hackers to steal the data. Henceforth, it is always important to deploy API provides security for mobile applications. 3. Invest in Code Signing Certificate: To be extra safer invest in a good code sign certificate for mobile apps. To be clear, code signing certificates are generally used by software code developers. Code signing certificates are used to validate the digitally signed applications for software coding and hardware drivers. This code signing certificate allows the end users to ensure that the code received is genuine and is not compromised by any third party. However, you can rest assured as these code signing certificates include the company name, signature and also the timestamp. 4. Choose a reliable third-party license: As androids have Google play apps and an Apple iPhone has Apple app store, we still rely on some third-party license applications to download the required mobile apps which are however not regulated by the mobile brand provider. Having said that, a third-party license is in high usage. Most of the times, there is no problem downloading from these apps. Sometimes, there are code errors which creep in while downloading from the third-party applications. The most effective ways to improve mobile applications security is to make sure that app code developers practice the control policies while purchasing to secure the mobile apps from all the liabilities in the libraries. 5. Multi-factor Authentication: As we all are aware that most of the data breaches happen due to low-level security setup. It is very easy for hackers to hack into accounts with no strong authentication. Therefore, there is a responsibility on a mobile app software developer to support usernames, 8 character passwords to login to account. Apart from the characters, if users use a hash sign along with numerals, lower and upper case is the perfect example for the strong password. Besides, multi-level authentication is the safest bet for mobile app security. Make sure that the passwords should be regularly changed to avoid any cyber-attacks. 6. Handle session carefully: Handling the sessions is a crucial part of setting up mobile app security. However, the sessions are a little longer than regular desktop session management. So, the cyber attackers take this gap as their assert and try to hack your mobile software. Thus, the software code developers should consider tokens in session handling than the identifiers. This is the best way to stop mobile app hacking to some extent. 7. Update security patches: Outdated security patches are the main reason for mobile apps security breaches. Regular updating of security patches and also software update patches will reduce the situations of cybercrimes. 8. Principle of least privileges: Mobile app security developers should take care of one thing that it should not give permissions to each and every code. The code developers should need to give the least privilege for any kind of modifications in the apps. Also, do not ask for much information or unnecessary information for your mobile apps as hackers will have a chance to hack your mobile applications. Principle of least privilege (PoLP) is recognized as the vital step in enhancing the data protection and also stopping any malicious virus. Hence, if there is a limitation for the scope of changes in the code in the mobile apps then it is easy to make other running apps more interactive and effective. To put in an example, if a user or an operator has only the least privilege to perform only the intended task. A user whose job is to perform backups on a daily basis cannot interfere with other tasks such as installing new software, updating the software. He has rights only set up a backup and backup related tasks, other privileges are strictly prohibited. 9. Tamper- detection technology: To secure the mobile applications tamper detection technology is a preventive measure to make sure that no third party is involved with tampering your applications, renaming your applications or even recompiling them without your consent. However, always verify the authenticity of tamper detection tools before installing them on your mobile. There are many fraud tools which claim that they are original ones. This is why check for authentication check mark before going for one. 10. Recognize anonymous threats: No matter how many measures you take to protect the data, hackers will find a way out for data stealing. There are many free security applications available to recognize any cyber threats. But, open web application security project is considered as the best for this purpose. Unknowingly if you install or download such virus, there will be a drastic drop in the mobile device performance, the applications slow down and also hangs while working. Besides following these steps, users also must be aware and take a little effort to secure their mobile phones and mobile app security for their personal information. The Bottom Line Over the last few years, the rate of cyber-crimes has increased enormously. So, there is a growing necessity to protect and make the users aware of mobile applications security. By following the above-discussed tips, you can control the hacking situations to a great extent. Do write to us if you have any query. As a top app development company of 2020 we will try our best to guide you. ### Automated Farming: Implementing IoT in Agriculture As an IT company, we have significant experience in developing sophisticated software and IT solutions for several key sectors. We are recognized as a top California Web Design Agency on DesignRush for a reason. That’s why we didn’t get puzzled when we started our collaboration with a multinational lighting manufacturer - OSRAM. The project we came up with is based on IoT technology. Simply put, it’s a software for managing an automated farm. Since we didn’t have any strong requirements for the project implementation, we conducted research and development that helped to implement a valuable and effective software experience. So here’s how our solutions look like. To provide effective implementation of the project, we decided to develop the project with the focus on the final product. That’s how we chose a “Research and Development” approach for the project’s implementation. The Research Stage First things first, we started the implementation of our project with the research step that is the most important stage before the actual development process. In our company, the research takes 80 percent of all development processes. It’s crucial to start by researching the users' expectations, before providing any technical research. As soon as we established the clients' expectations, we realized that we need to establish the sensor's communication between each other as well as provide all the necessary conditions for as rapid plant growth as soon as possible. We invested a considerable amount of time into the research phase in order to fully understand the client’s needs and expectations before heading into the actual software development stage. we evaluated the technology that’s required to fulfill the needs and determine the software-enabled solution that the business is trying to create. Having collected all the necessary requirements and with a full understanding of what to implement, we arrived to the next step - Ideation. This is where the creative process starts. During the ideation, we polished all the ideas we came up with. Some of them may be new or revolutionary, others may simply be improvements on the already existing solutions. Our creative team actively analyzed new ideas and combined them to create a solution that satisfies the customer’s needs and expectations. The Development Stage The next key stage - the development stage. We used Amazon Web Services for building serverless IoT applications that gather, process, analyze, and act on connected device data. At the same time, we don’t have to manage any infrastructure, which reduces costs, increases productivity and innovation. For an easy test device integration and IoT backend services, we used an IoT Device Simulator solution. This solution provided us with a web-based graphical user interface (GUI) console that enables customers to create and simulate hundreds of virtual connected devices without having to configure and manage physical devices or develop time-consuming scripts. How Does this Solution Work? AWS offers a device simulation that allows customers to build a large fleet of virtual widgets from a user-defined template and simulate those widgets publishing data at regular intervals to AWS IoT. Additionally, we could monitor individual widgets from the simulator or observe how backend services are processing the data. To get a deeper understanding of how it works, let’s take a look at the scheme below: As you can see above, the IoT device simulator consists of the device simulator API that leverages Amazon API Gateway for invoking the solution’s microservice. They can perform operations on virtual devices and device types, record simulation metrics as well as administration tasks. As soon as device simulator API receives an authorized request, Amazon API Gateway invokes an appropriate Lambda function. This Lambda returns the execution results to the API, which returns the results to the simulator console. In case if a start simulation request is received, the simulation engine launches a virtual device that starts publishing simulated data to AWS IoT endpoint. After the specific duration, the simulation engine stops the simulation, terminates the virtual device, and updates the device state and metrics in Amazon DynamoDB. A simulation console displays information about virtual devices and device types, simulation states, and user profiles. You use the console to terminate and create virtual devices, start and stop simulations as well as view metrics. This provides a broad understanding of how this solution works in real life, according to Amazon. This approach was successfully implemented by us in developing software for automated farming. A solution that we created allows monitoring environmental parameters in a smart farm. Among the features are managing the temperature, light, water and so on. All the data, which is being managed by the sensors, are transmitted to the cloud. As soon as the cloud has received the data, it transmits everything to the web dashboard that we implemented for farmers. This allows farmers to monitor the farm condition as well as remotely adjusting the necessary parameters (controlling temperature, for example). As a result We successfully implemented a project that was presented on a Consumer Electronic Show and is known as the annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association. We’re very proud of the fact that we collaborated with such a large corporation as OSRAM and developed a product with rich potential and we also were ranked as top 30 california web design agency of 2019,  and top 40 web design companies in Miami and Florida according to DesignRush. Here are the potential features: The agriculture sensors allow collecting a huge amount of data, including weather conditions, soil quality, growth progress, environmental changes and so on; Perfect control over the production process as well as maintaining the higher standards of crop quality and growth capacity. Since the sensors can provide information about any anomalies in the crop growth, this creates a possibility of managing and automating the whole farming process.   ### Why CRM is a Must-Have for Your Business? Customer Loyalty Is Key for Your Business Success. So if you want your business to prosper, you need to earn customers trust while continuously improving and fostering your relationship with them. You will know if your heading into right direction as your client base will continuously grow. After a while, it may become impossible to keep track of all your customer data. This is when a CRM system comes in handy. Customer Relationship Management software (also known as CRM) is special software that can significantly improve the relationship with clients by providing businesses with smart tools for developing a successful strategy. Suitable example - CRM system manages business relationship and information associated in between. In simple terms, using CRM, you can store customer and prospect contact information, accounts, leads, and sales opportunities in one central direction. All this information can be accessed in real time in real time. In this article, we’ll take a look at various types of Customer Relationship Management as well as the must-need features needed for a proper CRM. However, why your business actually needs CRM. What are the advantages of CRM? What are the benefits gained from CRM? Why is CRM a must-have for your business? CRM software offers a dozen of advantages for a different types of business and their sizes. It streamlines sales workflows and helps entrepreneurs forge a stronger relationship with the customers. Streamline the sales process Without a crm software in place, most of the business’ sales processes are managed on Excel sheets, email, and variety of other static tools. It may be sufficient for managing a small number of leads. However, with the volume growth, it may become difficult to manage all the leads and customers. Static tool such as Excel not exactly beneficial when tracking sales leads. As a result, it’ll be impossible to find out how they interact with a business or move down the business’ sales funnel from the point entry to the point of conversation and so on. Using CRM, you’ll be sure that there are no leaks in your sales funnel. Every lead that comes into your system from any kind of lead source will be accounted for. CRM for more effective selling Having integrated a CRM software with your organization’s business tools, including email, calendar, and marketing automation software, you’ll be able to make your employees’ lives easier and help them focus on their main tasks. You would be able to automate all your daily tasks, such as storing in one place and making sure it’s always available, providing access to analytics, integrating with external services, and syncing with mobile devices. In addition for making life easier, CRM systems also improves communication at the organizational level. Imagine sales works with a lead that some of the colleagues used to talk a few years ago. And all the information, including communication notes, documents are stored in an Excel spreadsheet. That would not be an ideal scenario for the business. However, with a CRM, anyone with a permission can immediately receive the necessary information they need. There’s no need to look for a person, who’s responsible for the communication. All the information is already in the system. Types of CRM There are 3 types of CRM. Operational CRMs Analytical CRMs Collaborative CRMs Operational CRM In this case, a name speaks for itself. An operational CRM assists businesses in managing their day-to-day marketing, sales, and customer service operations. The platforms of this type are the most common CRM platforms and are popular among businesses in a wide range of industries. Sales force management. This feature manages pipelines, nurture leads as well as acquiring new customers. Marketing Automation. An operational CRM is a great option for automating aspects of marketing and focus on targeting customers at various stages of the sales funnel. Analytical CRM Analytical CRM is a subset of CRM, where data is collected by a company about their customer interactions, with the goal of increasing customer satisfaction and their customer retention rate. Basically, analytical CRM is behind the scenes process, the customer actions and interactions with the company are captured and analyzed. Using this information, companies can predict trends and suggest these type of products to the customer. The main functions of an analytical CRM system are the following: Customer Retention. Analytical CRM keeps the customers happy and coming back for more. Data management. This kind of CRM allows tracking customers interactions and other information. Customer Acquisition. Turns the prospects into the customers and increases your sales. Collaborative CRM This is a CRM approach, in which various departments of a company, including technical support, sales, and marketing share any information they collect from interactions with customers. For example, a customer’s feedback, which was gathered from a technical support session, could inform the marketing staff about products or services that might be of interest to the customer. Basically, these CRM features streamline communication for all parties - both between the customer and your company between various departments and stakeholders. Having made the information free internally allows strengthening the relationship that holds a customer business together. Additionally, it provides a seamless multi-channel customer experience across all points of the contract. Why Building a Custom CRM? A CRM software is superb but a custom CRM is exceptional. And here are a few reasons why; Custom CRM has a specific solution for your business There is a vast number of various pre-built CRM systems. However, they’re created to appeal most of the businesses. This means they could have various features and functions that would be irrelevant for your business needs. All these extra features could create unnecessary complexity in form of extra expenses. Imagine you need a CRM system that would include everything from corporate social media integration to complex marketing automation functionality. So you purchased a CRM system, which turned out to have functionality for the sales department’s lead generation and contact management activity. At the same time, a custom solution will get you exactly what you need without any unnecessary functionality. Custom CRM as a scalable solution A custom CRM can be used both as an enterprise or standalone piece of software. You build a CRM system for your business’ needs so it’s up to you to decide. If you use CRM as a base for building applications for various departments, they’ll have a single database. Building a custom CRM means you can do anything you want. Scale it when you need, expand, change, or modify - do as much as your heart desires. Custom CRM as a cost-effective solution The price for the majority of CRM systems depend on the number of users. However, this model is far from reality. If the sales use the CRM system daily, other departments may need to access the system only occasionally. As a result, you’d have to either restrict access to the system or pay an unreasonable amount of money for every registered user. Custom CRM as a secure solution Open-source CRM solutions mean everyone can download and investigate the source code. Who knows which intentions they have. The website, which is built on this solution, may be easily hacked if the wrong person gains access to the code or a database. On the other hand, the extensions in the majority of pre-built solutions are made with the help of third-party plugins. This may create additional risks in term of security as well as the reliability of the system. When it comes to the custom CRM, access to the data on the server belongs only to you. Features every Custom CRM should have One of our recent projects was building a custom CRM for the mortgage industry. Basically, it’s a CRM software for a finance business that provides home solutions through their broker and direct referrer channel. We integrated our system with Zoho CRM to provide brokers with an effective solution of leads search. Having collected all the necessary information, they put it into our system and create mortgage applications. Users, in their turn, can get access to their application, where they can put changes or add some extra information Here are the main features that effective CRM software should have. Leads and deals In business. all the potential customers are considered as “leads.” While clients are working on turning the leads into the actual customers, they need to have a possibility of adding and then tracking the information about the potential customers. An effective CRM system should accompany a customer through the whole process. This means you need to build an option that would allow customers to see and to track all of their leads activity through the sales pipeline (starting from the first contract and finishing with a signature). We realize all the importance. For this very reason, the first priority of our system was helping brokers with their clients. You may also add a feature that would allow adding the leads from the existing CSV files or other third-party sources just as with contacts. It’ll be even better if a customer would be able to upload files from Google Drive, Dropbox as well as other cloud storage services. Mobile Access One of the advantages of mobile access is a possibility of accessing deals and contract information from any device. This is especially helpful for sales reps, who need to be equally effective both inside and outside the office. Mobile provides a greater degree of flexibility and efficiency. An opportunity to work on-the-go can greatly affect the sales. Especially taking into account the fact that modern customers expect to contact a company outside normal business hours and want to get feedback. Notifications To make our CRM more user-friendly and notify users about important milestones, notifications is a great option. An email will be sent to all stakeholders when changes or updates are made to tasks or deals. This will help customers stay up to date on what really matters to them. File Sharing When developing a custom CRM, it was crucial to allow brokers to share mortgage applications with their clients. We developed a piece of functionality for storing all the documentation in one place and sharing it with the users. This solution solved a few challenges at a time. Firstly, brokers can easily send their documents to the users, if it’s needed. Secondly, the system will store all the files records, so you can see where it’s now, who’s been working with it and what edits have been made. Integration with Social Media People like to use various forms of communication. So if you want your business to prosper, you’ll need to cater to each preference. On the other hand, if you don’t have specific platforms, or they’re not integrated, your reputation and authority may be viewed poorly. This makes a social integration an important feature for a custom CRM systems of social media presence. CRM is closely related to sensitive company data, including customers details, financial data, and more. That’s why it’s crucial to give users the security they expect. This means that except the main functionality, we need to devote special attention to data encryption, advanced authentication as well as support for different access roles, session timeouts and other security measures. Who can Build a Custom CRM for me? Developing a fully-fledged Customer Relationship Management software is not an easy process. To successfully build a CRM that would fully meet all your business’ requirements, you’d need a team of skillful developers and business analytics. We have a rich experience of building cost-effective CRM solutions and can provide high-quality software for managing all your company’s relationship and interactions with customers and potential clients. Additionally, we are recognized as a top California Mobile App Development Company on DesignRush but we're not going to stop. Soon, you'll see us in the list of Top Software Developers companies. By the way, take a look at the Top Web Development Comapnies. Thanks to our living experience of developing custom CRM software, we know exactly what your marketing strategy and customers really need. Drop us a line about your business idea to get a free project estimate and see what we’re capable of. ### Single Sign-on Technology: How to Secure your Project Nowadays, nearly every business has a lot of applications that require individual login credentials. How many times per day we log in and log out from the apps? Moreover, passwords can create additional difficulties for users. Imagine you have dozens of passwords that you regularly required to update in order to comply with a privacy policy. Luckily, there are technologies that can significantly simplify this process. In this article, we’ll tell you about one of these technologies and how we implemented it in our project. Single sign-on, also known as SSO, relates to the technology for the user authentication process that allows accessing multiple applications with one set of user credentials. To understand how this technology works, let’s compare a Traditional Web Authentication Process with a Single sign-on. So here’s the flow: A user visits a website; They enter their login credentials; The system compares the entered credentials with one on file; If it was approved, the domain will store the credentials. The steps 5-8 are practically the same as they repeat for different steps. The process of Single sign on technology looks like the following: The user goes to the website they want to visit; Due to the domain redirection, the user goes to a central Single sign on domain to login; The user enters the login credentials; The central SSO Domain submits the credentials to the authentication server for validating them; As soon as the credentials have been validated, the user will be redirected to the original website and embedded a token to guarantee their authentication; The embedded token will be used for an automatic user’s authentication by logging into the original website; The authentication token will be stored so that the user could safely access any website that shares the central SSO domain. In case the user logs into Domain 2, the whole process will be the same. However, there’s no need for an additional set of credentials to log in as all the login attempts are made on the SSO Domain. Main Terms: Identity Provider (IdP) is a service that provides authentication, which result will be in the SAML format. Service Provider (SP) is a web application that the user tries to access. The Challenge The project, where we successfully implemented SSO was a unique web application that offers a simple yet very effective solution to the ubiquitous and common problem of mispronouncing names. With its help, you can record and then save your name right on the website so that others could easily access and remember how to accurately say it. Used by some of the largest US universities and colleges like Stanford, Pepperdine, Xavier, Haverford etc., NameCoach successfully tackles the problem of unnecessary alienation and embarrassment that occur at the graduation ceremonies and other important events quite frequently. Currently, there are about 110,000 active website users. Stanford University, who is one of Name Coach clients, asked us to implement SAML SSO for already existed IdP so that students could authenticate in NameCoach. The Solution For a precise work of SAML SSO, we needed to build between IdP and SP. This means that IdP needs to store data, which was given by SP: EntityID is a unique identifier for SP; ACS URL (Assertion Consumer Service URL) is a url on which IdP needs to send SAML response after the successful authentication; X509 certificate; Attribute - a list of attributes that need to be transmitted in case of successful authentication. IdP, in its turn, should provide the following for SP: Certificate; EntityID or Issuer - a unique IdP identifier; SSO URL - url that initiates an authentication on the IdP side; SLO URL - url that closes the user’s session. We found a solution for the following challenges: We implemented an interface for adding the IdP settings; We added a necessary functionality for SAML SSO implementation from the SFside. The Bottom Line The implementation of User Interface and adding the IdP settings allowed a client to provide us with the settings for the SAML SSO implementation. In our turn, we did our best to make the application compatible with all requirements so that it could serve as a Service Provider. For this purpose, we used OneLogin services for the developers. First, we generated a new certificate x509. Having used OneLogin gem, we implemented logic for Assertion Consumer Service that verifies SAML response from IdP and makes the logic after the successful authentication. In order IdP could register our application as SP, we needed to provide it with metadata for SSO configuration. For this purpose, we also used gem with all the necessary classes that allow generating metadata with the given settings in xml format. As a result, we integrated SAML SSO and unified its settings from a personal client’s account to a usual personal interface. ### How We Built a Healthcare App in 3 Simple Steps “I don’t have so time to find a necessary specialist. Moreover, their services are extremely expensive. How could I save time and money? Where is my prescription that I got a month ago? I don’t have time to be sick. Are there any ways to automate the process of signing up for a doctor?” These and many other questions we hear from users when we got a Healthcare project. What is the most important thing in human life? Is it our family or our ambitions? They're are equally important, although not as much as your well-being. We're mindful that health and well-being is a crucial aspect of someone's life. That’s why we started implementing a healthcare app with a realization that we're doing something really important. In this article, we’ll take a look at the main functionality of a healthcare app and we will look at the challenges we met during the app development process, including the solutions for their realization. To find out more about Healthcare software, read this article about Software Development for Healthcare. When deciding what functionality you want to see in your healthcare app, you need to focus on your users’ needs. Try to think the following way: “What useful feature or functionality should we add to assist the patients?” The most significant features we've chosen for our healthcare app are listed below : Find a doctor Most likely a feature that will allow them to search doctors locally. We implemented several options to search for the specialist:   First, we added an option to search the doctors by the specialty or by name. Just in case, a patient knows a specialist he/she needs, they can search by specialist type or by name of the doctor. For the users who are uncertain, we added a feature for searching local doctors through the use of a real-time map. Pharmacy and Drugstore search We created a feature for searching pharmaceuticals in local pharmacies and the drugstores can be easily found using an app. A user is given an option to type by the name of the pharmacy he’s looking for. Simple as that! HIPAA-Compliance When it comes to developing a healthcare app, you need to treat the security really serious. In our case, we dealt with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability, which is also known as HIPAA. If you have no idea what HIPAA means, it’s a series of regulatory standards that outline the lawful use and disclosure of protected health information(PHI). One the one hand, it’s impossible to get rid of all the risks of data breaches in any medical organisation. On the other hand, we had to do our best to protect our users’ data. We needed to make a software, which would be able to detect those breaches, create a correspondings report and apply preliminary measures to avoid further data “sharing.” Additionally, it should be able to prevent data breaches by blocking the use of portable data storage devices. Image Source Simply put we needed to meet the following HIPAA requirements in order for our app to become secure and reliable. We made our app compatible with HIPAA Privacy Rule that established national standards to protect individuals’ medical records and other personal health information. This required appropriate safeguards to protect the privacy of personal health information, as well as sets limits and conditions on the uses and disclosures that may be made of such information without patient authorization. Data Encryption When working with medical data, it is important to make sure the personal data is secured. In order to provide a proper security level, all the stored and transmitted data need to be encrypted at all stages. Basically, we need to translate the data into another form or make use of a secret code. As a result, only people with access to the key or password would be able to read it. We implemented the following features to secure our app: User authorization; Access control; Authorization monitoring; Data backup; Remediation plan; Emergency mode; Automatic log off; Data encryption and decryption. A small tip. If you think your app is secure enough, make sure it meets the following criteria: Unintended data leakage. Make sure your app doesn’t leak any sensitive data that is accessible to other apps on the same device or to an attacker who has potential access to the device. Data storage is insecure. Your app may store sensitive data with insecure file permissions. It can also be insecure coding that can lead to unauthorized access. Vulnerable server-side control. If your app communicates with a backend web endpoint, which is not secure, this may result in insecure API implementation or web application based vulnerabilities. Insufficient transport layer protection. In case the communication channel between the app and the server is not secure, this may lead to a successful attack from the same WiFi connection. User-doctor communication Sometimes, users may not have time for visiting the doctor. For this case, we implemented a feature that lets patients call or chat with a doctor. This feature is especially helpful when a doctor needs to provide a more detailed explanation. Using the chat, users can attach photos or documents to provide a more detailed medical explanation. Extra Features Documents storage Having analyzed our users’ requirements, we came to the conclusion that people often lose their documents, medical prescriptions, test results and so on. That’s why we decided to add a feature that would allow people to store all their medical-related documents in one place. In-app Payment We added an in-app payment feature so that users could easily pay for the specialist services with a single click. Reminders We implement reminders that notify about the important events so that patients won’t forget about their planned visit or an insurance expiration dates. The Bottom Line There’s a strong difference between the American healthcare system and the abroad ones. American Healthcare system is known for its pricing policies. Specialists, nurses and primary care doctors earn significantly more in the US compared to other countries. We built an app with ease of use and effective search system so that users can save both their time and money. As a result, patients can find and compare a necessary specialist for the best price. The app we built allows users save both their time and money. Moreover, we integrated a real-time map so that people can easily find a specialist nearby. To make the User Experience even more user-friendly, we implemented push notifications to remind about the coming meeting with a doctor. The app is fully HIPAA compatible so that you don’t have to worry about your app’s security. Most importantly, we built it with love, we built it for you! As a result: 17 companies and 9000 users have been registered. Thousand of dollars saved. Click the picture bellow to find out more about the project. Healthcare software development companies ### GraphQL in Practice: The Way We do It One of the crucial steps in project development is choosing a technology that would be perfect for its business logic. Business logic is the custom rules or algorithms for exchanging the information between a database and a user interface. Simply put, it’s a part of computer program with an information about how the business operates. Basically, it’s the foundation of every project. In this article, we’ll tell about our experience with using GraphQL in our recent projects. However, this is not graphql tutorial, this is how it works in real life. Project A The first project was a start-up with functionality of service delivery in sales. Among the features were a few models, a CRM-admin panel, 3 mobile applications: 2 for iOS, and 1 for Android. All the communication between mobile applications were built on GraphQL API. One of the peculiarities of the project was that one of the iOS application initiated the execution of the great part of business logic. The rest serve as an interface for the users, integrate them into the system and show the stats. One of the challenges with API related to the users’ access authorization (depending on the users’ role). Consequently, a users’ application shouldn’t have access to the GraphQL fields’ scheme that works with a business logic. The main app, in its turn, shouldn't have access to the specific fields of “users” scheme. The solution we found was simple but super effective. We created several separate GraphQL schemes with independent input points for queries execution. As a result, all the authorization logic has been executed before the query’s execution. This allowed us to avoid developing an authorization in a scheme, itself. Project B An application, which we developed for project B, consisted of several GraphQL API and SPA parts on React. The project’s goal was to create questionnaires for users. We developed a flexible database structure that allowed easily storing and adapting polymorphous entities-queries within one questionnaire. The main challenges with GraphQL API were that a little number of mutations needed to process a bunch of identical operations with a great number of GraphQL InputTypes. ActiveRecord “dictates” a specific approach for the application’s design, where the logic of validation, data storage, and business logic is usually carried out in terms of the same classes. That’s why we decided to find another solution and came to the approach from the authors’ Trailblazer framework. We divided all the business-logic into the concepts, inside which all other parts are described separately. This architecture turned out to be perfectly compatible with GraphQL. Each mutation and query have a corresponding separate operation within a concept. Additionally, each mutation has a corresponding set of validations rules. Each type of returnable GraphQL data has a corresponding object, which is the result of operations. Such an approach allowed us to reuse parts of the code, as well as adding new functionality without a risk to “ruin” something in the application’s parts, which are combined with each other. Project C The third project relates to the healthcare industry. There were 4 platforms: 2 SPA web-applications, 1 iOS application and 1 ReactNative application. Simply put, it’s a medical application that allows saving much time and money when it comes to the healthcare industry. The challenge was connected with a great amount of data that were linked with each other. Moreover, it’s impossible to store the part of this data in their own database. Simply put, the main goal of the project was to accumulate data about the doctors from third-party sources, as well as filtering and processing it according to the business logic of the project. As a result, the project had a huge amount of integrations, data maps, and complicated logic of building the connection. This influenced the API structure. In a current GraphQL scheme were data types that partly or fully used in every platform. This significantly complicated the process of adding changes or new types. To solve the challenge, we developed an additional abstraction layer that provided backward compatibility between data types. This layer uses a great amount of dependencies One of the issues related to the authorization system. It didn’t allow “hiding” or restricting access to users and client-applications developers to some parts of the scheme. Another API issue related to the lack of detailed description of some scheme’s parts. Despite the fact that the additional abstraction is the most complicated and difficult in terms of support, it’s still the most thought over part. As it was in the second project, this layer allows dividing the logic of data storage, integrations with third services and a layer for data reflection. Based on our experience with GraphQL, we may highlight the most effective rules for working with it. There shouldn’t be any logic in a GraphQL scheme. All the filtration, data comparison should be executed in separate objects and structures. An authorization should be made with GraphQL. Control the fields’ scope as you want. Make sure to create scalar types for more complicated but unitary data, such as data or URL. Isolate the execution logic of mutations and queries. Despite the fact that Trailblazer tool is not flexible, it tuned to be highly effective. Set up the queries logging and their parameters at the very beginning. This will significantly simplify the debugging and analytic process. If your API uses 2 or more applications that execute different or mutually exclusive logic (for example, one “admin” and one “user” application), it’s better to divide the schemes (every application should get its own endpoint or its own scheme). As you can see, GraphQL allows achieving results if you combine it with a skillful development team and a willingness to develop something “valuable.” See you in the next episodes, where we’ll tell you about the other strategies we use. ### AWS Experience: How to Reduce Costs and Increase the Effectiveness In our company work the developers that do their best to develop qualitative software. We use the test-driven development approach and write the tests before the actual code to make it as reliable and effective as possible. Additionally, we use automated builds for running the tests on every project when making a branch on Gitlab. However, with the growth of our company, the infrastructure couldn’t handle the number our developers uploaded into DVCS. We came up with several solutions for this challenge. Thus, we tried to run our tests faster than it was on the personal stations of our developers. Read this article to find out how we implemented this solution. We also tried to resolve an issue with our infrastructure with an affordable price for its support. Before moving all the infrastructure to Autoscale runners, we used self-hosting hardware located in our office. Among the expenditures were power costs. One machine cost was about 2-3$ per month. They functioned around-the-clock even if they were not loaded. Moreover, because of loading, we couldn’t run the necessary number of builds concurrently. As a result, the average amount of build’s timeout could take up to 10 minutes. All the builds were terribly slow and unstable. All of these significantly slowed down the development process. Solution Our DevOps department reached a solution to start using Autoscale EC2 instances. This provided us with a possibility of using the necessary “power” as well as keeping the builds on in the needed moments. So we got rid of our self-hosted solutions and start using AWS EC2. This was the beginning of our new infrastructure optimization. We had 4 machines that were used as Gitlab Runners. The cost of every machine was around $500. All other vacant machines were given to our new developers so that we could save much money on buying the new ones. We used the following runner’s settings. Based on the settings, we could concurrently run 20 builds on 10 machines with 1 GB memory on each one. We used packer for creating our personal AMI . Here’s how a config looks like. This config allows creating AMI that is suitable for our work. There can be found the settings for ElasticSearch, SWAP as well as our keys for connecting with GitLab. The Result Using this configuration we significantly increased the effectiveness of our runners. Moreover, we solved an issue with builds lagging. Thanks to Knapsack, all the builds have been parallelized to the great amount of machines. Using Knapsack and fail-fast strategies, we were able to reduce the average amount of build on 25-30%. And now let the numbers talk for themselves. The total infrastructure’s cost: $23 In contrast: 4 machines: Monthly ~$12-14 + time spent waiting for the builds 1-time payment: $2000 cost of unused machines For 1 Year: $2156 Autoscale Runners: Monthly: ~$23 with no time for waiting For 1 year: $276 As you can see, we successfully reduced both the company’s expenditures and time for the code delivery. ### Serverless Computing: The Story of Success The story begins since the moment when we got a project from the client, who wanted to try new approaches in applications development. He wanted to make an app using serverless computing without spending on it a huge amount of money. The main goal of the project was to automate a documents management with a possibility to import the documents templates and export this data to the templates. Additionally, it should have both analytics and data aggregation in order to get various kinds of metrics. The target audience of the application where people, who work in the public sector. That’s why it was crucial to make all the data as secure as possible. The Implementation Process Backend On the backend side, we used an authentication using AWS Cognito. Using this technology, we fully implemented a solution. Additionally, we used OpenID technology with a token for the authentication as well as a refresh token. The time of their performance was restricted. A developed mechanism of authentication token renovation was connected with AWS Cognito. This allowed us to follow the expiration of token and access control. Everything was based on AWS Cognito. The mechanism of users access control to the data was implemented using AWS IAM. This tool, which was developed by Amazon, allows managing the access policy. Its main advantage is a high flexibility of an accessibility setup. Along with DynamoDB, our team could achieve significant results and set the politics. As a result, users from various companies had no possibility to get data about other companies. All the restrictions were imposed on the level of IAM and DynamoDB. Put simply, even if they had a direct access to the base, they would be able to see only the records, which were available with their access level. AWS Lambda allowed a team to lower the spendings on infrastructure and avoid the spendings on DevOps. However, it was just the beginning. We thoroughly studied the techniques of data organization in NoSQL databases. As a result, after the first release was fully rebuilt a structure in terms of separate sheets for the company. We decided to collect all the data into one sheet and control all the access levels using AWS IAM. All the data was reorganized to allow making selections for every use case. In its turn, it speeded up work with DynamoDB and allowed us to work only with the data we really need. As a result, this reduced the monthly cost on the service. Nevertheless, this was not the final optimization for reducing the final costs of the whole infrastructure. DynamoDB Pricing is fully bound to such notions as RCU (read capacity unit) and WCU (Write Capacity Unit). All the payment is being made for the traffic, which we request and/or input into the database. Consequently, we’re interested in the possibility to minimize the interaction with a database. We developed the mechanism of requests caching on reading from the database as well as the way of cache invalidation when changing the data (that relate to this question). All the cache was divided according to the types of the entity. Since the invalidation took only a little part of all the data input, this allowed us to get instant responses from Lambda functions from cache (at the same time, they’re almost free). Front-end Front-end applications were developed on React + Redux. Hosting on S3 is one of the ways to minimize the spendings on hosting. At the same time, the client side of a web application is little more than apps had 10 years ago. This is a usual choice of static files for most of the applications, which have a usual storage capable of giving these files upon user’s request. The rest of the work is on your browser. Nevertheless, we wanted to secure user’s data on the client side. Using a local storage for storing the information about the current session, we understood that it wasn’t an absolutely secure solution. Javascript API had access to data management that was in localStorage. Our team studied the ways of local Storage security as well as the current solutions. Using an open source solution, we learned the working principles and successfully implemented this solution in our application. For data encryption, we chose a solution, which is based on AES standard. Additionally, we considered the fact that encryption keys may be compromised, We did our best and created them in a way so that it became impossible to distinguish them from obfuscated code. Hereafter, we applied a strategy that was described in a standard PBKDF2. This strategy uses a special approach for creating inherited keys from the keys, which were presented by the client. Hereafter, using AES, all the data is being encrypted with a key from PBKDF2 (additionally, they can’t be decrypted with a parental key). Eventually, the encrypted files are being compressed using zip. Using the best practices from Redux, we optimized a storage condition. The storage was optimized in a way that data can’t be duplicated. At the same time, the access to them should be as quick as possible. Elastic Search ElasticSearch was used for an analytics and data aggregation in reports and other documents (using stat). We didn’t use DynamoDB for data aggregation and statistic metrics collection. This kind of requests require reading a large amount of data from the storage. As a result, this increases the value of a service. That’s why we decided to use DynamoDB Streams for data indexing in ElasticSearch when creating them in a database. Infrastructure To deploy an infrastructure (connected with Lamba), we used an open source framework Serverless. This framework has a low barrier of entry for the developers. This framework uses an Infrastructure as a Code approach and supports the following cloud platforms (AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Azure, Kubernetes). YML and CLI configs are responsible for the management. Serverless includes all the necessary functions needed for creating an infrastructure, which is based on AWS Cloudformation. However, a developer can use any framework as well as all the functions of the chosen platform. In our case, it’s AWS. Let’s look at AWS. Here, it generates Cloudformation config to deploy an infrastructure and Lambda collection, which is stored in S3 directory. In case of refusal to use an open source solution, we’d have an access to the scripts with a native syntax for AWS. Let’s look at AWS. Here, it generates Cloudformation config to deploy an infrastructure and Lambda collection, which is stored in S3 directory. In case of refusal to use an open source solution, we’d have an access to the scripts with a native syntax for AWS. The technologies we used: AWS Lambda AWS DynamoDB AWS DynamoDB Streams Serverless React, Redux Design (AntDesign) Node.js ElasticSearch + Kibana AWS API Gateway AWS Cloudfront AWS S3 The project was implemented by: 2 full-stack developers 1 Project Manager 1 Quality Assurance Timeline of the project:  2018.03 -> 2018.15 Infrastructure cost: The whole infrastructure had an approximate price of 15$ per month. We included into the spendings the cost of ElasticSearch. t2.small.elasticsearch instance costed about ~30$ The approximate cost of infrastructure with a Serverless approach (Frankfurt region): Lambda+DynamoDB+S3+Cognito+Cloudfront+API Gateway+DynamoDB Streams ~$15 t2.small.elasticsearch ~30$ The total sum: $45 The cost of a standard solution (Frankfurt region): 1 instance EC2 t2.small + 1 instance RDS t2.small would cost ~$53 VPC/Internet Gateway/Route Tables/Security Groups + ~$20-25 t2.small.elasticsearch ~30$ The total sum: $103 ### Marketing Automation Strategies + 3 Amazing Tools You Can Implement At Once Let’s be honest, marketing your ecommerce business is not easy. Whether manually posting to social media or personally thanking your customers, marketing is not easy at all. Repetitive tasks are unavoidable but don’t have to be laborious. In fact, you can offload the heavy-lifting and focus on what’s really important - running your business. Luckily, there’s a solution and it's known as marketing automation. Marketing automation is your sales force! Control your ecommerce marketing strategy and forget about manually managing every aspect of your campaigns. With a little marketing automation, your customers will reap the benefits of a better shopping experience caused by sophisticated marketing, which has been designed to be personal and speaks to each consumer individually. The impetus of this post is twofold: First, we’d like to give you a quick overview of marketing automation? Next, to familiarize you with a few common marketing automation strategies and tools. What is Marketing Automation? Marketing Automation is a technology that automatically manages marketing processes and multifunctional campaigns, across several channels. As an integral part of most businesses, marketing helps to create a brand-to-customer relationship. Typically, small companies are run just by a few people (often, developers and sellers). The scheme is pretty simple: builders who create products or services and those who sell them At the same time, the company keeps growing and sooner or later it becomes impossible to keep everything under control. Undoubtedly, you could overspend on marketing specialists, who would be working on redundant tasks such as customer correspondences, publishing on the social media or emailing your users every time you post something in your blog. This is the time when marketing automation comes in handy! Marketing Automation Benefits Save time and increase productivity. In many cases, marketing automation tools are more efficient and effective than human capital. For example, a recent customer asked JetRuby to implement ecommerce functionality that solved an abandoned cart issue. We developed a Ruby gem, which we integrated into the Mandrill API. Mandrill is an email infrastructure service as an add-on MailChimp that you can use to send personalized, one-to-one e-commerce emails, or automated transactional email. Boost your sales. Marketing automation increases sales by giving your salespeople superpowers! For example, they can automate the creation of Facebook ads, which can help drive conversions at scale. 42% of companies use a marketing automation platform, compared to 54% using a CRM and 82% using email marketing technology. – Marketo and Ascend2 Consistency is the key to success. One of the toughest parts of marketing is being consistent with it. With increased social media followers, social media activity may take an enormous amount of time and energy. Luckily, you can automate most of… “everything.” This includes scheduling social media posts, creating ads or other marketing tasks and much more. Put simply, marketing automation enables more traffic to be driven to your website, saving you time and bringing back more returning customers. Alright, now that you know what marketing automation is, let’s take a look at the real-life examples and see how you can apply it in practice. How do I Spend Less Time on Promoting My Website on Social Media? In our contemporary life, social media became a regular part of our daily routine. One of the effective ways to connect with your customers is to go where they go. Nowadays, almost 3 billion people around the globe have their social media account. Do you feel the power of social media marketing possibilities? Why spend valuable time on monotonous work? There are thousands of tools, which can automatically schedule posts on social media. As for us, we use Buffer. 86% of marketers consider “ease of use” to be the most important factor when evaluating automation tools. – Regalix This tool connects multiple social accounts for scheduling content at different times and dates. Additionally, you can manage which content goes to which social channels. Put simply, this streamlined social media management platform can make your life simpler and your marketing strategy stronger. It’s really easy to use it. All you need to do is connect a social account to Buffer so that you can start composing new posts to add to your posts queue. Usually, posting times are automatically set up by default, which has been optimized for certain peak engagement times of the day. But you can always customize these posting times as you want. Each new post, which you added, would be automatically scheduled for its publication at each consecutive time. You can also share the posts now or set up a specific scheduled date and time for each new post that you compose. How Can I Get a Better Understanding of my Users Behavior? In marketing, it’s crucial to understand how your users are engaging with your content. Everything is important. You need to know when your customers make a purchase, put a comment on your blog or even add an item into their shopping cart. Sometimes it’s really tough to know exactly what actions your visitors are taking on your website. In automated marketing everything is possible. There’s a tool, known as Hotjar that allows visualizing how users engage with your site. This tool uses interactive heatmaps of users actions and clicks, recordings of their session as well as gathering of their words from survey and feedback polls. Image Source This tool can also be used for collecting feedback from your customers. You can create custom surveys using an easy editor, collect responses in real-time from any device as well as sending your surveys using web links. To get a better understanding of what your users really want, create polls and target questions to specific visitors anywhere on your web and mobile site. To find out more about this cool tool, take a look at this complete guite to website heat maps. How do I Automate my Email Campaign? Email marketing is another important tool in today’s marketing efforts. This can help you grow your revenue and expand your reach by targeting a more global audience. All of this is possible with email marketing. At the same time, a poorly designed email marketing initiative can hurt both your business and reputation. Luckily, there are tools today that allow you to thrive with your email marketing efforts. To be precise, we talk about MailChimp. Using this tool, you can entirely automate email campaigns. Using this tool, you can entirely automate email campaigns. Here’s a scenario. As soon as users sign up to your list, a mailing is automatically being sent to them. This can be a simple “thank you” letter or any other meaningful content that only they can get as a result of signing up to your list. Automated campaigns work as the personalization of your brand’s efforts and enhance the interaction between you and your subscribers which is invaluable. Remember that subscribers are your potential customers. Automated emails are perfect not only for welcoming new email subscribers but also for customizing mailings, such as product suggestions related to a purchase, an annual mailing wishing your customers a happy birthday or just showing appreciation the regular subscribers who are actively engaged. Image Source In general, automated email campaigns are the perfect choice to bring you closer to your audience. How do I Boost my SEO and Run More Profitable Ad Campaigns? When running a business, there’s a huge amount of work to do. You just can’t afford to spend the whole day managing your ad campaigns. Hopefully, there’s a perfect tool for it, which we use for improving SEO of our blog - SEMrush. This tool allows you to conduct keywords research. Among the things it tracks are CPC ads, copies of AdWords ads and their positions, competitor analysis, and many other things. For instance, long-tail keywords can significantly improve your SEO. However, they may be not so good for paid campaigns as there’s probably not enough search volume to ever net you any clicks. One of the features is competitor analysis. In case you can’t find enough keywords to get started, you can pull down a list of keywords and ad copy from your competitors. Additionally, it provides a cost per sale range for each keyword The Bottom Line Sometimes, marketing may become really time-consuming. However, if you want to run your business in the right direction, you need to focus on what is most important. In this post, we described just a few marketing ideas that can help you improve the outcomes of your ecommerce campaigns. Using automated marketing, you can create ultra-effective strategies that can grow your following, boost your sales and encourage return shopping. To find out more about how to increase your sales, take a look at this amazing post about Ecommerce marketing statistics. At the same time, you need to consider the possible risks and know the ways how to avoid them. A small tip: remember, with all email marketing, it’s crucial to follow the rules, such as GDPR privacy regulations. It’s really important that you’ve received consent from your users to contact them and store their details. Summing up, ecommerce marketing automation helps companies save time and scale their businesses. Use it wisely and may the automated marketing force be with you. Top Ruby on Rails Development Company ### MOVE Shanghai MOVE Shanghai allows you to have access to all the premium fitness venues in the area just from one single place. With its help, you can book different activities like swimming, yoga, dance classes, and much more. Available on iOS, Android, and web, MOVE Shanghai is designed to provide the same experience no matter which ecosystem you prefer. In this article, we’re going to share with you the challenges that we’ve faced during the implementation process and how we’ve solved them. Challenge The work on the MOVE Shanghai project comprised a whole bunch of various challenges. Initially, the task was to clone the existing MOVE GB application which was written in Perl. However, a more in-depth look at the code showed that dealing with a different language was to be the least of our concerns. It turned out the app didn’t comply with our stack of technologies at all. Not surprisingly, the idea to improve or anyhow refine the existing app was decided to be considered a basket case. That said, we came to the point that making an app completely from scratch would be the best option. Hardly had we started the mobile application development when another unpleasant discovery popped up. For those of you who don’t know, in China, there is a thing called The Great Firewall which blocks whatever it may consider harmful or malicious. This has lead to many of the services we are used to having absolutely no issues within most regions being inaccessible. What is more, the Internet connection can get really slow especially if you’re outside the territory of the country. Needless to say, both the notification (Twilio) and the payment processing services (Stripe/Braintree) that comprised the core features of the MOVE Shanghai app were either almost unavailable or didn’t work at all. So, we had to find their alternatives. As the application was being developed, we received new requirements from the client. One of the biggest changes to be introduced was the app integration with third-party services, e.g. mindbodyonline.com. The challenge was imposed by the fact that the vast majority of the services were implemented in a rather sophisticated way. In other words, they were simply not designed for such kinds of manipulations. Solution The first thing we did was borrowed some logic from the existing application written in Perl. Part of it was used while integrating MoveShanghai with the third-party services, e.g. mindbody.com. To save time for solving bigger challenges, we decided to take the database structure as well and, thus, were able to get out the most of the existing application. Having finished with the dismantling part, we started building the applications. One of the requirements was that both Android (app for clients) and iOS versions had to be released almost simultaneously. After the right approach was found and the management issues settled, our team was able to deliver the apps within the deadline. Thanks to the unified API we developed, they work the same no matter what mobile device you are going to use. Plus, MOVE Shanghai is integrated with AliPay and WeChat, offering a full Chinese in-app experience. If you’re unfamiliar with these services, you can read our ultimate guide to building a web/mobile app for China. In a nutshell, AliPay is one of the two most popular payment systems that are used by the Chinese. How popular? Take any Chinese mobile application - there will be a support of payments with AliPay. As for WeChat, it’s the country’s most popular messaging app with an audience of nearly 1 billion people. Whether it’s ordering pizza or paying bills, WeChat allows you to perform almost any kind of online activity. Besides, WeChat comes with an in-built payment system called “WeChat Pay”. Earlier, when I mentioned the two most popular payment systems, I meant AliPay and WeChat Pay. Speaking of The Great Firewall - it was quite of a problem to deal with. As a replacement for Stripe, we picked Paymentwall which turned out to be a bit tricky to look into and work with but still integrable. Since Twilio functioned quite unreliably in China, we had to find another service to implement the notification feature. The best suitable option for this purpose was a Chinese service called YunPian. With the help of some extra logic, the app is now able to send SMS to Chinese phone numbers through YunPian, while the numbers from the outside are notified through Twilio. With that said, let’s have a quick look at the flow of the mobile version of MOVE Shanghai. Both the sign-in and the sign-up procedures are quite simple. To save users time and effort, we’ve implemented confirmation through SMS. After that, MOVE greets you with a screen, where you can search for desired activities. The application also comes with a very convenient and powerful search. With its help, you can search for activities by time, date, relevance, and type. When you’ve found the activity that fits your preferences and schedule, you can book it straight away. Here is how the booking flow looks like: Since the application is primarily aimed at the Chinese audience, one of the client’s requirements was to implement the integration with WeChat. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this service, it’s an insanely popular mobile app for communication with almost 1 billion users (most of which are from China). Over the last couple of years, WeChat has grown from a simple chatting app into an entire ecosystem with tons of features, including the ability to pay for things right from the app. MOVE Shanghai is also perfectly adapted for display in mobile browsers (and works just as fast as the native app). Oh, and did we mention that we implemented a nice-looking chat so that users can go swimming/boxing/etc. with their friends? Technologies that we’ve used: Ruby on Rails-based API; React.js web client; Native iOS (Swift) and Android. The Result Inspired by the successful MOVE Shanghai counterparts, we built a great fitness application with all the specifics of the Chinese market in mind. The work on the project proved to be an invaluable experience allowing us to learn about and master new tools. With our stack of technologies and skills improved, we are now able to flawlessly develop web and mobile solutions for the Asian market. Hope you’ve liked our case study. If so, please support it with claps :) ### Mailing Lists. How not to Get Banned + 1 Effective Lifehack Imagine you spent an enormous amount of time creating your masterpiece. You filled your letter with unique content, your designers made a beautiful design. In other words, it was born to engage new customers. However, nothing happens next. You ask yourself what possibly could go wrong but can’t find an answer. So what to do next? Maybe it even didn’t reach the end user and ended up in an email box? This means that all your hard work creating your content, building your opt-in email list, and designing your perfect mail could possibly go in vain. In email marketing, it’s crucial to play by the rules so that the Internet Service Provider should understand that your users are interested in your email. However, you might not even realize that your behavior may resemble a strategy of a true spammer. For example, sending a letter without permission. In this post, we’ll explain why you shouldn’t send your emails without a permission and what worst case scenarios can be. Moreover, if you get to the end of the article, you’ll find a guide that will help you understand how to simply send mass unique emails using ... Why is mailing permission is so important? Permission is an important brick in building a respectful relationship between you and your subscribers who want to receive your email campaigns. On the one hand, if you build permission-based email lists, you’ll enjoy high open and click-through rates on your campaigns. Such a strategy allows driving significant levels of sales and revenue from your email marketing initiatives. On the other hand, if you keep sending emails to people, who haven’t given their consent, they would probably mark your emails as spam. This means you can lose your potential customers. That’s why it’s in your best interest to play by the rules. So what are the scenarios of sending you marketing emails without permission? Basically, there are 3 possible scenarios: Spam Filters One of the scenarios of being blacklisted by your Internet Service Provider is spam filters. They can detect some kind of spammy content and flag your email campaigns. At the same time, a Firewall could block any email with a URLs that have been reported as spam or blacklisted. And now imagine a situation. Some person writes an email with one of your domains, which has been blacklisted. What happens next? The ISP blocks that user’s email too. If we dig deeper, we’ll see that ISPs and anti-spam services tend to share their records with each other. And if you’re blocked by one, you could also be blocked by others. Spam Reports Let us consider an example what happens when someone marks an email as spam. As soon as a letter has been marked as spam, an Internet Service Provider gets a notification. Hereafter, the ISP tracks the number of spam reports (on their network) that relate to this specific letter. If the ISP identifies that there are enough people sent spam reports, the ISP blacklists you. Backlists If you’re in a blacklist, any message you send will be automatically blocked. The main problem is that once you found yourself in the blacklist, it’ll be extremely difficult to get yourself removed. To get a better understanding of how a blacklist works, take a quick look at the diagram below. Image Source As you can see, if the incoming mail can’t meet the criteria for legitimate mail, the IP gets into the blacklist. Examples of Compliant and Non-Compliant Lists Now when we understand the true importance of getting permission and making your mailing list legal, it’s important to understand when your letter is compliant and when it’s not. Let’s take a look at real-life situations. However, keep in mind that these tips are educational only and can’t be taken as legal advice. So what if… What if #1 What if people made a purchase from my store and I asked them whether they want to subscribe to my newsletters and promotional letters? If people subscribed to your emails, you have the full right for sending your mailing lists. However, be aware of boxes that are checked by default as they require no action. What if #2 What if I bought a list of thousands of emails from this guy? Can I use them? Unfortunately, it’s not recommended to use not permission-based emails or those, which didn’t result in opens and clicks for your campaigns. As a result, this can lead to high bounce rates that could damage to your sender reputation. What if #3 I have an online store and I decided to post some visiting cards to advertise my store by asking people to subscribe to my newsletter. Can I use their emails? Great job! You collected a bunch of permission-based emails. Nevertheless, sometimes it may be difficult to prove the offline collection methods. Make sure you saved a copy of opt-in cards. What if #4 I have decided to run a competition and collected users emails to allow them to participate in a contest. Can I use these emails for sending my mailing lists? Despite the fact that people wilfully gave their emails, you didn’t specifically ask them for receiving promotional email campaigns/newsletters from you. So it’s better not to use them in your mailing lists. How to Send a Mass Unique Emails Using Mail Merge? When working in email marketing, you may need to send a bunch of similar letters (with some kind of unique content, such as text, format, and graphics). Hopefully, there are solutions that can save much time and efforts. One of them is known as Mail Merge. Let’s take a closer look at it. When you may find this tool helpful? Imagine, you need to send a bunch of emails with the same text, though you want to make your letter unique, for example, change the subject, address, as well as the name unique. The main advantage of Mail Merge is that it allows making each recipient of the message the sole recipient (unlike sending an email to a group of people). And now let us guide you through the process sending mass mails. Install an Extension and Create a Spreadsheet The first thing you need to is to follow the link and install an extension. As soon as you installed, it’ll take you in a spreadsheet. Click the Add-ons button, then go to Mail Merge with Attachments and select Enable Mail Merge. Hereafter, select Create Merge Template. Import your contacts You’ll also need a list of people, whom you’ll be sending your mails. For this purpose, you need to import your contacts. Click Add-ons>Mail Merge with Attachments>Import Google Contacts. You’ll be asked to choose a google contact group, which you want to be imported. You can also create a new group with all the contacts you want to include in your mail merge. As soon as you import it, you’ll get something like this. Write your letter Now you can start working on your letter. To do this, go to Add-ons>Mail Merge with Attachments>Configure Mail Merge. As you can see, there’s a new window on the right side of the screen. It’s called Configure Mail Merge and includes several fields including Sender’s Email, Sender’s Name, CC Addresses, BCC Addresses, and Reply-to Address. You can also create your own email template using a visual editor, gmail draft or coding your own HTML. We’ll show you how to write your email, using the case of coding your own HTML. As you can see, such field as First Name, Executive Name, and Place will be replaced by the information you put into your sheet. As soon as you’re sure your letter is good to go, you can test yourself using an option Send a test email. To make sure the formatting is correct, there’s an option Send a test email. As you can see, everything works good and all our recipients got similar messages. The Bottom Line A decent email marketing strategy doesn’t mean the superb quality of content you bring to your customers as well as permission marketing is not only about following the law and avoiding to irritate your customers. Primarily and mainly, this practice helps secure approval from your customers and keep them engaged all the time. Mainly, it’s about emphasizing with your customers and making sure that their experience is the sort of experience you would want for yourself. Remember that email marketing is a powerful way to connect with clients and bring much benefit to business. At the end of the day, the main goal of your business is to make sales. As the proverb goes: “The money is in the list.” And this list refers to your email list. Combine your marketing strategy with an automated one and you’ll achieve great results. Hopefully, our advices will help you make an effective, reliable and most importantly, legal strategy. In any event, make your users needs the first priority and the results will be forthcoming. ### How Much it Cost to Build an Instagram-like App in 2019 The winner for “The Best Mobile App” at Tech Crunch in 2010, Instagram was destined to succeed at its very first steps. At first, it was a small HTML5 check-in project but in a year it got an award “App of the Year 2011,” according to Apple. This and plenty of other rewards Instagram has received resulted in a huge increase in app’s usage. So what lies behind this tremendous triumph? What initial resources were required to kick off such a project? And, finally, is it even possible to create an Instagram app of your own? The answer is YES As a company with a huge experience in mobile development, we’ll show you the right direction to the app of your dream. But first, why do you think Instagram got so famous? Here’s a little a hint: it’s all about the power of the visual content. In our contemporary world, everybody’s rushing, no one’s got any time. There is no time even for reading. However, with the emergence of Instagram, people could take the information they want with a single glance. The visual content is only one of the components of the Instagram app. However, its functionality is even greater. But before you come to the implementation process, you need to understand the ingredients your app should have. The Basic Functionality + Their Development Time The UI and UX of the App With the technological boom, everybody wants to experience the best technology without spending too much of their time and exhausting their busy brains. So when it comes to mobile application satisfaction, most technology firms turn towards the applications’ User Interface and User Experience. Make sure that the interface of your app is user-friendly and easy to use. For example, this is how the interface for one of our recent apps looks like. Building an Authorization Nearly no social media app, such as Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook or Twitter can start without account authorization. Usually, there are several options you need to offer your users. In the first case, they can create a new account. If they already have one, they need to have a possibility to sign in using their social media account or mobile phone. Behind the scenes The information about your user’s data will be stored in a database. If an authorization is carried out through phone, the app should have access to user’s SMS. On the other hand, if the user logs in using his social network credentials, the authentication will be carried out through OAuth. OAuth is an open-standard authorization protocol/framework that describes how unrelated services and servers can safely allow authenticated access to their assets. It doesn’t share the initial, related or single logon credential.   Create/Edit Profile The possibility to create/edit a profile is a must-need for a social application like Instagram. Users need to be able to build/edit profiles. This allows them them to start sharing their photos and videos. Additionally, people need to have the option of editing their profile, where they can change their personal details, profile picture, bio, and many other things. Behind the scenes On the backend, this requires interaction between the server and the client side of the application. Messaging The next feature to do after building the profile is a real-time messaging feature. If you want your app to succeed, you just can’t avoid building a real-time messaging facility to your audience. This means you’d also have to notify users about the messages they get. As a result, this implies creating notifications. Instagram has a cool feature that allows users to communicate with each others within stories. This can be compared as if speaking to the public but getting the personal replies. A user can create questions for their followers, ask them to make suggestions, create polls, and keep the engagement going on within the platform within the platform with the image, short video, or even plain text. Behind the scenes If we take a look under the hood, we’ll see that the client-side of the application occasionally sends requests to the server in order to track new messages. To protect the server from overloading, you can implement RESTful API over HTTP instead of using permanent socket connections. Uploading the Photo and Video Uploading photos/videos is a must-need for any Instagram-like app. The users should be able to add their photos from their devices or from any other sources. Behind the scenes Since the implementation solutions are different when it comes to the development for various platforms (for Android or for iOS), you need to determine the platform beforehand. Photo Customization and Editing As soon as the users uploaded a photo, they would probably want to customize it. To meet the challenges of your users, you need to work on the photo editing capabilities. The main challenge was to create unique photo filters and integrate them with the application. We collaborated with a professional team of photographers, who created for us outstanding photos. Using the photos and complicated development algorithms, we built the app with photo filters that are born to impress. Behind the scenes There are several options. You can use the standard filters or build them from scratch as it was with our case.   Integration with Social Media Despite the fact that Instagram is a social networking service, you also need to connect it with other social media platforms. Users communicate using various social platforms, where they are chatting, sharing information, photo and videos and much more. If you take a look at Instagram, you’ll see that it allows the spreading of user content to other social networks. People can easily link their Instagram profile with other social media accounts, such as Twitter, Facebook and so on. Behind the scenes You need to establish a connection between the social media account ID with the app account ID if you want your app to be linked with other social media networks. In most of the cases, it’s usually implemented using OAuth on the server-side of the application. Geolocation Almost no social media app can exist without a geolocation feature. This feature facilitates users with providing their exact location while posting a photo or video in their profile. Behind the scenes There are various APIs that can help integrate this feature into your app. The choice depends on a platform and feature you need to build. For example, if you’re making an Android app, you’ll need to use the class of android.location package and maps service by employing the MapView class. On the other hand, for iOS app development, you’ll need CLLocationManager Class and maps service using the Map Kit framework. The Search Option Another crucial feature for an Instagram-like app is a search-option feature. The Search Option can help people in finding their friends, groups and known acquaintances on their social media apps. Additionally, they can get familiar with the hot topics that are currently in trends on the social media platforms. The users need to choose the preferred option and the backend server offers the desired results.   Imagine your app is done. What’s next? How can you make a profit from it? Let’s take a look at the revenue model of Instagram. The revenue model of Instagram is very unique and has been constantly evolving. The great part of their revenue comes from sponsored posts that are very similar to the normal ones. The main difference is that they display a sponsored tag and a call to action button. Instagram stories are one of the most polished forms of sponsored posts. They pop up on a user’s newsfeed as they are browsing through the stories of other users who they follow. Carousel Advertisements. One of the features Instagram provides is known as carousel advertisements. Simply put, this allows companies to tell their own tales through a series of images that appear in a carousel form. Facebook Ads is a unique earner that allows posting ads on Instagram through Facebook, even if they’re not registered on Instagram. The Bottom Line Building an Instagram-like app is not an impossible task. However, it certainly requires some resources, efforts, right strategy, and most importantly - a loyal team for the development. To make the process even simpler, we prepared a list of the main steps that you need to follow when building your app. Determine why your idea is unique Find your target audience Analyze the market and your competitors’ products FInd the developers and make your MVP Add some features that will make your app unique Don’t forget about testing and maintaining your app Instagram became a highly popular application as it provided users with unique features and gave people something that they didn’t have. The basic feature, which is followers and following, gave people a boost to increase their self-esteem by a simple fact that people are been followed by vast people. Follow the Instagram path. Find something special, something unique. Remember that every project may have a long path of trial and error before it becomes truly successful. However, we’re always happy to share with you our experience and help you avoid mistakes. We have a rich experience in developing a photo editing apps so building, testing, and maintaining Instagram-like apps is our area of expertise. Tell us about your idea and our developers will make for you a plan with a unique estimate of its implementation. ### Everything You Need to Know to Build a Profitable App in 2018 Before we start talking about our main topic, let’s think about the monumental role smartphones play in our life. According to Statista, the total number of smartphone users around the world hit 2.53 billion this year. Just think about this insane number! There’s a main reason why we can’t imagine our life without smartphones. We all love them for being functional and making our life fun and simpler. But most of all we love them аs they allow us to use apps. These little helpers for all occasions absolutely changed the way of usual computing. There are apps for all tastes, and they are highly accessible. Now when we understand the crucial role apps play, let’s get back to the main topic. Unfortunately, a golden formula doesn’t exist. Basically, it completely depends on you. What features are important for you? What design do you like? Do you need it for Android, iOS, or both? By the way, take a look at this list of Top App Design Companies. Here are some of the ingredients that can go in your app. Choose wisely! App Platform First and foremost, you have to choose a platform. Basically, there a several choices: cross-platform or native app. Native apps are written using a single language and used for a single platform. Consequently, an app written in Swift/Objective-C will be used on iOS devices. And if your app is written in Kotlin/Java, it’ll be used on Android devices. Usually, apps of this type are more reliable and faster in terms of performance. Additionally, they’re capable of getting access a camera or phonebook. However, the costs can be higher. Cross-platform apps can be used on various platforms with a single source code. Cross-mobile development tools are built on simple languages for scriptings such as JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. This makes the development of cross-platform application faster, easier, and most importantly cheaper. However, this may lead to some difficulties in design, as different platforms have different conventions. App Design Imagine not only the visual part of your app. App design is also responsible for how your app works, for how it feels like. In its turn, various factors are implied during app development design, including UI/UX, icons, logos, visual design and so on. Let’s look at them more closely. Icon. This design element is the first thing people will see. You shouldn’t underestimate it. It’s the most important design element as it’s the icon that acts as a recognizable symbol. UX design. UX is focused on various aspects of the UX, such as fun, efficiency, and pleasure. Put simply, it’s all about how it works. The Visual part of your design. As the proverb goes, “People buy with their eyes.” The more beautiful design your app has, the longer people would like to stay and buy your product. Nevertheless, be ready to spend a large sum of money if you want to hire a professional team of designers with extensive experience and beautiful portfolio. Additional Features/Complexity Now when you chose the platform and have found a team of designers, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty detail. Based on what functionality your app has, can significantly vary the sum you’ll need to pay. I want a simple app. This category is for you if you need an app with one simple function. In this case, it won’t be capable of storing information on a smartphone or server. I want an app with a database/API. Imagine, you have an ecommerce business. A potential customer will need to register and sign in before making purchases. What happens under the hood? Everything will be stored in the remote servers. I want a multi-featured app. This is your category if you want a multi-functional app with an outstanding UI. Moreover, you’re free to add some other features to your basic functionality. Login via social networks. Thanks to this feature, your clients will be able to login in your app using their social medias including Facebook, Instagram and so on. Push notification. This is a great way to keep your clients informed about the latest news/changes. Data synchronization across multiple devices. This one will be very helpful if people will be using your app both on their desktop and smartphones. In-app purchases. This feature is a must-need for e-commerce. Besides, this can also be used for monetization as you’ll be able to offer various products, services and so on. App Testing As bitter as it may sound, but you’ll have to leave some money for testing and additional maintenance. People want your app to function in a certain way without bugs or improper behavior. By testing your app, you make sure everything works properly with no lags and glitches. Moreover, apps should be regularly maintained and updated to the latest version in order to function on the recent operating systems. Developers to Choose Every aspect described above is related to your business. Based on your business needs, you’ll choose a platform, find a design team, and determine the necessary features. And it’s only one side of a coin. However, there’s another one. And this relates to whom you’re going to hire. Basically, there are 3 ways: Freelancers. Since the Internet is full of freelancers services, this is the cheapest way. Alongside with affordable price, you must be ready to take certain risks. If a freelancer turns out to be unskilled, disorganized or feckless, you might end up wasting your money. Small Agencies. First of all, agencies are a great choice as they provide a team for your project development. As a result, you may be sure in the further testing and maintenance. However, super complex apps are not for this category as they may need thousands of people working on it. Big Agency. This is the best choice as large agencies provide a full stack of development with highly professional and skilled team. Again, if you have some kind of an ultra-difficult/complex app, this is the only option for you. Nonetheless, the biggest drawback of this option is its insane price. The Bottom Line Let’s sum it up. Mobile application development is a long and complicated process. There are various aspects that may influence the development costs. One of the possible ways to find out more or less exact price is to present your app idea to developers and get an estimate. In comparison, according to Clutch survey, the average price can start from $30 000 to $700 000. Here’s what 2017 VDC Research Survey reports, “Enterprise app developers found mobile apps to cost an average of $140,000 each.” As you can see, developing an app will cost you a pretty penny. However, don’t get discouraged, because we are here :) We implemented various ideas of people throughout the world for a significantly lower price. Recently, we made both an Android and iOS app for a platform that combines some of the best features from the world’s leading music streaming services. We also developed a personal alarm app Knightly that would provide safety to college students when they need it the most ### Build a Kotlin App in 2 Weeks — Challenge Accepted! Time keeps on ticking into the future and the technology keeps advancing. Nowadays, contactless payment methods have become more and more popular. And that’s just par for the course, as cash payments are already a thing of the last Thursday. Just think how inconvenient physical money is from a modern perspective. Every day, you need to carry around cash for daily expenses and purchases. Sometimes, that fat wallet of yours can be really annoying and at the same time insecure. Once cash is lost or stolen, there’s not a darn thing that can be done to get it back. We won’t even talk about losing great sums of money. However, if you lose a credit card or your wearable payment bracelet (in our case it’s a wristband), you can simply contact your bank and freeze it. Another disadvantage is that cash can be relatively heavy and bulky, especially when you get your change in massive amounts of coins. The space of your wallet is not infinite and so on and so forth. The project that we’ve implemented helps getting rid of all these disadvantages by making a contactless payment. Initially, NFC Moments was intended for providing contactless payment in pubs across the USA, though this technology can be applied elsewhere across the whole world. Have you ever been in a pub? Remember all those dozens of impatient drunk people badgering the poor bartender to get their drink as soon as possible? The thing is that a pub is a place where it’s necessary to serve customers as quickly as possible or people lose their buzz. And the process of payment may significantly slow down a bartender’s work. If you pay using your credit card, the transaction time can last for 4 minutes! And you’re not the single client as there are dozens of people waiting for their order. All these factors have contributed to the creation of the NFC project as it allows making a payment using your wristband with the transaction time reduced by 40 Times! Paying with a wristband, the transaction time will take no longer than 10 seconds. Isn’t that impressive? Now let’s get an idea of how this project works. A bartender has a smartphone (that supports a contactless payment) at their bar count. So the bartender logs in to the venue application where he can see a catalogue of alcohol that’s being swilled in the pub. Using this app, they will be issuing an invoice for the clients. A client, in their turn, will have to download a user-application and synchronize it with their payment information. And that’s all folks! To make a payment, a user will only need to set a card to their smartphone. The next step is processing of the payment transaction from the user’s account to the venue’s (for payment processes we used Stripe). Here’s how an app for the user looks like: What We Needed To Implement Back-end implementation iOS applications both for a user and venue Android applications both for a user and venue written in Kotlin Web dashboard for an owner Solution FIrst and foremost, we’ve implemented a web dashboard for pub owners. Using the dashboard, they can easily check/follow the profitability of their pubs. Besides, it’s the place where all the information about the employees, income, and so on is stored. Besides, we implemented iOS and Android applications both for users and venues. At first, we had only an iOS application and the main task was to create the same cool app using Kotlin. And guess what? It took us only 12 days to develop a fully-featured Android application. Truthfully, it’s after this moment (pun intended), that we decided to completely switch to Kotlin. As far as mobile development is concerned, it’s amazing. We didn’t even need to create a new design for the Android app. We’ve simply extracted the current design from the iOS app and reused it, which saved the client a great deal of both time and money. So how does the app for users work? Well, it’s really simple. You just add your payment information and synchronize your wristband with the app. Voila! Now you can easily pay for your drinks using just your wristband, or the sleeping drunk guy’s. The app for venues is where user’s money will be coming in. Another cool feature of the app is that users can set a spending limit (for example, if you want to spend no more than 100 dollars overnight). In the event of expanding the limit, you’ll get a notification on your phone. Result We fully implemented the project and developed a fast and cashless payment system. NFC significantly simplifies the payment process as well as reduces the transaction time to 10 seconds. That’s a huge achievement compared to the usual 4 minutes. With the help of our project, you may forget about enormous queues in pubs as well as annoying and time-consuming payment transactions. Imagine a world where paying for purchases and buying drinks can be easily made by a simple touch. This world is also known as NFC. We are very proud of our Android app written in Kotlin. So if you already have an iOS application and want to expand your business by developing apps for other platforms, we’ll gladly make your dream come true. And we’ll do it within the shortest amount of time! Technologies we used: Kotlin GraphQL Clean Architecture Model-View-Intent ### Top Crucial Elements Your Ecommerce Website Should Have [2018 Update] Every second counts, when it comes to an ecommerce website development. Time is money, so it takes a fraction of a second for a customer to admire a website. What is ecommerce website? Without a proper ecommerce website you’ll be able to significantly boost your business. However, no matter what irresistible items or awesome content your online store has. There is a possibility you may lose potential visitors if your website lacks significant features. All it takes is a split second for either your website to succeed or to fail. However, how can you get your website has everything necessary? Luckily, you came to the right place. In this episode, we gathered a vital list of features for a successful ecommerce website. P.s. If you’re patient enough, you’ll find a super important tip at the end of this article. Call To Action There’s one thing you can definitely be sure of in the world of affiliate marketing — CTA. CTA (Call To Action) is an instruction to a specific audience that is created in order to engage customers and them effect an instant response. The CTA should be identifiable and should encourage the shopper to enquire further. Its main purpose is: For making a sale. As soon as a customer clicks a link that says “learn more” or “buy now,” this usually means they are interested in what you want to say. Interest means sales. In case, you didn’t make it easy for the shopper, you could miss sales. To gather information. The more people move through your site, the more they understand what exactly they’re looking for. Sometimes, it’s CTA that gets someone interested in something. You want to Inform them. By taking visitors through your website, you help them understand your product better as well as show a great deal of interest in your company and product. Sometimes, a call to action is needed just to get someone interested in something. Product Search and Categories Every online store should have an easy navigation through the various products. This will create a friendly user experience. Having added a search option, product catalog as well as an ability to compare several products, you’ll lower a user’s effort to find what they need and speed up their search on the website. Here are the ingredients you’ll need: Product categories and online catalog. Online shipping has its own fair share of disadvantages. Online shoppers do not have the ability to physically inspect or try on the items being considered for the purchase. However, you can help customers understand their needs by designing a product catalog, which will offer an in depth look into the various online products. Smooth and Convenient Checkout Procedure The majority of customers consider a smooth checkout procedure as a crucial element to a high conversion rate. Im most of the cases, customers abandon their carts mid-visit. This happens due to a complicated check out process However, just because customers reached the end of the sales funnel, it doesn’t mean the work is done. Nobody wants to have cycle through more than a couple pages in order to purchase a product. A simplified checkout process covers one whole page will significantly improve user experience. Nevertheless, it’s not always possible. Everything in between gives customers a chance to be frustrated. Customers are then left with two options — either carry on with the purchase or steer away from the website. Here are some key elements that can help you simplify the checkout process: Don’t include too many fields. Use the most necessary ones (those that can help you get paid and make the delivery). In case, your ecommerce platform makes them available, you can use some purchase extensions, which will allow improving the customer’s ease of use. To optimize and refine your checkout process, you may use a form creator extension. Show How You Win Trust One of the spread obstacles in winning the customers trust is the product reviews implementation. A negative review left by the consumers will influence decision of the potential buyers. However, ecommerce business can combat and tackle such negative feedback using a smart strategy, which researches into the matter and solves the problem for the customer. Testimonial Placement It’s really important to mention that a testimonial is not the first thing visitor sees when he visits your website. First and foremost, let them see what your brand is all about. By the way, it should be followed by your products. Depending on the type of ecommerce website you own, you need to place video testimonials accordingly. For example, if you own an ecommerce marketplace, you can place a video testimonials on the vendor sign up page. One of the drawbacks of having reviews on your product page is that sometimes negative reviews may hit conversions adversely. By the way, don’t forget to encourage people to rate reviews. As a result, the most helpful ones will be visible to all. Admin Panel Somewhere in the process of the development, we faced the following dilemma: is it better to modify the existing control panel or we should create a custom admin panel from scratch? We realized that this is a serious question as a proper admin panel may become an effective solution and save much time and money for the client. Here is how we approached this challenge As a company with an extensive experience in Ecommerce, we inherited fair share of life hacks. We used to work on a project, which was an auto sound website based on 1R Commerce. We all know, Spree Commerce comes with robust customization capabilities so it would be a waste of opportunity not to unleash its full potential. Spree Commerce admin panel includes a huge number of various tools for a website management. Basically, we faced 3 main challenges: Not all options were needed so that we decided to remove the inessential ones; We had to provide various roles for the users as some of them needed to see and manage only their own sections in the admin panel. We developed some must-need features, including Responses or Installation centers. Additionally, the control panel should have been added an option for their management. The main question is whether we should rewrite the existing panel or create a completely new one? Before we made a final decision, we compared the essential pros and cons. Pros: Functionality. 95% of the required functionality already exists in the Spree Commerce control panel. It should take around 1–2 days to determine, find and remove all unnecessary options, considering that Spree is an open-source project. On the other hand, it may take us 3–4 weeks to create the same, but a new one. 1 point to the Spree control panel modification. Test coverage. The control panel in Spree, as well as the other functionality, is fully covered with tests. Writing test manually will take much more time. Reliability. The first version of Spree came out in 2007. Since then, more than 45000 e-commerce websites have been created with its help. Spree has been actively developed and supported till now. This means that the platform was tested by thousands of users. When writing one’s own solution there definitely can be a couple of bugs. We all make mistakes. Besides that, bugs can reveal themselves after some time, and not always right after development is finished. Front-end. Spree control panel is user-friendly and has a nice design. To create something similar in our panel we would have to find and apply some themes. As a result, this may take a few days.? Cons: AJAX. Native Spree Commerce panel has no AJAX. All forms are submitted by a common method — page reload. It’s quite inconvenient and time consuming. And if we decided to write a solution from scratch, we may add this feature from the very beginning. Roles differentiation. To differentiate the rights according to the roles, we had to use a special gem spree_admin_roles_and_access, which works on CanCan. We even had to do some tricks and to reinvent the wheel. Why? Because of peculiarities regarding Spree Commerce control panel building and the fact, that the last gem version was developed for Spree 2–4–0-rc3, and we used v. 2.4.6. For example, there are forms with different models in the tab “Settings”. A User with “SEO” role should be able to change SEO and META fields. The others are not necessary for him at all. In gem’s documentation, it is said that there is an option of giving the changing rights only to specific fields in the table. But in fact it does not work, perhaps owing to the old version of Spree for which this gem was developed. So what does this say to us? In a nutshell, if you are going to rewrite the default panel from scratch, you will definitely face some issues. However, as for the rest (functionality, tests, beautiful interface and reliability), a modified Spree solution goes far beyond in variety of options. To spare you the anticipation, we went for the latter option, which made … (benefits). The Bottom Line Since all ecommerce websites are different, there is no single perfect solution for them all. On the other hand, you should always think what your business really needs in the first place. E-commerce features, which were covered above, are the tiny grains of sand. These features are crucial to the business; sensible, attractive, trustworthy and easy-to-use. Adapting them for E-commerce store will determine whenever your online business will succeed! ### Step-by-step Guide to Implementing a Fingerprint Scanner in Your Android Application Practically every smartphone that’s been released after 2013, has a fingerprint scanner. It has become so ubiquitous that any activity requiring some sort of confirmation in a mobile app relies on this feature. This isn’t surprising as fingerprint scanners are unique and highly secure. They can be used for locking/unlocking devices and apps without needing to remember any passwords. They are much easier, faster, and cheaper to set up. Also, they make online transactions much more convenient as they allow you to tap the screen with your finger within a fraction of seconds. These are just a few reasons for implementing a fingerprint scanner for your project. A Fingerprint Scanner will allow making your project much more secure and reliable! So you came to the right place, as we’re the ones who have tons of expertise in implementing great projects. In this episode, we’ll teach you the basics of working with fingerprint scanner as well as how to implement it in a common Android application. Here we go! Getting started with Fingerprint API The ability to authenticate in third-party apps using your fingerprint was first introduced in the sixth version of Android and is called Fingerprint API. In a nutshell, Fingerprint API allows you to replace the standard way of authentication using a passcode with a fingerprint scan, which, as we know, is much more secure in terms of personal data protection. Plus, it’s a neat time saving feature. So how does it work? When you register in an application that relies on fingerprint scanning, it prompts you to enter a master password. The app will save the password, generating a crypto key which will be used to encrypt/decrypt the password. So the next time you will put your finger to the fingerprint scanner, the application will use the key to decrypt the password. User data will be stored in an encrypted format. However, to implement this, you’ll need the following: an encryptor that will enable you to encrypt and decrypt the user password; crypto key to access the encryptor; a storage for crypto keys. Sensor testing First, you need to specify the permission for using the sensor in the manifest. Since this permission isn’t “dangerous”, you may not check it during the application work. To use the sensor, FingerprintAPI provides you with the classes FingerprintManager and FingerprintManagerCompat. Keep in mind, though, that when using FingerprintManagerCompat the hardware for fingerprint scanning may not be found. This is because this class verifies FEATURE_FINGERPRINT, which is not always specified by smartphone manufacturers. Let’s begin by creating the FingerprintManager: If you need to check whether the smartphone has a sensor using this piece of code: https://gist.github.com/jetrubyshared/5245075a3c9d67439faffaf5dca0c589 After that, you need to check if there any existing fingerprints in the system: And here is how you can check if the smartphone is protected with a password: https://gist.github.com/jetrubyshared/f092094963a4b8758fb2ce482f323aed Now you can proceed to the next step. Android KeyStore In Android, crypto keys are stored in a specially protected place that makes it quite challenging for anyone with no access rights to extract them. This place is called KeyStore. However, the KeyStore is used for storing only crypto keys, which means you can’t use it for storing passwords or private data. With that said, let’s initialize KeyStore: The next step is implementing crypto keys. There are two ways you can do that: Symmetric key (KeyGenerator); A pair of public and private keys (KeyPairGenerator). But which one should you choose? In our case, the application will encrypt the password upon the first log. Likewise, whenever the right fingerprint is scanned the app will decrypt the password. Thus, you’ll need a pair of public and private keys. The public key will be used to encrypt the password while the private key will be responsible for decrypting it when scanning the fingerprint. Let’s initialize KeyPairGenerator: Wherein KeyProperties.KEY_ALGORITHM_RSA is the encryption algorithm of the key and KEY_STORE is the name of the key storage. Now that we’ve clarified which piece of code does what, let’s use KeyPairGenerator to create a pair of keys: Wherein KeyProperties.PURPOSE_ENCRYPT | KeyProperties.PURPOSE_DECRYPT is used to encrypt and decrypt the password. .setUserAuthenticationRequired(true) allows you to verify a user with their fingerprint. To verify that the key exists, the following line of code is used: sKeyStore.containsAlias(KEY_ALIAS) Implementing the encryptor The Cipher class allows you to encrypt/decrypt the key: Wherein RSA is the encryption algorithm, ECB is the mode of operation, and OAEPWithSHA-256AndMGF1Padding is the addition. Now let’s initialize it: When using the encryptor in the mode Cipher.ENCRYPT_MODE you need a public key that prompts for user verification, so we’ll use this. To decrypt Cipher.DECRYPT_MODE you need a private key that prompts for verification with a fingerprint. Here are the encryption-decryption methods: Fingerprint sensor implementation In order to be able to use the sensor, you need the following method: void authenticate(CryptoObject crypto, CancellationSignal cancel, int flags, AuthenticationCallback callback, Handler handler) Wherein CancellationSignal allows you to cancel the process of fingerprint scanning and AuthenticationCallback returns the results of scanning. For processing the results, use AuthenticationCallback: That’s basically it, folks! Your code is good to go! The implementation of fingerprint scanning will undoubtedly improve the user experience of your application. Hopefully, you found our article useful :) If you have any questions about the implementation or you want to put your project into the practice, feel free to write us. The full project is available on the following GitHub page: https://github.com/MikhailLysyansky/FingerprintSample   ### How to Monetize an App? Best Mobile App Monetization Methods in 2018 From our previous article “Which Apps Generate Profit: Market Analysis and Breakdown”, you’ve learned that the mobile app development is insanely profitable. To spare you the details, apps from both platforms (Android and iOS) have yielded a stunning $86 billion over the last year. It doesn’t take an expert to see that the market is ripe and ready for the taking. There is one question, though: “How do apps make money exactly?”. More importantly, how do you persuade modern users to give their money for your app? In this article, we’re going to answer that question elaborating on specific mobile app monetization models/strategies, their advantages/disadvantages, and how you can leverage that knowledge for your business. Most popular ways to monetize mobile apps First things first, we need to figure out which monetization models are used on the market today. In 2017, Statista conducted a research where they asked mobile developers to name the monetization model that worked best for them. Here are the results of the research: As you can see, in-app purchases, in-app advertising, and paid downloads are leading the chart. Without further ado, let’s break them down. In-app purchases In 2017, about 50% of mobile app developers implemented in-app purchases of some sort in their non-gaming apps. At the same time, 79% of gaming apps had already been using this feature. In terms of revenue, this monetization strategy is an indisputable winner. Today, in-app purchases account for more than 50% of all mobile app revenue. Last year, they generated $37 billion worldwide. So how does this model work? Typically, in-app purchases provide users with an opportunity to: unlock new features (e.g. upgrading to a pro version with more customization options); buy a subscription (e.g. a season pass in a mobile game, curated news subscriptions etc.); buy virtual goods (e.g. in-game items, extra points, virtual currency, etc.); One of the most popular ways of implementing in-app purchases today is freemium-based apps. This monetization strategy assumes that you offer users an app that can be downloaded for free, but requires extra money to unlock some of its more advanced features or to buy virtual goods. When using the freemium-based model you should be careful about the features that you exclude from the basic version of the app. It’s very important that the users can freely access the core functionality right after downloading the app. For example, if your app takes black-and-white photos, users have to be able to take black-and-white photos without having to pay extra money. At the same time, you can move such features as the ability to crop, resize, and blur photos to the premium version of your app. One of the most crucial aspects of in-app purchases is that they require well-designed incentives to purchase that don’t take away from the user experience. This means you should think through every last bit of your app’s functionality to make sure it blends in seamlessly with the monetization model. However, once you prove your app is worth it, users will be willing to pay extra to. Remember: people are lazy by nature. They will pay for the ability to achieve the same result in a shorter period of time, especially if there is competition involved. One of the most vivid examples is the gaming industry. Whether its a PC or a mobile game, many players spend money simply to surpass their competitors or improve their user experience. You can also implement some sort of a rewarding or referral system where users would receive access to premium features in return for inviting their friends or posts in social media. Such approach allows you to kills two birds with one stone. It drives more users to your app while solidifying the social media presence of your brand which, in turn, drives more users … Well, you get the idea. Finally, there are subscription-based apps. Every smartphone user has heard of them: Netflix, Hulu, Apple Music, Spotify, and many others. Unlike freemium-based apps, users need to pay a monthly/quarterly/yearly fee to access the main functionality. To put it simply, the advantage of this model is that it brings stable, recurring revenue and is well scalable. In other words, you can create several subscription plans to target different types of users. However, subscription-based apps are more challenging to monetize. They need proper marketing and high positions in app store rankings. In-app advertising In-app ads are another commonly used way of monetizing mobile apps. According to Statista, the revenue from in-app advertisement will reach $117.2 billion by 2020. For the record, it was only $40.5 billion just three years ago. The benefit of such approach is that your app can remain free-to-download, encouraging more people to use it. There are several types of in-app ads: Banners are usually placed either at the bottom or at the top of your app’s interface. However, because of that, users find them more distracting than other kinds of advertising, which makes banners a bit ineffective. Transition ads are typically inserted between certain pages within the app. You can think of them like tv commercials as they are usually short videos. This type of in-app ad works best for mobile games as well as other app genres if implemented properly. Reward ads are launched after/during a certain event or a campaign in the mobile app. Users receive a notification, which offers them some sort of a discount, gift card, coupon, etc. Notifications appear in the status bar of the mobile device, letting the user know about the promoted content. The main downside of notifications is that they can be obtrusive, so you should be careful when implementing this type of in-app ad. Native ads are considered the new king in the world of content-based apps since they are mostly displayed in the news feeds. For example, you may have seen native ads on Facebook. The reason why they’re called “native” is that the format of the advertisement matches the look of the app, which makes it a great choice in terms of user experience. However, if your audience doesn’t like the ads, you can still take advantage of the situation by allowing users to turn off the annoying messages after purchasing the ad-free version. Even then, you should be extremely careful about the content of your in-app adds. Paid app download Last but not least is paid app download a.k.a. upfront purchase. It’s the most obvious and straightforward way to generate revenue from a mobile app. In fact, this model is as old as the hills, since it inherits the way we’ve been doing business over the last few thousand of years. Basically, you submit your mobile app to either of the app stores (or both) and set a specific price that users have to pay upfront before being able to download and use the app. On the Apple App Store, the price can range from $.99 to $999.99, wherein both Apple and Google take 30% of the cut. It’s as simple as that. Or is it? Unlike the real world, purchasing things online involves a certain amount of risk and possible disappointment. Mobile applications are no different. Without the ability to test this or that app, it’s impossible for users to form their opinion about it. Which, in its turn, makes it difficult for you to persuade them to pay, especially with so many freemium-based options available in both app stores. That’s why, before choosing this monetization strategy, you need to make make sure that: You have a strong marketing and social media presence The app can offer added value over free and similar counterparts The value corresponds to the price So unless your application is backed by a strong marketing campaign and offers some really convincing advantages compared to its alternatives, you should consider other monetization options. The Bottom Line There are several monetization strategies you can choose from. You just have to find out which will work in your case, and if it won’t, just try another one. Better still, you can combine them. For example, you can use the freemium-based strategy that includes in-app ads. It’s also important to mention that each of the options heavily relies on marketing campaigns and media presence. The stronger they are, the more likely users will consider downloading and using your app. Your focus, however, should still be enlarging your customer base; the number of people who actually use your apps. The bigger that number, the bigger the potential for monetization. So focus on making the app great and the profits will follow. ### EU General Data Protection Regulation. Let The Game Begin! The Internet totally changed the way of our lives. Every day we send dozens of emails, chat with our friends in social networks and post our photos to Instagram. However, have you ever thought how much personal data is being affected while this “simple” operations? We all remember the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook data scandal when up to 87 millions users were affected. Since that moment, data protection and privacy issues have never been taken so seriously. The day, when data laws will never be the same, is just around the corner. On the 25th of May this year, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will become legally effective. How will it affect your business? What are the new rules? And how to make your business comply with it? These questions are the main points of this episode. What is GDPR? General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation in EU law that was created with the main goal of protecting the personal data of EU citizens. According to this regulation, businesses need to ensure they have specific measures in place to protect data and stop or minimize the chances of data breach as well as increasing accountability when such breaches occur. Why was GDPR introduced? One of the main and probably the most obvious reason of GDPR introduction is related to the fact that such giant corporations as Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon provide their services for free, as long as users are agreed to offer them their data. So the main goal is to combine the data protection law with the way users data is being collected and used. Remember the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal? That’s only one of the possible scenarios of granting such vast numbers of permissions. Put simply, GDPR is aimed at regulating the ways organisations use the internet and cloud to process users data. What are the new requirements? The new regulation is the evolution of already existing data rules. GDPR adds new requirements for documenting IT procedures, performs risk assessments under certain conditions, notifies both the authorities and consumer about the data breach and strengthen rules for data minimization. So let’s look at what GDPR will introduce: Breach notification. According to this requirement, all companies will have to notify their data authorities within 72 hours after the potential data breach. In case, the data relates to the category of “high risk to the users rights and freedoms”, the data subjects should also be notified. Personal data access. Basically, this means that individuals can demand the companies to provide them with information the way their personal data is being gathered/processed as well as asking how their data is used by the company after the data collection. The companies, in their turn, will have to provide their users with a copy of the personal data, free of charge and in electronic format, if needed. Restrict processing. Individuals have the right to require that their data won’t be used for processing. In this case, their data will remain in place, though it won’t be used. Delete all the data. In case users don’t use the company’s services anymore or they want to withdraw their consent from the company, they can demand the company to delete their personal data. Stop the processing. Users can and have the right to stop the processing of their data for the direct marketing. Data portability. This allows users to transfer their data from one service provider to another. Correct information. According to this one, individuals have the right to have their information to be updated in case they found it incomplete or incorrect. Individuals must be informed. Users have the right to be informed whenever the companies gather information about them. Additionally, companies need to have a consent from users that would allow them to gather their personal information. GDPR for businesses The new regulation will affect any business/companies that operate within the EU. However, this also applies to those companies that operate outside of the EU but offer their services to customers or businesses placed in EU. Put simply, if your organisation is not in the EU but deals with the data belonging to EU residents, it might be “under the gun.” And this relates to the majority of world corporations that will need to adapt to GDPR. So the legislation applies to several types of data-handlers: to “controllers” and “processors.” A processor is a party that is responsible for the data processing, while the role of a controller is to state how and why the users data is processed. The Controller’s goal is to make sure that their processors abide by the data protection requirements. Processors, in their turn, have to abide by these requirements and maintain the records of their processing activities. Remember that GDPR is not only an IT issue. This regulation has broad-sweeping implications for the whole company, taking into account the way companies handle their marketing and sales activities. Once again, GDPR applies to all businesses holding and processing EU resident’s personal data, regardless of their geographic location. GDPR for consumers First and foremost, the regulation will provide users with the right to be informed when their personal data has been hacked/stolen. And a huge fine will serve as great motivation for the companies to notify the appropriate national bodies about the data breaches as soon as possible. Besides, it’s believed that there will be easier for consumers to get to their personal data in terms of how it’s processed. The companies, in their turn, need to report how they process and use the customers information in an easy and understandable way. Another advantage for the customers is that GDPR should establish the right to be forgotten. This right will provide users with the additional rights and freedoms as they’ll be able to demand the companies to stop processing their data or to have it deleted. Bearing that in mind, companies will have to be much careful in terms of personal data. For example, organisations will have to be able to prove that their users agreed to certain actions, even to receive a newsletter. And this can totally change the way all the marketing activities are managed. All the data held, need to have information that describes what the contact opted into and how. What do I need to do to comply with GDPR? The main goal of GDPR is to improve data security and privacy rules among organisations, especially when it comes to personal data protection. So what you’ll need to do is to audit your current data protection measures at your organisation, make sure all your data collection and procedures are GDPR-compliant, as well as keeping the records of all the information you have. Remember that this is not an easy process that might require much time and resources. Additionally, you’ll need to make sure you have a proper security alert system that is capable of spotting the data breaches within the shortest period of time. This is crucially important as data breaches will have to be reported within 72 hours, according to GDPR. Besides, you’ll need to appoint a data protection regulation officer (if your business is in the EU), who’ll be monitoring the way you handle and process users personal data. Some businesses might turn a blind eye to all these requirements. In that case, they might need some cash. Just FYI, the punishment for neglecting GDPR will lead to a fine of up to 20 million Euro or 4% of global annual turnover! On the other hand, there are some benefits too. The European Commission is sure that by having a single supervisor authority for the entire EU, it’ll make it simpler and cheaper for businesses to operate within the region. Additionally, it’s believed GDPR will allow saving 2.3 billion euros per year across Europe. What is really cool is that the regulation will guarantee that all the products and services will be built according to the strict data protection requirements. This will allow providing data protection by design in new products and technologies. This will also be a great motivation for the companies to adopt new techniques in data protection with the main goal of getting the benefits from collecting and analysing personal data. At the same time, this is a big step for protecting the personal data. The Bottom Line As soon as General Data Protection Regulation gains its legal force, the way companies/consumers feel about the personal data will be never the same. However, the main question: “Will it be better for the better or for the worst?” is still remained unanswered. We can only guess, for now. What we do know is that if you want to comply with GDPR requirements, today is the right time to start. May 25 is getting closer every day. So spend some time on identifying your weak areas and developing an action plan for preventing any data breaches. Here’s a little advice for you. Try to put yourself in the position of your users. How would you like your personal data to be gathered/processed? Do your best to make your business as secure as possible and the rest will allow. Remember that you don’t have to be afraid of anything if your business is transparent about the way the individuals data is used. In that case, GDPR will become your best friend! ### To the Infinity and Beyond! — Implementing Augmented Reality in Android Using ARCore A long time ago, Star Wars characters called each other using video calls. It seemed to be a real miracle. Now, it’s a matter of course as we can simply talk with our friends using our smartphones or desktop applications. In this article, we talk about the ultra-relevant topic, AR (Augmented Reality). Google has released ARCore in response to Apple’s ARKit. ARCore is a library that allows you to create AR on Android platforms. Our hot issue is why do we actually need AR or VR when there’s a wide range of great applications available? The answer to this question is immersed calculations, use of data interoperability in a more natural way. Put simply, this allows adding digital content to our reality. Objects created with the help of ARCore are scaled in real time. Besides, the majority of current smartphones support AR. This allows the combination of 2D with the 3D world. Is there practical value for Augmented Reality in real life? Honestly, many fields pop up where this technology can be used. For example, using AR you can see how the furniture you’re going to buy, looks in your living room (without buying and moving it!). And that’s not all! AR allows you to paint your walls any color. Or install a Lego app and play with various digital versions of selected LEGO sets with real-world scenes. And these are only a few examples of AR applications. Android AR sprang from the project, Tango. However, it didn’t become popular in the commercial market because it required a depth sensor. This sensor allowed it to put a device in a virtual environment that was a reflection of the real one. Unfortunately, there were limitations, like the 4 meter maximum distance. It’s also impossible to build a distance reflected from bright or mirrored surfaces. As a result, Google decided to create an AR for Android that doesn’t depend on the hardware. ARCore was developed based on actual work experience with Tango and without reliance on depth sensors. Nowadays, ARCore has around 100 million users around the world. At the heart of ARCore, we identify 3 main locations: motion tracking, environment understanding, and light estimation. Motion Tracking As your smartphone moves through the world, ARCore combines visual data from the device’s camera and IMU to estimate the pose (position and orientation) of the camera relative to the world over time. In this category, it’s necessary to identify the following calibrations: Optical The pinhole model is a mathematical model describing the relationship between the point’s coordinates in a 3 dimensional environment with its projection and also Field of View (FoV); the model describes the perspective distortion of the image; The photometric calibration — the colors heatmap. Environmental simulation based on inertia Acceleration is measured (not distance or velocity); Environmental simulation based on inertia is considered as stats for each specific use case. Nevertheless, there’s a temperature issue related to the factory calibration of IMU. Various manufacturers produce devices with diverse temperatures, so the data on these devices differs. Understanding the Environment In general, ARCore looks for clusters of feature points appearing to lie on common horizontal surfaces and makes them available to your app as planes. Understanding the environment is based on SLAM technology (simultaneous localization and mapping). A SLAM map is a graph of 3D points which represent a sparse point-cloud where each point corresponds to the coordinates of an Optical Feature in the scene (e.g. the corner of a table). The same thing is valid for acceleration measurements. In this case, SLAM uses a dot map. The main goal of SLAM is to build and update the map of an unknown environment while tracking the location of the agent inside it. Tango also has some issues with mirror surfaces. Light Estimation ARCore can detect the average intensity of a given image from the camera. This allows you to light your virtual objects under the same conditions as the environment around them. If you want to use ARCore in your Android apps, follow these steps: Download and install ARCore. Make sure you've a basic understanding of Android development with OpenGL. You'll need a general understanding of Android framework. The main ARCore classes are Session, Frame, Plane, and Anchor. Let's look at them more closely: Session. You need to check whether a device supports ARCore or not. If it does, create the configuration. Frame. It’s necessary to define the camera’s object and update the image. The main question is what to use? Blocking or the latest camera image? With the use of Blocking, every pose aligns within every frame. This allows for reduction of rendering to the camera’s frames rate. On the other hand, the unblocking method allows for rendering objects as quickly as possible. Anchors. In this method onDraw(), we need to check whether there’s a touching in range or not. In this case it is, and we place an anchor. However, remember the maximum number of anchors is 20. Projection Matrix. Projection matrix has a “pose” showing the location of the camera in the world. This matrix is responsible for the comparison of a virtual camera with the real one. In this method onDraw(), we get the matrix of projection by indicating the frames where it is to be placed. In the example below, we specify that we are tracking the objects starting from 10 cm and finishing at 100 meters. From the object “frame,” we get the point cloud (remember SLAM and “trusted points”?). We update the object “point cloud” by giving it the projection matrix and the matrix of camera view. If the projection matrix contains the camera properties and the view match matrix contains the data about the camera location, the model matrix contains the location of the anchor within the world. You can put the pixels on the right side of the screen. Render objects. The next step is to check all anchors and update the object we want to draw. We update the object’s matrix and the matrix of its shadow. Hereafter, we call them from the draw() method. In the example above, we can see the object’s “light intensity” that we transfer as a parameter to our object, so it’s now responsible for the shadow. The Bottom Line That’s pretty much everything you need in a nutshell to implement ARCore in an Android application. It’s helpful to understand 3D model rendering, but we’ll save that for a future article. So where can the AR technology be super useful? Unfortunately, there’s no fireworks feature to make this technology a crowd-pleaser. Our current task is to amp up and sustain user interest by focusing on those applications users find the most appealing. Among these are the ones are capable of furnishing your home or changing the color of the leaves, furniture or lipstick using the full potential of Augmented Reality. Don’t forget about the Chinese market where Google Play is not available. This area has great potential for AR, however, the alternative to ARCore is yet to be released. Despite the fact the AR project was paused due to various problems (some of them related to legislation), Google has reopened the project with the focus on industrial applications, such as various spheres of production, factories, plants, and tech-heavy concerns. As you can see, AR technology is advancing and growing. Who knows, what we can expect in the next few years for AR?! Will it be able to unlock its full potential? Leave your thoughts in the comments and stay tuned! P/S: We hope you enjoyed today’s article =) If so, please support it with claps and by hitting the subscribe button below! ### Five Minute GraphQL Tutorial for Android Developers The majority of Android developers are strong supporters of RESTful APIs. And this is not surprising as REST is a really great architecture. Since technology is constantly changing, developers always need to keep abreast of developments. In this GraphQL tutorial, our main points of discussion are the Apollo GraphQL itself, its main advantages and how to start using this technology in your Android application. Usually, GraphQL is considered an almost radical, new way to think about APIs. And let’s be honest, it has some really cool advantages from the technical viewpoint: It allows the client to specify the data it needs; It simplifies data aggregation from several sources; It uses a type system for data description. If you want to learn more about GraphQL, you can use the official guide by this link. So far, there is only one GraphQL client for Android — Apollo. It’s a really sophisticated GraphQL client that makes consuming GraphQL API as easy as possible. But why actually GraphQL? What makes it special? Basically, there are three main reasons: It allows you to avoid a number of issues that you would normally face when using REST. For example, GraphQL relies on a more elegant way of making queries, which results in a simpler architecture.Using GraphQL also positively affects the performance side of things since it allows you to access only the data you need (i.e. solves the issue of overfetching and underfetching). Finally, GraphQL is just easier to maintain thanks to better documentation. GraphQL is born for top-tier and high-load applications. The fact that it’s used by Facebook says a lot. So if you need a tool to manage a gargantuan number of users, GraphQL is a perfect fit. GraphQL allows you to change the design of your application without having to mess with its backend part. It’s cool, isn’t it? This feature alone translates into massive amounts of time and efforts saved. Of course there are many other advantages of GraphQL such as the ability to use it across different platforms without having to create workarounds, growing and supportive community, etc. However, the main point is that GraphQL is much more efficient in terms of development when comparing to REST. Plus, it has a very short learning curve. In other words, GraphQL is all about saving your time and optimizing development processes. Now you know the advantages of GraphQL. Do you want to start using it already but you have no idea where to start? Keep calm, we know the way! Step-by-step GraphQL tutorial First, we add a dependency in build.gradle of our project’s file (current version Apollo 0.4.4). Next, we add a dependency in build.gradle file of our application’s module after the Android Plugin. If you use Kotlin in your project, add an apollo plugin before Kotlin plugins. There are three types of GraphQL requests: query(analogue of GET), mutation(analogue of POST, PUT), and subscription. We need to create a file with the .graphql extension for request building. In this file are gathered all your queries, mutations, subscriptions, and fragments (re-used blocks with the set of fields that can be used in the requests). You can think of any name, such as examplequeries.graphql. However, it’s necessary to place the file into the folder src/main/graphq on the same level with the java folder. Here’s how this file looks: Hereafter, we need to add a file schema.json. In order to get it, let’s run the following command: apollo-codegen introspect-schema http://yourserver/graphql --output /home/admi/AndroidStudio/StudioProjects/GraphQLExample/schema.json In this command, we have to specify the path to your server as well as a place where we need to save a schema.json file. Having made the file, we add it into our project and place it with our file examplequeries.graphql. Now we can rebuild the project for Apollo to generate all the necessary classes. For sending GraphQL classes, we need to use ApolloClient class. However, before we start using it, we must set it up and create its instance using builder. Now we can use ApolloClient to send requests to a backend. Additionally, Apollo supports RxJava. As it works with Retrofit, you can use Observable as well as other types from Rx for request processing. Here’s an example of a request without RxJava: To use RxJava with Apollo, you add a dependency in build.gradle files of your application’s module. Here’s an example of a request using RxJava: If you followed our instructions carefully, you can proudly tell your friends you enjoy using GraphQL Apollo in your Android app. Our heartfelt congratulations to you! GraphQL Tutorial - The Bottom Line GraphQL makes the development process more simple and efficient. As opposed to REST API, GraphQL requires much less time for its implementation, which results in money and time saved. In addition, the way GraphQL makes queries also makes the backend of your application more reliable and stable, which is another reason to consider this tool. However, it’s only the very beginning for this technology, and it has much potential for the future. If you don’t want to miss anything and, don’t forget to follow our blog. We do our bests to keep you up with the trends! ### Music Streaming App for the Chinese Market: PYRO Music Case Study What kind of a music streaming app is PYRO Music? A platform combining some of the best features from the world’s leading music streaming services, PYRO Music is a music streaming app which is born to give a generation of Chinese not only access to the biggest record labels and DJs around the world but also enable you to change your listening experience, create and share your style of Electronic Dance Music. With PYRO Music, you can discover new music in HQ formats, and shape your sound to share with your friends and followers. Challenges Specifics and uniqueness of the Chinese IT industry — from the Great Firewall to the cultural differences of the target audience. Major code refactoring and infrastructure optimization. We had to improve the platform's overall performance and make it equally accessible to all Chinese users. All-encompassing redesign, including the PYRO Music website, music streaming apps, and the admin panel. Find the right balance between cost-effectiveness and performance of the available services. On the way to solution It’s no revelation that the best way to understand certain things is to experience them yourself. Following this point, our team visited China to see all the technicalities from within. In a nutshell, the knowledge we gained and the practices we learned during the little time spent in this magnificent Asian country have been truly invaluable. There is no exaggeration saying that neither dedicated forums nor even hundreds of google translated manuals could have given us the full picture of how specific and unique the Chinese IT industry is. However much information the Internet can offer you about The Golden Shield, a.k.a. The Great Firewall of China, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. There is much more to consider when developing a project for the Chinese audience. For example, there are some issues with routing within China. Overall, we had a unique cultural experience and could meet and spend time with many interesting people. Solution itself Upon arriving back home, we got down to the full code refactoring of PYRO Music. Luckily, previous developers left informative how-tos that gave us better insights into some technical aspects of the project. We greatly simplified the code, making it simpler, better structured, and easier to build new functionality. After that, we proceeded to implement more drastic improvements. Here is a quick list: We moved PYRO DNS to dnspod.cn, i.e., simplified DNS resolving for all the users within China; The project infrastructure was assembled entirely on Aliyun; Solr full-text search engine was replaced with Elasticsearch; Caching was configured correctly, so there are no more stutters when browsing the website; Pjax was dropped in favor of using Turbolinks. The interface is as fast as ever! Finally, we completely redesigned PYRO services (its website and mobile applications) and built the admin panel from scratch. We’ve implemented monetization via China-based services: WeChat Pay and AliPay. Successfully survived high load when PYRO Music conducted the PYRO Top100 China DJs event last August. Result Our improvements have brought PYRO several significant steps closer to becoming a consummate global-scale music streaming app, leaving its Chinese competitors far behind. Further, with all its uniqueness and scale, the project has also significantly impacted our team. Based on the knowledge gained both in China and throughout the development, we were able to refine our working approaches to increase the quality of deliverables. Technologies used Swift Ruby 2.5.0; Ruby on Rails 5.2.0; REST API; Haml / BEM / Sass; Turbolinks; Elasticsearch and PostgreSQL; Leaflet with BaiduMaps. Java RxJava With that said, it’s time for you, our dear reader, to download the PYRO Music app, check out all the goodies we’ve implemented, and enjoy the vibes of genuine electronic music!   iPhone app: https://apps.apple.com/tr/app/pyro-music-voting-at-parties/id1526986732 Android app: https://sj.qq.com/appdetail/cn.pyromusic.pyro JetRuby Agency has been recognized as one of the top Top App Developers In San Francisco by Design Rush. ### Simplifying Daily Makeup Routine for Women: trèStiQue Case Study Designed by two beauty industry experts, trèStiQue offers a wide range of easy-to-use makeup essentials. Basically, they are two-in-one cosmetic products that combine high-performance formulas, refillable twist-on/off tools, and nice magnetic caps for keeping the whole thing spill-proof. From home to office, the makeup set can be used right on the go saving time and effort. The client contacted us for help with various website improvements as well as marketing activities. Specifically, we needed to: Improve the existing trèStiQue’s functionality and implement new features to make make the UX even more convenient. Help with promoting the brand online and attracting new customers. Find an alternative to and move from paid and expensive third-party services that were being used at the time. Implement a better purchasing experience. Solution The tasks we needed to implement within the trèStiQue project required not only high technical skills but also vast expertise in marketing trends and realities. Additionally, some of the APIs to integrate weren’t documented at all, which was quite disappointing to say the least. One of the newest trèStiQue features is supercool. You just upload your selfie and the trèStiQue’s makeup experts will find your perfect shade. However, with the right approach and careful management, any task is doable even when you have strict deadlines and limited budget. So, here are the features and pieces of functionality that we brought in in the trèStiQue project: Implemented the “abandoned cart” feature (you can read more about it on our blog here). In short, its purpose is to increase the number of completed purchases. Configured Google Analytics and Facebook Business, which gave the client a more detailed insight into the website data. Implemented various referral and loyalty programs, e.g. discount coupons, bonus deposits for invited friends, newsletters etc. Integrated Granify to attract more customers and provide a better buying experience. Improved the checkout procedure, which is now more transparent and simple. Refactored the back-end part of the project to avoid any issues with implementing new functionality in future. As a result, other developers that will be working on the website in future can rest assured about the integrity of the website’s code base. Got rid of the paid third-party services (e.g. Wombat) that connected Spree Commerce and other feature-critical services (Fosdick, Mandrill & Mailchimp, etc.) and replaced them with free custom solutions. Removed a critical vulnerability. We found a script in the code that might have caused huge financial losses. Basically, when modified, it could allow users to purchase all the items in stock for the price of just one item. Integrated treStiQue’s backend with SAP Business One. Covered the entire project with tests, thus, ensuring it’s bug-free. Result We were able to implement all the planned improvements within the initial deadline and budget. As the result, trèStiQue now complies with the industry-leading standards and has everything necessary to provide its customers with a consummate user experience.   Technologies Ruby on Rails 4.1+ Spree Commerce 2.4+ MySQL Sidekiq Mandrill & Mailchimp HTML5 CSS3 jQuery Website — https://trestique.com/ ### How to Develop a Web or Mobile App for China — Everything You Need to Know The Chinese IT market is like no other. Based on the information from the China Internet Network Information Center’s report, 772 million Chinese have online access (the report is in Chinese, but Google Translate does perfect job in making it easy-to-understand). To put things in perspective, that’s more than the entire population of Europe! Interestingly, the number of users who go online with their mobile devices is 753 million, making it a whopping 97.5% of the total number. Just think about it: almost every Chinese uses their smartphone as the main device to surf the Internet. China’s online payment industry has also skyrocketed over the last year, counting more than 700 million online users, which makes China one of the most cashless countries in the world. If you take those numbers and combine them with IT market growth rates, it becomes crystal clear that China offers great opportunities for IT businesses. Specifics of running business in Mainland China One of the biggest challenges that foreigners face when they enter the IT market in China is a different way of running business. Surely, the language barrier plays its role here. For anyone who doesn’t speak Mandarin, it’s almost unbreakable. Luckily, the number of English speakers has been growing steadily in the last decade. Anyway, if you’ve had a school friend with some Chinese speaking skills, you’d better be looking for their phone number right now! :D It’s also impossible to underestimate the factor of the ever-changing legal regulations and the legal system itself. Make sure you’ve done your homework. Reading this article will give you a basic understanding of some important aspects to consider when developing a web/mobile app for China, but I still recommend googling about the realities of this country for an hour or two. However, the bigger reason is that the success of most business activities in China depends on how well you get along with the locals. The best strategy will be to establish partnerships with local companies right from the get-go. This can spare you a lot of effort when it comes to sorting out paperwork and other legal issues or just getting things done on site. Speaking of legal issues, you will need to set up a business entity in order to be able to run business in China. Depending on the type and the nature of your business, here are several ways you can do that: WFOE (Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise). PE (Partnership Enterprise). Representative Office. Joint Venture. Forming a WFOE is a go-to option for the most cases. What’s more, thanks to the new Shanghai Free Trade Zone (SFTZ), WFOE allows you to hold 100% of the equity shares of your company as long as you within the SFTZ. Before this, you’d have to set up a joint venture, giving the essential shares to a Chinese partner. The Great Firewall If you’ve ever read any articles about modern China, odds are you’ve stumbled upon the term the “Great Firewall” once or twice. Briefly, it’s a censorship system that was created by the Chinese government to regulate the incoming and outgoing traffic (including the encrypted one) in China. To put it simply, the Great Firewall blacklists anything that the Chinese government considers inappropriate or offensive. This includes such sensitive topics as politics, government officials, anything illegal, and, of course, pornography. Mentioning any of the points above equals to a permanent ban. Make sure the user-generated content in your application is filtered to avoid the aforementioned situation. In addition, The Great Firewall bans any websites that deal with user data and refuse to provide the government with access to it. This means that the majority of the services that you’re used to using most of the time are most likely banned in China. Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Google+, and others aren’t available in China. In other words, if it’s popular in your country, chances that it’s banned and replaced with a local alternative are quite big. The only way to visit such websites is through paid VPN services, which cost around $5–10 per month. That’s right, as soon as you’re in China, there is very little chance you’ll find a free VPN service or a browser extension since they all get closed quickly. Another pitfall of heavy traffic moderation is that the speed of Internet connection with the rest of the world is really slow. In other words, The Great Firewall affects the performance of web/mobile applications, increasing the latency and load time. For example, websites that are based in Europe need a whopping 33.1 seconds to load in China. This is SIX times (4.82 seconds) more than Chinese expect a common website to load. Furthermore, 54% of Chinese won’t visit a slow website again while 69% are unlikely to recommend it to their friends. But there is more. Suppose your app is hosted on a shared server somewhere outside China. It’s thoroughly moderated and you do your best to steer away from any of the potentially offensive or sensitive content. However, if some other app that is hosted on the same server gets banned by the Chinese Internet providers, your app along with the entire server will be included in the blacklist as well. The best way to avoid this is to move your application to China, where moderation is much more severe, which, in this case, is more of an advantage than disadvantage. Plus, this will have a positive effect on the performance side of things. However, in order to legally deploy it in China, you’ll first need to obtain an ICP. ICP The abbreviation “ICP” stands for Internet Content Provider license. It’s provided by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and is obligatory for any websites that operate in China. There are two different types of ICP: ICP license (issued for websites that sell things) ICP filing (issues for websites that don’t offer any goods or services) Usually, the number of ICP licence is displayed in the footer section of a website. Here is how it looks: To acquire this license, you need to have a legal business identity in China. The procedure of receiving the ICP licence is quite simple and straightforward… somewhere in a parallel universe perhaps. In reality, though, it’s a bit more complicated. Here is how it looks from a schematic viewpoint: Receiving an ICP usually takes around 20 business days after you’ve submitted all the necessary documents to one of the hosting providers who offers such services. If everything’s fine, your documents are forwarded to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for a more detailed review. If it’s not, you’ll be asked to provide extra information. Hosting providers As you know from the previous points, when your application’s infrastructure is hosted somewhere outside China, especially on the servers that are located on a large distance between each other, the loading speed as well as performance in general go through the floor. If we’re talking about a website, in addition to the fact that it becomes very slow and barely usable, bad loading speed will affect your search ranking on Baidu, which is the Chinese alternative of Google. What’s more, this also results in much bigger bounce rate. Hosting your app/website in China allows you to avoid all of the mentioned problems. Here is the list of the most popular hosting providers: Alibaba cloud (Aliyun). With more than 2.3 million clients, Alibaba Cloud is the largest Chinese hosting provider and one of the largest providers in the world. When it comes to speed and security, Alibaba Cloud is by far the best hosting platform in China. In addition, it’s infrastructure reminds of AWS, which will be a great bonus if you’re Amazon’s aficionado. Baidu Cloud. The second most popular hosting provider is Baidu Cloud. It provides a full range of computing, networking and hosting services, including website deployment and release, maintenance, and optimization. Its performance is comparable to that of Alibaba Cloud, so choosing between them depends on your interface preferences and previous experience in working with either of the two, if any. “What about Amazon AWS?” — The good ol’ Amazon is one of the few large western companies that operate inside China. Basically, it offers the same range of services that you’re used to having overseas. Among Chinese AWS customers there are such big names as Youxigu and Qihoo 360. Unfortunately, AWS is still slower than its Chinese alternatives, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Anyway, if you want to find a good provider, you should aim for the one that has 100% uptime, good performance, and comes with great customer support. The latter is one of the things that you’ll be needing a lot when hosting your app in China. Routing The specifics of the Chinese Internet infrastructure affects network performance as well. In short, there are three ISPs (Internet Service Providers) who have a monopoly on managing all the traffic that comes from 772 million users. They are China Telecom, China Unicom, and China Mobile. Because of expensive and overloaded peering (it’s basically what connects ISPs and allows traffic to flow between them), the domestic Internet in China can be quite slow. Plus, there is a limited number of peering points, the majority of which are located in the heavily populated areas. As a result, when data is sent from one part of the country to another, there is a chance it may not even reach its destination point. However, the situation is getting better every year, so, hopefully, this problem will be fixed eventually. Until then, third-party DNS providers are your best friends. Here is a few DNS providers I’d recommend using: DNSPOD. This is one of the biggest DNS providers. The quality of its services is top notch, which is the reason why we used it in one of our projects. In fact, really saved us a couple of times. QingCloud. QingCloud is also a big DNS provider that comes with an intuitive web interface and admin panel. It has in-built metrics and alert system. From our experience, it’s also quite good when it comes to routing traffic since it has connection to all major ISPs in China. The cost of hosting Good news first. In China, server hardware is supercheap. You can easily buy a powerful server for a comparatively low price. In fact, it’s sometimes even cheaper than what’s usually offered overseas. It may not be enough to launch space shuttles, but it’s more than enough to host a high-load application. On the screenshot below, you can see how much an eight-core server with 16 gigabytes of RAM costs in China (2374 yuan is roughly $378). By this moment, you’ve probably realized that there is a catch. Indeed, there is one. The bad news is that as soon as you increase the traffic, the whole thing becomes extremely expensive. How expensive? Well, here is an example. After increasing the bandwidth to just 100 mbps the price jumps up in almost four times (8771 yuan is $1,396)!   Design considerations It goes without saying that the design of your mobile application has to be of top priority. In the country where 97.5% of all online users surf the Internet through mobile devices, ignoring the specifics of both UI and UX equates to imminent failure of your app. This basically means that whatever you offer to the Chinese audience, it has to be perfectly displayed on a mobile screen. If you want to create a website, make sure you spend 90% of the time on making it mobile friendly. Even though this requirement has become a must for the rest of the world, Chinese practically don’t use desktop PCs or laptops at all, so if there is no mobile version, people will simply not use it. It’s also important to remember that hieroglyphs take 30% less space compared to the Latin alphabet, which means the elements in the interface of your mobile app will need to be downsized accordingly. Last but not least, make sure to consider local design trends and UX best practices. For example, bright and saturated colors are common for today’s Chinese interfaces as well as huge amounts of information and animations. Integration with third-party apps and services Now, you’re probably wondering: “If all of the traditional social media is banned, what do Chinese use for communication? More importantly, what do I integrate my app with?”. That’s a very relevant question, but don’t panic just yet. Despite Facebook and other websites being unavailable, there is a whole ecosystem of alternative social media and services flourishing in China. For example, Youtube was replaced with Youku, Baidu is the new Google while Momo is helping Chinese find a date instead of tinder. Some of them have grown so big that they’re slowly becoming ecosystems themselves. So, here is a short list of Chinese apps and services that you should focus on. WeChat The one thing you need to know about WeChat is that it’s the largest communication platform in China. How large? Speaking numbers, it has more than 938 million monthly active users! For Chinese, WeChat is somewhat of a place where they can do literally anything that can be done online: communicate via text/voice/video messages, send and receive money, purchase things, book tickets/restaurants/vacation, order taxis, and many other things. All of that you can do using just one single app. What’s more, the recently introduced mini-apps allow third-party developers to build applications within WeChat itself, making it half operating system. In fact, there almost no services left that aren’t somehow connected to WeChat. Plus, in light of the last-year situation with Apple and the Chinese government, there is a definite possibility (albeit a very small one) that WeChat may become a fully featured OS. Tencent QQ This app is almost as popular as WeChat. Nearly 850 million of people use it every month, according to the report by Tencent. You may be surprised, but when QQ was first released in 1999, it was just a messaging app with very limited functionality. Today, it allows you to score points in numerous online games, exchange large files, stream music, find a date, send quick disappearing videos (like the ones in Snapchat), and, of course, communicate using text and voice messages. In general, the difference between QQ and WeChat is that the latter one has a more mature audience. At the same time, QQ is used by younger people, which is the reason it comes with more entertaining services while WeChat is mostly focused on E-Commerce and in-app payments. Another thing that’s different between the two apps, is that WeChat has a strong international presence while QQ is mostly used inside China. Weibo Remember I talked about some of the traditional social media being replaced by Chinese alternatives? Weibo is a good example of such policy. In a nutshell, Weibo is the Chinese counterpart of Facebook and Twitter with the main difference that it has only about 260 million monthly active users. As for its functionality, it’s basically the same what you’ll find in any social media: Weibo allows you to post things, share them with your friends, comment on posts, etc. Weibo is very similar to Twitter, albeit with more features. The takeaway here is that if you’re going to develop an app for the Chinese audience, you need to make sure that its functionality allows users to share things to WeChat, QQ, Weibo, and other popular apps. Payment systems Considering that the vast majority of Chinese use their smartphones to go online, it’s no wonder that mobile payments are ubiquitous in China. Last year, mobile transactions yielded a whopping $32 trillion, according to the China central bank. Thirty two trillion of the US dollars, Carl! For comparison, in the US, this number is only $120 billion! With that said, the ability to pay with your smartphone is extremely important in the context of developing mobile applications for China. In order to make your application easy-to-use, you need ensure proper integration with the payment services that are most used by Chinese: WeChat Pay and AliPay. AliPay At this moment, AliPay is the leading payment system in China and the most common payment method on E-Commerce websites. It can be used for practically any type of online or offline transactions. From buying garlic on a street market to real estate and all sorts of vending machines — AliPay is supported everywhere. When you want to buy something offline, you can either scan the QR code of the item using your smartphone or show a pre-generated QR code to the salesperson who will scan it with their device. Speaking of QR codes, they’ve literally taken over Chinese E-Commerce and retail. But don’t worry, I’ll cover this topic further in the article. WeChat Pay Even though WeChat has much more online users as of 2018, it still lags behind AliPay in terms of the number of monthly transactions. Same as AliPay, WeChat allows you to pay for almost anything as long as you’re in China. QR code functionality is also present. But because of severe rivalry, some websites may not support either of the systems, e.g. Taobao, one of the largest E-commerce platforms in China, supports only Alipay while WeChat is simply unavailable as a payment method. In 2016, WeChat introduced its new feature called “Red Envelope”. In plain English, it’s a digital incarnation of a Chinese tradition when people send each other money gifts in red envelopes on special occasions such as New Year or weddings. In WeChat, though, Red Envelope isn’t just a message with money attached to it. For example, you can divide a Red Envelope into 15 equal pieces and send it to a chat group of 30 people. Those 15 people who open it first, will get their piece. You can also make it that whoever taps first will get a random amount of money. This feature has become insanely popular, driving more than 200 million new users to WeChat Pay. “But what about other options?” — You may ask. Well, from what we’ve seen during our business trips to China, the two aforementioned payment systems are supported by practically all venues and websites, so they should be enough for most types of mobile applications. As for more old school payment methods like credit cards and offline banking, they aren’t very popular among Chinese. However, if you do decide to implement such feature as the ability to pay with a credit card, go for UnionPay. It’s a Chinese national payment system that had been dominating the market until AliPay was launched. Payment gateways What do Braintree, Stripe, and their counterparts have in common? — They all don’t work in Mainland China. Recently, though, Stripe was announced to support AliPay and WeChat Pay. Despite the optimistic tone of the news, it turned out that Stripe supports AliPay only in Hong Kong. Plus, the list of supported currencies is quite limited and doesn’t include yuan. As for WeChat, it’s not supported by Stripe at all. We hope that’s only a temporary issue and Stripe will provide support of the payment systems for the rest of China soon. So what are the options here? From our experience, I can outline two payment gateways that didn’t pose any challenges when developing web/mobile apps in China. They’re Paymentwall and Ping++ Paymentwall Compared to its rivals in the form of Stripe or Braintree, Paymentwall encounters no issues working in China right out of the box, making it the only Western payment gateway that the Great Firewall seems to have no beef with. We’ve used in one of our projects and it really saved us then. However, if you’ve decided to completely move your app to China, it stands to reason to use a Chinese payment gateway like the next option. Ping++ This payment gateway is somewhat of a Chinese version of Stripe, which has good reputation in Chinese startup community. In terms of functionality, Ping++ offers integrated payment SDK for iOS/Android/Web and provides a common interface that supports all major banks, card groups and third party payment systems (like Alipay or WeChat Pay). Ping++ is super helpful when you need to develop an application for the Chinese market able to work with local payment systems. What’s more, the gateway allows you to collect payment statistics. Of all similar platforms in China, Ping++ is probably the most advanced and all-around solution that can spare you the effort of painful integration with Chinese payment systems. What we didn’t like about Ping++ is that it’s not localized. Speaking of localization… Localize, not translate Normally, entering a new market doesn’t require any drastic changes in your application or website. You just translate the interface to whatever language the new target audience speaks and that’s it. This is especially true for European countries, where a Spaniard can go to a French website and its UI won’t be confusing for them. With Asian countries, it’s a whole different can of worms. And it’s not just about the fact that Chinese speak an entirely different language. It’s about that Chinese have a mindset unlike that of western people in the first place. Now, if you combine this with a dozen of dialects that are spoken in the country, it’ll become clear that localization is a kind of task that needs to be approach with particular finesse. There is also a distinction between written and spoken language. As far as the former is concerned, it’s important to remember that Chinese has two writing systems: Simplified Chinese, which is basically a standard in China and Singapore and Traditional Chinese, which is used by Hong Kong and Taiwan. When it comes to spoken languages, though, Hong Kong people use Cantonese, which sounds very different from Mandarin. At the same time, in Taiwan, they speak a dialect similar to Mandarin, but they use traditional characters. A person from Taiwan can easily understand someone from mainland China who speaks Mandarin. Keep that in mind when creating/adapting the interface of your mobile application. After all, the last thing you want is your target audience not being able to understand a thing that is said on their screen. QR codes are a big thing in China While the rest of the world is slowly adopting QR-codes, Chinese has been actively using them for quite some time. In fact, QR codes are ubiquitous in China. They’re used to share links to events, buy things both online and offline, authorize on websites, etc. If you’ve been to Coachella or Tomorrowland or any other major event and you think you’ve seen a lot of QR codes, wait till you visit China. Our team has been to China a few times and we were taken away by the mind-boggling number of QR codes printed everywhere. By saying “everywhere” I really mean it. When you’re in China, you’ll find QR codes on the seats in public transport, shelves in the supermarkets, bicycles, street walls, posters, tickets, etc. So now wonder why almost every Chinese app has a built-in QR reader. This feature has literally become a part of the everyday life of Chinese, which means they will expect your mobile app to have it as well. … same as voice messaging If there is something Chinese like more than their smartphones it’s using them to send voice messages to each others. Same as QR code scanner, the voice messaging feature is available in almost every app you can find in China. As a foreigner, you’ll most likely be puzzled to see tens of thousands of Chinese speaking with their smartphones on the streets. However, there is more to this feature than you may think. Unlike millennials and teenagers, older people can’t boast proficiency in using modern technologies. Voice messaging has enabled them to communicate online without having to learn things like how to copy and paste text. “But which language or dialect should I use for the voice messaging feature?”. The official language of Mainland China as well as Taiwan is Mandarin. Sign up feature The standard piece of sign up functionality in most of the Chinese apps is verification through SMS. You just enter your phone number on the sign up screen, tap the dedicated button, and receive an SMS with a code. Basically, the purpose of this feature is to verify you are a real user and have access to your phone number. If the code is wrong, you are not allowed to sign up. The most popular service that is used to implement this feature is https://www.yunpian.com (we’ve used it in some of our projects and can confirm that it works good). Keep in mind though that it covers only Chinese numbers (area code 0086). So be sure to remember this aspect when developing the sign up feature of your mobile app. Smartphone market specifics This may come as a surprise to you, but almost none of the mobile manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, etc. that are widely used in European countries or the US, have very little presence on the Chinese market… well, except Apple. Chinese love Apple. Other than that, here is the top of the most popular mobile brands in China: Oppo Vivo Xiaomi Honor Why is this important in the context of mobile development? It’s because proper testing of your mobile application for bugs or any other issues requires having at least four or five models of smartphones from the manufacturers I mentioned above. Without them, you won’t be able to tell for sure if this or that feature behaves normally. Application approval The good news is that in China, the iOS marketing flow works the same way it does outside of China. However, when it comes to Android, the number and diversity of app stores is simply mind boggling! Just think about it: there are more than 300 different places where you can submit your Android application to. In their turn, all of those app stores are divided into: Third-party app stores owned by such industry giants as Tencent, Baidu, 360, etc. Tech (mobile) manufacturers, e.g. Xiaomi, Meizu, Vivo, Huawei, Oppo, etc. The pitfall here is that when you’re targeting multiple app stores, you also need to customize the APK file of your app to match the requirements of this or that store. Otherwise, it’ll simply be rejected. In plain words, releasing to a single Android app store isn’t the best strategy unless your business have developed to a point when it’s widely recognizable among Chinese. However, even in that case, none of the available stores have enough user base to address all of your audience. Conclusion Here is what we learned today: Chinese are a mobile first nation. Be sure to remember this when planning your strategy. Having someone who knows the market and can help you with getting things done on site can be extremely helpful. Knowing some Mandarin will also be a great addition to the list. The Great Firewall poses some real challenges when it comes to developing a web/mobile app for the Chinese audience. Because of it, the load speed of your website as well as the overall performance of all your services that are hosted overseas can drop significantly. Most of the websites/services that are popular in the US or Europe are banned. However, there is a local alternative to practically any western website/service. Censorship is real. Avoid any politically-sensitive or offensive topics and do your best to moderate the user-generated content in your app. Chinese don’t like slow web/mobile apps. The best way to deal with the performance issues as well as avoid getting banned is to move your entire infrastructure to Mainland China. If you want to host your website in Mainland China, you’ll need to receive ICP licence. It’s obligatory for all website owners. For hosting, the best options are Alibaba Cloud (Aliyun) or Baidu Cloud. Amazon AWS works in China, however, its performance lags behind its Chinese counterparts. The Internet infrastructure in China is very specific and, as a result, the connection speed in different regions of the country may vary. In fact, it may vary even within the same town. Using a local routing provider can solve this issue. Server hardware is really cheap while the traffic is highly expensive. Be sure to consider this when calculating the costs on the maintenance of your app infrastructure. There is no Facebook and Twitter in China. Instead, there are WeChat and QQ. The users of your app have to be able to share to both WeChat, QQ, and other popular platforms. In terms of payment methods, the most popular ones are AliPay and WeChat pay. If you’re going to work with credit cards, use UnionPay. Localization is not just about pure translation, it’s about understanding the culture and language specifics of China. The ability to scan QR codes and voice messaging are among the most important features in a common Chinese app. There is a whole bunch of Android app stores. If you don’t want to miss out on a part of your audience, you should release to multiple places. As you can see, there is a big number of factors that determine whether you business will succeed or fail in China. In addition to the aforementioned tips and pieces of advice, there is one important thing I haven’t mentioned. That thing is having an open mind and being open to opportunities, which there is a plethora of in China. And, as I’ve said earlier, when you have someone who can help you, leveraging those opportunities and turning them into profit is much easier. Otherwise, with all the realities and business culture specifics, you may not have enough time for planning, executing, and finding solutions for your app/website. ### How to Monetize Your Mobile App in China with Ping++: Getting Started and Setup Ping++ is a Chinese payment platform, which provides a common payment interface through the local payment systems, including such industry giants as WeChat or AliPay. The platforms offers a free subscription plan, however, it’s limited to 1000 API requests per month. You can have a look at the whole list of the subscription plans here. Ping++ comes in extremely handy when you need to develop an application for the Chinese market able to work with local payment systems (and further in the article you’ll understand why). What’s more, the platform allows you to collect payment statistics. So when our team needed to monetize one of the of applications we’ve been developing, we picked Ping++. Initially, though, we considered Stripe as the main option. Recently, Stripe was announced to support AliPay and WeChat in China. Despite the optimistic tone of the news, it turned out that Stripe supports AliPay only in Hong Kong. Plus, the list of supported currencies is quite limited and doesn’t include yuan. As for WeChat, it’s not supported by Stripe at all. We hope that’s only a temporary issue and Stripe will provide support of the payment systems for the rest of China soon. For now, though, we decided to use it for payments with credit cards. You should also know that credit card payments aren’t very popular in China, as opposed to in-app payments using WeChat or AliPay, which take 80% of all payments made in the country. Advantages of Ping++ As we’ve mentioned in the previous point, Ping++ provides a common interface for different payment systems, which is a huge advantage both in term of overall ease of implementation and further maintenance. Of all similar platforms in China, Ping++ is probably the most advanced and all-around solution that can spare you the effort of painful integration with Chinese payment systems. There is an official Ruby gem available by this link. It’s very simple in use and allows you to create an invoice and verify the callback after the payment. The gem is also well documented, although there is a slight documentation-related issue that we’re going to cover in the next point. Finally, Ping++ provides the ability to work in the test mode, which corresponds to the real flow. Disadvantages The most significant disadvantage about Ping++ is that it’s not localized. And we’re not talking about some specific languages. The only language that’s available on the website is Chinese. Of course, you can turn to Google translator for help, but that’s hardly the best option because the output is often inaccurate, adding even more confusion. Plus, just when you think things can’t get any worse, you’ll find out that the support team at Ping++ only communicate in Chinese. That means when you’ve written and sent a two-page long essay asking the support team for help in any language other than Chinese, they’ll simply ignore it. Believe me, the challenge is real! How it works Ping++ uses the so-called “channels” when working with payment systems. For one system, there can be several channels, which, in their turn, are used for different types of payments (QR codes, in-app or website payments, etc.). By default, all channels are inactive, so, before using this or that payment method, you need to pass the activation procedure. Luckily, on the Ping++ side, the activation doesn’t pose any challenges. For every channel, there is an instruction and requirements (for example, here you can find an example of an instruction to activate a QR code for WeChat). Things get a bit trickier when you start configuring the payment systems. This is mostly because of three things: Chinese language, the systems themselves being sophisticated, and bureaucratic costs. While the process of filling the fields is quite clear (since the instruction says what to write), the configuration of the client app may not be that easy. In most cases, though, it all boils down to activating certain app services or features, which are necessary to work with Ping++. You should also know about some specifics of the test mode. When activating a channel, things can work perfectly. However, when you switch to the live mode, you may stumble upon errors caused by some issues with the configurations of the payment systems. Platform configuration Ping++ comes with a extensive documentation to setup and work with the platform. It assumes that you’ve already created the application and use the admin panel for the first time. Since Ping++ relies on a common interface, its workflow is very similar even for different systems. After you’ve created the hash with the required data, you create a payment invoice using pingpp. Next, either the payment invoice is forwarded to the client SDK or a QR code is created based on the link in the invoice. The user makes the payment, returning the result to the server as a callback. After you’ve created the app, you need to go through the verification procedure, specifying the required information. This is necessary for you to be able to use the Live mode. The platform will be reminding you about this in the settings menu. When initializing pingpp, you need to specify the AppId, which you can get in the dashboard. This is the path to the public key, which is in the settings of the app. The secret keys for both the test and the production environments are there as well: “Test Secret Key” and “Live Secret Key” accordingly. We recommend using your own private key. After you activate the key, simply specify the path to it in pingpp. Next, you need to configure the web hooks both in the test and the Live modes. A successful payment will trigger a callback with the result based on the specified address. The request will also include JSON containing the information about the payment as well as the meta data, which was specified when the payment invoice was created. In the form, you need to specify the address to which the web hook will connect as well as the event. In our case, the event is called “charge.succeed”. To make a request for creating a payment, you need to pass a hash with a specific information. For different channels, the requirements to the hash may vary. You can learn more about this point in the main documentation. Ping++ channels work in a rather specific way. For example, for payment with a QR code in WeChat or AliPay, the channels “”wx_pub_qr” and “alipay_qr” are used. Likewise, for payment with a mobile app, “wx” and “alipay” are used. For payment in AliPay on a desktop PC — “alipay_pc_direct”. To activate a channel, you need to fill in the information about your app. Also, you’ll need to properly configure the apps of the payment system and setup both the verification and the activation of required features for the payment methods. Even if a channel is activated and everything works perfectly in the test environment, an improper configuration of the payment systems will result in an error in the Live environment. Payments using WeChat QR code First, you need to select the channel that corresponds to a specific payment method. After that, you need to fill in the information about the app. You can find the instruction by clicking the link to the right. Using pingpp, you can create a request to generate a payment invoice. The hash and the required info are passed with an argument. For example: Keep in mind that the price is specified in the minimum units. The callback comes with the information that will be used when receiving the callback with the result. If everything is fine, a payment invoice is created and then returned in the form of JSON. We’re talking about QR code, so it’s the “wx_pub_qr” that you will need to pay attention to. From the specified address, you need to create a QR code, which will be displayed to the user. After the user scans it, they will be redirected to the WeChat’s payment app. As soon as the payment is made, the callback with the result is triggered. However, before starting to process the data from the callback, you should verify the request for security reasons. In pingpp, you can do it quite easily: To display the result to the user, you need to initiate the watcher for verifying the status of the payment. You can find more information about this point here. Payments with AliPay PC direct Selecting the channel: Next, you need to fill in the required keys: Using ping app, you can create a request to generate an invoice. Bot the hash and the required info are passed with an argument. For example: This returns JSON of the invoice, which you need to pass to H5 SDK. It’s a pluggable JavaScript library, to which JSON of the invoice is passed. This method redirects the user to the corresponding payment system. After making the payment, the user is returned to the address, which was specified in the “extra” field. After that, you need to wait for the callback with the result about the payment. Payment with mobile apps For WeChat and AliPay, the process of configuration is identical. The only thing that’s different is the names of the channels: “wx” for Wechat and “alipay” for AliPay. Selecting the channels: The mobile app makes a request to the API with required parameters. The server creates a hash and a payment invoice. JSON that was received is returned to the app. Next, using the SDK, the payment is made, triggering the callback, which returns the result to the server. In conclusion Despite some challenges with configuration and language limitations, Ping++ is a simple and almost user-friendly payment platform, which works perfectly for the Chinese audience due to its cultural and technical specifics. More importantly, it does its job, i.e. provides easy access to the most popular Chinese payment systems without having to build ugly workarounds. It’s one of the few platforms that can do that. If you’ve liked the article, please support with claps or leave your comments in the comment section below. Peace! ### React vs Vue.JS: Which Front-end Framework to Choose in 2018 The number of JavaScript frameworks grows every year. In fact, there are some many of them now that even front-end developers themselves lost count. Some people may say that such abundance is an advantage. However, there is also a negative side to having so many frameworks to choose from, especially for software houses. Why? Every time you start working on a new project, you face the dilemma: should you go for the latest and greatest or stick to the good old stack of technologies? The second option will undoubtedly be more time-saving since you’ve already had experience in working with this or that framework (plus, you don’t need to turn the Internet upside down in search of documentation, which you also already have). On the other hand, there is your desire to be ahead of the tech curve. After all, if you’re not following the trends, you’re as good as done in today’s extremely competitive market. So what should you go for? In this article, we’ll briefly consider the status quo in the world of modern JavaScript frameworks, comparing React and Vue.JS, which are among today’s most popular front-end technologies. A bit of statistics On the chart above, you can see that most of the front-end folks give their favor to React. What’s interesting here is that React is favored not only by those who have already used the framework, but also by those who are even considering using it. If you look at the statistics on Angular.JS, however, things are far from being great. More than half of the people who have used the framework wouldn’t want to go back. In the meantime, Vue.JS is snapping at React’s heels. However, despite its recent popularity, a solid part of the front-end developers who have heard of the framework, have little interest in applying it in practice. The reason for this is quite prosaic. When you’ve handpicked your own stack of technologies and been using it for a while, you’re less likely to switch to some other framework every year. Sometimes, though, you don’t have the luxury of choosing between several options. For example, when you receive a project with legacy code to work on. In such case, there is no other way but to content with what you have. Another important thing to mention is that a lot of websites are still using jQuery. I’m not saying that it’s bad or something since it’s impossible to overrate the contribution that jQuery has made into web development. Nonetheless, implementing certain tasks with jQuery is nothing but painful and time-consuming. Today, it’s obvious that some things would look more elegant had they been written using modern technologies. Let’s have a look at the most popular frameworks according to GitHub statistics. Based on this graph, you can see that Vue.JS is rapidly gaining popularity despite being pretty “young” both in terms of wide application and community. Likes is one thing, but real contributions is totally different. In other words, the more complex an application is, there more difficult it is to choose the right technology for it. From a more general perspective, this may become a major challenge, slowing down the development of the project. While React was strengthening its positions, another framework, which I’ve mentioned earlier, emerged. Vue.JS was gaining popularity, so we decided to give it a try. It didn’t take us a while to acknowledge the flexibility and convenience of Vue.JS As a result, I’ve decided to compare React and Vue.JS to figure out their differences and specifics. If you prefer using templates… You should definitely go for Vue.JS. Similar to Angular, Vue.JS uses double braces for expressing data binding while directive (special html attributes) are used for adding functionality to a template. Such templates are much easier to work with. Let’s have a look at a simple code sample. The task is to store the value of the input field in state. React: Vue.JS: You can see that Vue.JS is much more simple and easy-to-understand (at least for those who worked with neither React or Vue.JS). Moreover, the code sample written in Vue.JS is basically ES5, which means it works perfectly without “babel” as opposed to the sample in React, which uses ES6. If you need a big ecosystem… Your choice is React. No surprises here. Being the most popular front-end framework automatically makes it the biggest one in terms of ecosystem. This means you can find more articles, tutorials, guides, and, more importantly, coverage on StackOverflow. Additionally, React comes with a whole bunch of extensions and tools, which can save your time and effort while working on a project. Enough with the lyrics. It’s time for some practical examples. Project “RBMalta” One of the tasks on the project was to create a page with a map. The map was also supposed to have markers, a set of various filters, and an area for displaying the results of applying filters. On paper, the task looked like nothing but a piece of cake. However, when we started working on the task, it turned out to be trickier than we expected. This was due to a big number of overlapping interactions. Most of them were filters, which changed depending on certain factors. Need I to say that implementing such functionality with jQuery would simply take too much effort and time. So our team started looking for options. At first, we were going to use React. It had everything we needed to implement such complex interface. However, when you’re half-way through the project it’s not that easy to introduce a completely new technology, i.e. React. Nonetheless, we decided to see if such move could pay off. After analyzing the pros and cons of solution, we came to a conclusion that React’s component-based approach wouldn’t give us the benefits we were looking for. On the page, there weren’t that many elements that we could divide into components. In addition, there was quite a lot of logic. So, using React would result in one big “container” component. At the same time, the template approach perfectly was a perfect fit for the project. Moreover, we needed a certain amount of flexibility to work with Google Maps, which wouldn’t be possible with a ready component in React. Solution As a result, we applied the default Vue.JS approach using data binding and an html template. It allowed us to use haml and even Ruby methods for rendering filters without any issues. The display and field values are controlled with Vue directives “v-show” and “v-model”. Now, when applying a filter you don’t need to worry about how the results are displayed since the reactivity does all by itself. The template for rendering elements is connected to the data array through “v-for”. It’s also much easier to handle events now. For this purpose, we assigned directives to the event handler, which changed the required data. Since there was quite a lot of logic on the page, using one Vue controller eventually became a bit challenging. Even then the solution was much better than working with tons of jQuery code. In general, Vue.JS turned out to be very effective within the RBMalta project. Project “PYRO” Another example of when Vue.JS was a perfect fit on a project is PYRO. We received this project with a ton of legacy code in jQuery. Initially, we only needed to connect the vue gem. However, there was a tiny detail. On the page, there was a dynamically changing set of choice fields, which came back with a query depending on the state of the choice filter. Clicking a checkbox started a query and the state of the filters changed. Handling such functionality through v-model turned out to be very effective. As a result, we were able to introduce a SPA application into a monolith project. Conclusion We’ve said this once and we’re going to say this again: There is no silver bullet when it comes to technologies. It’s simply impossible to create a solution that would satisfy the needs of everyone. What’s possible, though, is to find a solution that would fit your specific task. (But before you set on this quest, you should have a perfect understanding of what your project and its requirements are about. Otherwise, it’ll be just another time-waster). For more than three years, React.JS has been in our stack of technologies. After using it on a big number of projects, it’s proven itself as a truly remarkable technology. After spending some time working with its competitor, we’ve concluded the differences between Vue.JS and React: Advantages of Vue.JS: Flexibility in working with templates; Simplicity of the syntax and short learning curve; Fast rendering and small size. Advantages of React: Perfectly fits scalable apps, easier to test and maintain; Can be used for native and web apps; Huge ecosystem; A big set of tools. With that said, there are more similarities than differences between them. Here is a quick list: Fast rendering with Virtual DOM; Small size; Reactive components; The ability to easily integrate with routers, collectors, and state managers; A-class maintenance. In our case, both solutions have proven themselves great. Again, you should choose a framework based on your specific task as well as the skills of your team. With that knowledge, making the choice is much easier. ### Best Strategies for High Website Revenue in 2018 Do you have an E-commerce website but your traffic leaves much to be desired? This can be one of the reasons why your website doesn’t actually generate sales. It’s 2018 outside and if your sales funnel lacks traffic, you’re simply missing out on a large piece of the pie that the industry if offering you. How much large? Well, here’s a stat that proves E-commerce is a real goldmine! So if you’re one of those people who’s desperately trying to get as many users to their website as possible, this post is for exactly you. Keep in mind, though, that all the tips below will be effective only if you’ll be using them properly. So, let’s get straight to them! Valuable Conten Is Above All Content is above all, especially when it comes to E-commerce conversion. If you want to reap the fruits of content marketing, your business needs to provide people with valuable content that engages with your customer. It’s an interesting fact that the majority of companies have some kind of marketing strategy, though they are only few of them that have a strategy to track their content efforts. So, if you have an e-commerce website, you need to think about creating a blog that is capable of providing users with stories that give them an idea why it’s your brand that they need to choose. Nevertheless, before creating an account in Medium or Wordpress, make sure that you’ve really valuable content. All this content needs to be highly targeted as well as incorporating some type of SEO strategy (of course if you want your content to drive results). Nowadays, there’s a huge amount of various unique strategies that are capable of catching the eye of potential customers. So your company doesn’t have to be so huge as an Amazon or eBay to drive traffic. Strengthen your marketing by having a unique and memorable domain name Creating Account Only After Checkout A lot of businesses don’t understand that by making people register their accounts before the checkout process, they actually scare away users. Usually, we’re not so eager to create another account online. The thing is that another account means one more username, as well as one more password to clutter up their brains. Besides, some people are sure that by registration the sign up for constant spam and newsletters. Do you remember this feeling of frustration when asked to register an account during checkout (Just send me the darn My little Ponies)? Frequently, we give up this idea and leave our car abandoned :( Needless to say that you don’t have to repeat these mistakes but to make a registration process that will be most comfortable for the users. The best way is to fill out the account registration fields with information from their checkouts and ask for a password. That will help make a process less complicated and you don’t have to bother people with extra information throughout their purchase. Reduce Abandoned Carts In one of our previous articles, we’ve already talked about the top must-have features for every E-commerce website. There, we’ve mentioned the abandoned carts issue, which is considered one of the most widespread in the world of E-commerce. In a nutshell, with every abandoned cart, you’re losing a big number of potential customers. As a result, your sales are only one-third of what they may potentially be. The problem is that most of the people, who abandon their carts, are actually not convinced to complete their purchase. So, how can you persuade them? Maybe you can offer them some kind of discounts or a free shipping? Nevertheless, the first thing you need to do is to find out the main cause why people abandon carts. The most effective way is just to ask them. Craft a good email that will persuade people to come back to their carts. For example, you can use the solution that we’ve developed specifically for E-commerce websites. It’s called “Abandoned cart.” Put simply, it’s a Ruby gem that sends automatic emails with the lists of items in the abandoned carts. In this article we’ve elaborated on the experience of solving this challenge. Social Media Ad Campaigns Another integral aspect of increasing traffic to your website is getting your business in front of your ideal customers. And here you might find useful paid social media ads. That will allow you to create highly targeted campaigns that provide customers with the most relevant ads according to their preferences and interests. Of course, the most famous platforms will be: Instagram Ads It’s no secret that Instagram is a highly popular platform. It has many great tools that will be especially effective business owners. By using appropriate filters, the right hashtags as well as posting at the right time, you can be sure that you’re on your way to building a huge following on Instagram. The most important factor of Instagram success is engagement with your users. So you can try out using contests or campaigns as well as showing pictures of your customers using your products. These pictures are also known as user-generated photos, and they’re a great way to demonstrate your potential customers that you’ve happy current customers. Besides, you may use these photos for generating social proof. The thing is that prospective people can actually see your products being regularly purchased and people like them. Facebook Ads Facebook is the largest social media platform. This platform has a huge amount of various opportunities for your business to reach new customers and drive them to your online store. A really cool feature is that Facebook will allow you to target users in accordance with their behavior, location, and so on. Additionally, you can use Facebook Dynamic Ads. Such ads will be automatically generating to people who used to visit your website, featuring the goods that they’ve added to their carts. Such feature will allow you to get users back so that you can make the most of the traffic you’re already getting. Don’t Forget About Customer Reviews There are only a few things that are more valuable to your brand than positive customer reviews. Weirdly enough, the majority of people are prone to believe recommendations from unknown users as well as even consulting them before making a purchase. That’s why positive reviews are solid gold for your e-commerce website. So instead of waiting for reviews, you can encourage, or directly ask, your customers to write them. With good reviews and testimonials below your products you’ll be able to generate greater confidence and trust in consumers. However, be ready for bad reviews too. Remember, from time to time your business will be suffering from customers complaints or even fake reviews. More Email Subscribers You don’t even imagine how much traffic an email marketing can drive. Most of the people get marketing messages with their personal emails on a daily basis. Besides, most of the people make use of coupons or discounts they learn about from email. Additionally, some people say that receiving special offers is the main reason they subscribe to an email list from a business. Despite the fact that our life is full of tweets and posts from various social networks, we still cherish new messages sent to our personal emails. Another advantage of emails is that you can fit there everything that will be impossible to fit into a social media post. And don’t forget to be active about promoting your newsletter in order to get as many subscribers as you can on a high-converting channel. Another important aspect that should be taken into consideration is capturing a bunch of email addresses. Nevertheless, it’s never enough as the next step is to send these people regular emails. There are many occasions that can be used for sending emails to your customer. For example, as soon as your customer signs up, create and send your customer a welcome email. When a customer raises an order, send him an email where you’ll let them know that their order is being processed and is on the way out. Undoubtedly, people will be glad to find out that their order will be arriving soon. And of course, don’t forget about newsletters. Your company may send information and product-focused content as well as notifying readers of products that may interest them. However, if you really want your customers to read your newsletter, you need to make sure that content is really interesting — beyond an attempt to sell them merchandise or services. Tell your users the story behind your brand, give them a reason why they can trust you. Add some personality to your brand. There’s an interesting fact saying that customers with a strong attachment to a particular company spend more than average customers and it’s a newsletter that is a prime candidate to distinguish a brand from the competition. The Bottom Line Whichever strategy you choose, focus on differentiating yourself from the competition as well as fully committing yourself to your action plan. Try to implement one of these tactics every weekend over several months. Record all the changes and make a comparison. Did the situation actually change? How many new users did your website get? Analyze, plan, execute, A/B test. Repeat, if successful. You can look for some ideas on how to improve your website in our article about top 20 E-commerce ideas for businesses. And if you need any help with E-commerce related issues, we’re always glad to help. ### Spree Commerce Tutorial - Processing Orders In this article, we’re going to consider how orders are processed in a Spree Commerce-based store. We’ll elaborate on a typical procedure and what you should know when working with a custom one. Authorization and withdrawal Processing of credit card payments consists of two steps: authorization and withdrawal. A payment is considered authorized when the provider of a credit card confirms that the owner of the credit card has enough funds to make the purchase, whereas successful withdrawal of a payment assumes that the customer has transferred a specific amount of money to the provider. In some E-commerce platforms, withdrawal is carried out automatically right after the authorization procedure while the other platforms require customers to check each authorized payment and confirm the withdrawal of funds manually. As a rule, the latter option is considered the default one. Automatic or manual withdrawal? Choosing between these two options depends on the type of business you have. If you’re dealing with large volumes of orders, which require fast processing and a minimum amount of customer involvement, then the automatic withdrawal is your choice. However, if you need to often clarify purchases with customers or the time period between the moment of creating orders to their delivery is quite long or the orders require some additional processing outside Spree Commerce, then you should go for manual withdrawal. State of order Every order in Spree Commerce can be in one of the three states: Control (confirmation) Payment Delivery Control Most of the actions that take place here are directed at gathering information about the customer. One of the most important steps in this state is “Payment”. At this point, the store gathers customer’s payment information, e.g. the information about their credit card. However, you shouldn’t confuse this step with the state “Payment”, since no actions are carried out with the credit card. When the order reached its final step, it’s sent to the system. After it’s saved, the order becomes available to admins and managers of the store in the admin panel. This means that the order is now ready to be processed on the store’s side. Payment This state is more complex than the previous one, because the order is always completed in several transactions. Oftentimes, an order initiates more than one payment. Sometimes there are also situations when one payment is authorized while the other one is declined. Each of the payments is processed independently and has its own state (also independent), which is recorded in Spree Commerce. The state “Payment” contains the following steps. Control Processing Pending Completed Void Failed Control means that the order isn’t ready for payment yet. Processing means that the order has been sent to the payment gateway for authorization of the payment. If the response is positive, the payment is considered authorized. Then, it receives the status “pending”, in which it waits till the funds from the credit card will be received. If the transaction is successful, the order is completed. If the withdrawal of funds fails, the order receives the status void. The general statuses of a payment (at all stages of the order). The combination of the statuses of all payments linked to order, comprise the total payment status of the order — managers and administrators see in the admin panel. Based on these statuses, they can perform further actions on payments and orders. The possible statuses of a payment: Debt: when the funds are insufficient to cover the total price of the order. For example, if one of two payments that are connected to the order weren’t paid, or the only payment that is expected to made hasn’t been paid (needs to be confirmed by the buyer). Paid: when the withdrawn funds fully cover the price of the order (the order is ready for delivery). Credit (credit debt): this status is assigned if the buyer charged more money than it’s displayed in the order(refund is required). Also, this status can be mistakenly assigned after all payments for the order were deleted. Void:when one of the payments connected to the order receives an error (is cancelled). Delivery The same goes as with payments, there can be multiple deliveries connected to one order. Different parts of an order can be delivered in different ways, at different times, to different addresses. In this article, we will assume that the order has only one delivery connected to it. As with payments, the combination of the statuses of deliveries gives the overall order status. In most cases, the following statuses: Ready: when the items are prepared and can be delivered to the customer. Pending: the delivery cannot be completed (waiting for stock availability). Delivered: the items are delivered to the customer, the delivery is complete. Processing orders Let’s consider how to work with orders in a step-by-step way: Log in to the admin panel of the store. You will be redirected to the page with orders. The last completed orders will be displayed at the top of the list of orders. Select the order for payment. Select the order to be processed (usually it’s the orders with the payment status “Debt” or “Failed”, click directly on this link). You will be taken to the payment page associated with the selected order. Withdrawal of funds. In most cases, it’s a simple operation with payments ready for withdrawal. If an order has a payment with an error, you can edit the amount of payment or create a new payment to record the receipt of funds from the outside, which has not been at Spree Commerce. When the sum of payments corresponds to the price of the order, you’ll see that it’ll receive the status paid (you can see it in the list of orders). Select the order for delivery. In the orders list, click on the “Edit” button you will be redirected to the edit page of the order, you will be able to edit any information about the order, including its specification, apply discounts, and change the delivery information. Delivery. In the admin panel, you should see the following: “[Code] order ready from [warehouse]” and the delivery button. By clicking the button, the status of the order will be updated to Delivered. As you can see, everything is pretty simple. Spree Commerce allows for customizing any elements in the system, including the procedure of making orders and their statuses. In other words, with an adequate amount of resources and time, you can easily change the out-of-the-box functionality to fit your needs and requirements. Summing up Just like any E-commerce platform, Spree Commerce is based on certain assumptions about how a typical process of making orders works. In most cases, the functionality of the out-of-the-box version is enough. However, the key to the sweet spot is the ability to customize Spree Commerce to fit the business processes of your company and the ability to customize the business processes of the company for maximum efficiency from automation of business. If you have any questions related to Spree Commerce, we’d be more than happy to help! ### Refactoring: What Is It and When Do I Need it? As a regular reader of JetRuby Agency blog, you may well have seen the Refactoring section. Whilst all of these articles make perfect sense to developers (trust us), it may seem to be of little use to business owners. We’ve created a short introductory article, to answer some of the questions you may have. So, without any further ado, let’s get straight to it. Question 1. What is refactoring? The question is answered partially by the Wikipedia article on the subject: Code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing computer code — changing the factoring — without changing its external behavior. Refactoring improves nonfunctional attributes of the software. Advantages include improved code readability and reduced complexity; these can improve source-code maintainability and create a more expressive internal architecture or object model to improve extensibility. We’ll try to skip the “boring” techie stuff this time and focus on what businesses actually need. In more down-to-earth language, refactoring is the process of reorganizing the code base without introducing any new functionality. WHAT? Basically you want to do something with the code (which I don’t see) and spend precious development time WITHOUT adding new features? You’ve got to be kidding, right? We will answer this very question a bit later. Thanks for not switching the channel. Question 2. How do I know if my application needs refactoring? There are 3 major reasons to perform a refactoring: Code architecture is poor. This happens when the application is delivered in as-fast-as-it-gets manner and the developer(s) and the product owner do not care about the integrity and maintainability of the solution. The situation may get even worse, if the scope of the project has switched heavily, or there were dozens of freelancers, who had been working on the solution at different times (no conventions, no code style, e.t.c.) The project didn’t leave proof-of-concept status in time. It’s not a secret, that some projects succeed, some fail. Smart product owners need to make sure that “killer features” do work as intended, and can be demonstrated to investors and stakeholders. Or, as product companies do, they validate their ideas with narrow focus groups. In each case they assign limited resources to check whether the idea or approach actually works in the real world. As soon as you get a “yes” to this question (it does work), you should budget for the following jobs and (this is an important piece) actually plan or adjust solution architecture. Otherwise you may end up building a skyscraper on quicksand. Technology stack is outdated. This happens too. Technologies evolve rapidly, businesses need cross-platform solutions, mobile adaptation, etc. Take a website from 1999 and try to add some fancy ReactJS interactivity to it. You may try to make it work, but basically the amount of time spent can not be justified by the expected result. When this news arrives from the development company, it’s cause for tears, right? Well, yes and no. You could ignore the information, skip the third-party code audit and just proceed with the current approach. Here’s list of the possible issues you could run into: The application gets buggy. As time goes, some bugs are solved just to be replaced by new ones. Why? Because developers are fixing issues, but it becomes visible only afterwards that the developers have broken something else. The bigger the application, the more code lines it has , the more intersections there are, the more non-conventional solutions are present — the worse the situation usually is. The application is slow. As you introduce new functionality, you inevitably add code. As you add more data to DB, you inevitably add to the size. So, in the early stages, problems with server-side or client-side performance may not be evident. But as time goes on, they may become pretty obvious. Development takes too long even for simple features. This is related to the previous point. To deliver a stable product, the developer needs to address the issues outside of his scope, basically he does refactoring while at the same time delivering the feature. This works, but lacks a systematic approach. And it isn’t exactly transparent to you as the person paying the bills, right? Some features will not be completed. Again, related to both of the above. Introducing a new component or feature may just not be worth the effort. Imagine you get an estimate and it says that it will take 2 full days just to make a simple dropdown menu. The development company would typically just say “you don’t need it”, or something like that. We at JetRuby are not used to saying “no” to clients, but an informed decision leading to zero result hardly sweetens the pill. Question 3. What is the expected result? The benefits of a proper refactoring are directly related to the issues we intend to solve: Easier expansion of the system? Better collaboration of developers? Less time on discussions, more time on good solutions. Money saved — [check-icon]. Easier implementation of changes? Less bugs? Less QA? Money saved — [check-icon]. Better performance of the application on client side? Happier clients — [check-icon]. Better performance of the server side? Cheaper AWS plan — [check-icon]. Less money spent on support and development in future. [check-icon]. The list goes on, actually… Basically, you will be able to solve most, if not all, of the aforementioned problems. Question 4. How much does it cost? The short answer — it depends. The longer version is… anywhere between ~100 hours and 2000+. Small projects may take 50–150 hours to update the technology stack. Bigger projects with changes on the backend and the frontend may easily take 500h+. Or it may take 10–15 hours, just because we need to get rid of the non-optimal solutions and move on, evolve and fundraise. It’s important to properly inform the developer(s) with your plans — close and distant. This is a major question from day one. Sometimes (quite often), it makes sense to combine refactoring and implementing new features, when you are sure that older functionality will be changed soon. When in doubt, you may order a third-party code audit of a proven company. These don’t come cheap, but they may be perfectly justified, when we are talking about 1000+h scopes. Question 5. How do I avoid refactoring? I don’t want to slip on this banana. Rule 1. Find the right guys. Development company should be professional, transparent, and with a good reputation. You know one, right? ;) Rule 2. Be clear with your wishes. It may be challenging to comprehend one’s dream in it’s full glory and put it into SRS. Read how SCRUM works and what a product owner does. Rule 3. Be specific about your target audience, stakeholders, future plans. The bigger the picture we share, the less room for false assumptions and the higher the chance to meet expectations. Rule 4. Inform your development company when there’s a major switch in roles on the project, high probability of approach change or scope being cancelled. Remember, we run the project and it should perfectly match the product; you are the person that knows it best. Rule 5. Do not postpone Quality Assurance to “when the time comes”. Accumulated issues are harder to fix. Also, they will take time (and money) to be solved and you basically won’t be getting new functionality at this point. You end up paying for what you considered to be solved already. You get frustration, and your audience has a gap in releases (assuming they are OK with a buggy app in the first place). Rule 6. Plan ahead. You will be needing mobile adaptation at some point (very likely). Maybe you will be needing a mobile app? Or several apps and user roles. Try to imagine how it looks in the end, then transfer your vision to the right guys. This enables for effective architecture planning and choosing the proper tech stack. The Bottom Line OK, you’ve got the news. Refactoring is needed. Bad part: New investment needed, sometimes (often) unplanned. Good part: The product will become better, in so many ways. We hope you can see it now. Piece of advice — don’t treat this as an expense. This is a smart investment. Deciding otherwise, you may end up spending twice as much later or worse, hitting a dead end. We intend to publish more articles “translating” what software development firms do into something more to the ground, allowing for better transparency and more productive collaboration. Please give us a couple dozen “claps” if you feel this article has been helpful. ### 5 Re-Engagement Strategies That Will Make Your App Shine We’ve already talked about how to properly develop your app, which platform will be the best for you, how to engage users, how to improve your app UX and many others mobile development related topics. Now it’s time to talk about an equally important subject that reveals a topic of a proper user re-engagement? Keeping your users engaged is not an easy thing. Most of the apps, which have been downloaded, end up being neglected by users after the first use. It’s time to shift our attention to user re-engagement that will allow us to get the highest value possible out of our customer base as well as acquiring new users. Remember that you can consider your users really valuable only in case they open it more than three times after having downloaded it. Here we may see the true importance of re-engagement campaigns. Nevertheless, we need to understand the difference between two terms that are often being misinterpreted. They are retargeting and re-engagement. Retargeting allows companies to expand their user base by promoting a new application to people who have already used their applications. Usually, this can be made by focusing on users who are similar to your existing active users. This strategy is much more effective rather than looking for users blindly. Re-engagement can be considered as all those marketing techniques that will allow you to determine those people who have downloaded an app but currently are not engaging with it. The main goal of re-engagement is to remember people about your app as well as inspiring them to use it more frequently. It’s this point that will be discussed in this episode. Let’s look at the best re-engagement practices. Push Notifications Push notifications are alerts or messages generated by the app to notify a user of an event or other activity without the necessity to open the app. This is a permission-based form of a marketing strategy. That’s probably one of the most effective and well-known strategies. Consider it as a simple, text-based notification or a friendly reminder that will encourage user to return in your app. Nevertheless, push-notification have some details that need to should be taken into account. First of all, there’s a necessity to take into account the right time and the right message. Bear in mind the fact that this marketing strategy is all about precision. Put yourself in the place of your users. Usually, we have a few dozen various apps in our phone. Imagine how all of these notifications and alerts can quickly become overwhelming. Have you noticed that those apps with the most frequent push notifications are usually the first to be silenced and, after all, forgotten. Such situations happen in case the push-notifications turn out to be irrelevant and superfluous. That’s why your message should be meaningful enough as well as be written by a person. People don’t like to bombarded with worthless information written by a bot. Don’t forget to ask permission first. Usually, people are open to relevant and useful information. But they need to understand that they actually can control it. So, make sure that your push-notifications are valuable and at the same time they can be easily turned off (in case user find them unnecessary). Paid Search Paid search is another form of re-engagement strategy, which will allow to have your ads featured in the search results of specified keys queries. According to this technique, re-engaged ads are placed at the top of the search results. The thing is all these re-engagement tools appear only in case users have already installed the app. Here’s an example of a paid search. Here are some tips that will help create a proper paid search. First of all, make sure that you’ve properly found the right keywords. Do some research and ensure that you’ve got it right. The second tip is to provide a link to a relevant screen. In case you have deep linking enabled in your app, ascertain that it sends your users to a relevant screen. According to the example above, the user is looking for cars in Bristol. That’s why sending the user in Bristol to a list of cars in London wouldn’t be helpful for a user at all. It’s Bristol where user want to find used cars. Deep Linking From the technological perspective, the framework that mobile applications are built upon differs from the HTML framework of websites on the internet. As a result, we need to understand that initially there was no ability to link from a page to any other page. That’s the feature that we take for granted on the web. To be precise, deep linking is a technology that allows apps to become interconnected that is similar to what we can do on the World Wide Web. With this technology, apps will be able to provide a much better user experience. Deep linking allows a user to be directed straight to an app or somewhere inside the app via a URL. Nevertheless, this feature needs to be coded in the application beforehand. One of the most widespread ways of this technology’s usage, can be made through a mobile ad, such as a Twitter ad. That takes a user straight into the app. This strategy is much better rather than taking a user simply to the mobile app landing page. So, instead of sending your users to a home screen where they are forced to browse and search, the deep linking technology will help you send users directly to the most relevant screen in your app. Image Source Paid Social Paid social is another effective way of re-engagement marketing. Speaking about the aesthetics, our current native design became much better in terms of looking. That contributes to improving of re-engagement ads and other forms of advertising. Additionally, we can see significant improvements in technologies which the main goal is to target our existing users. For example, in Twitter and Facebook you can create lists of users who have already downloaded and used your app. Using their Mobile Advertiser ID, phone number, email address, user name or user ID you can send them re-engagement ads. Here are a few cool tips that will help you make your paid social strategy even more effective. From time to time, try to experiment with the timing of your re-engagement campaigns as well as creative elements of your ads. This can be CTA (call-to-action), ad copy, images and so on. Having changed something, analyze the situation and your customers feedback. Try to understand what campaign characteristics turn out to be the most effective and focus on them. You can also use your platform for the re-engagement campaign. To make it even more effective, use the platform that was responsible for driving the app install. Put simply, in case your users were originally acquired on Facebook, use this platform for re-engagement campaign. In such cases, there are much more chances that you will achieve success. Besides, don’t forget about in-app retargeting. That will help you make your re-engagement strategy more effective as well as lower your organisational costs. “Mobile-specific” deals/rewards within the app make users desire to get free or discounted goods or services. Usually, most of the app users download an app in order to receive a special offer or a discount. That’s a really effective tip to get the bargain shoppers re-engaged. Activity Messaging Activity messaging is a triggered customer outreach that uses messaging channels like push notifications and email in order to notify users about actions carried out by their friends and others who use the same app or website. Speaking about users, activity messaging will inform them about their friends’ engagement in your app. On the other hand, activity messaging will help you provide users with additional reasons to return to your application. This kind of re-engagement strategy will be the best choice for apps that have a social aspect. So, instead of waiting for your users to come back to the app on their own, you can create automated campaigns that lets your users know when their friends join, share something, or generally carry out some actions that can turn out to be of interest for them. The Bottom Line The main goal of re-engagement strategy is to make sure that users will return/re-install or re-open an app that has been downloaded by them some time ago. All the methods listed above should help you keep mobile markets’ app businesses alive. By reducing user acquisition costs, as well as keeping a user engaged, you’ll be able to increase both the in-app conversion, ROI, and LTV. Using such strategies as push notifications, paid search, deep linking, paid social, and activity messaging, you’ll be able to reach your current users, connect them with relevant content, and encourage them to interact with your app on a consistent basis. Hope, you’ve found something useful for you. Don’t forget about your claps and see you in the next episode. ### Definitive Guide to Effective Communication In Business The ability to express your ideas in a clear way, as well as understand the needs of others, isn’t just important, but critical to any kind of collaborative work. Why is that? Well, Jimmy, I’m glad you asked. When you have business operations and customers all across the globe, it’s only through effective communication that you can run the darn whole over bloated project/thing with any sort of cohesion. However a ton of resources you may have, but they might as well be flushed down the can without effective communication. Oh sure, the emergence of the Internet and modern technologies have made communication simpler. Whether you want to cyberstalk your ex girlfriend from Australia while being sitting homeless in a bus terminal in New York, or have a friendly chat with your colleague from China, there is a wide range of online apps that can come to the rescue. Having a business meeting with partners from another continent (even Antarctica) is no longer a luxury, you can just set up an event in Google Calendar and talk things over through a video call in Hangouts or Skype. That’s not even mentioning chatting apps, which allow you to be online 24/7. However, despite all these amazing technological advancements, the problem of miscommunication persists, resulting in time and money losses. Seven years ago, New Jersey lost $200 million of its state budget simply because the responsible person didn’t bother to properly read the tax instruction forms. “Well, at least nobody got hurt” — you may think. Unfortunately, that’s not true. Failing to reach mutual understanding can sometimes lead to fatal consequences. In 1977, two planes crashed in the Canary Islands because of miscommunication between the air traffic control tower and the captain of one of the Boeings. The crash took the lives of 583 people that day. So why does this happen? It turns out that the reasons why people argue over seemingly frivolous things haven’t changed much over the past hundred of years, when we were still sending smoke signals to insult each other from a safe distance. Let’s break them down. Language barrier In the English language, we sometimes use the same word to mean different things. Lorry, jumper, pullover, rubber, and flat are all examples of words that have different meanings in English or that aren’t used from one country to the next. Considering that people who speak the same language oftentimes fail to come to an agreement, just imagine the amount of communication challenges between two or more cultures. Now put this from a business perspective, and you’ll realize why this issue has been so widely debated in the recent years. Gestures Aside from language specifics, there are other things such as body gestures and eye contact that you should consider when communicating with other cultures. Americans tend to wave their hand and use their pointer finger to point in directions. Extreme gesturing is considered rude in some cultures. On the one hand, pointing may be considered appropriate in some contexts in the United States. On the other hand, the Japanese would never use a finger to point towards another person because that gesture is considered rude in their homeland. Instead, they use an open hand, with a palm facing up, toward the person. Eye contact is another form of nonverbal communication. In the U.S., eye contact is a good thing and is seen as a reflection of honesty and straightforwardness. However, in some Asian and Middle Eastern cultures, prolonged eye contact can be seen as rude or aggressive in many situations. Women may need to avoid it altogether because lingering eye contact can be viewed as a greenlight for sexy time fun. Virtual miscommunication Unless done right, virtual communication too can become a nightmare. Dates, times, tasks, fees, statistics, email addresses or links can easily be misspelled. In most cases, things will get brutal between people before they realize a comma was missing. With email as the main tool for formal communication, it’s easy to drunkenly hit Send by mistake before the writing is done or before a proper proofreading of that telling your boss off. Once the mistake is in the system, it takes even more communication to get out of it. Poor formatting. When verbal body language cues are absent, the way a message is formatted can suddenly become more important than usual. If a top tier manager sends a poorly formatted email, filled with incomplete sentences and bad grammar, the underlying message could be that he can’t be bothered with writing a proper email. Also, the recipients could start feeling they are not worthy of a polished text, because they apparently are not. So make sure your message is both grammatically and punctuationally correct before sending it to your clients. Here are a few tips that will help you minimize virtual miscommunication. Always treat a virtual communication as if it’s a real one. Having jammed this tip into your mind, it will allow you to get rid of nasty prejudices. As a result, this will allow you to build effective communication. Empathy is equally important both for real and virtual communication, as it’s the main point for healthy and beneficial relationships. The majority of people treat online conversations differently than a real one. Some people can say things that they would never able to say in being in same room with a person. We’re all people and miscommunication may happen. Let’s be patient and tolerant to each other. “But there are so many countries and cultures! How do I separate them?” There have been several attempts to clearly separate cultures according to their behavioral patterns. For example, Edward T. Hall, a famous anthropologist, suggested the concept of high-context and low-context cultures. In a nutshell, it describes the way of exchanging messages and the meaning of context in specific situations. The best examples of low-context cultures are North America and Western Europe. As a rule, businesses in these regions have direct, individualistic employees who tend to base their decisions on facts. This type of person wants specifics noted in contracts and may have issues with trust. High-context cultures are the opposite in that trust is the most important part of business dealings. There are areas in the Middle East, Asia and Africa that can be considered high context. Organizations that have high-context cultures are collectivist and focus on interpersonal relationships. Individuals from high-context cultures might be interested in getting to know the person they are conducting business with in order to get a gut feeling on decision making. They may also be more concerned about business teams and group success rather than individual achievement. Robert Lewis, on the other hand, created a model which divides people into 3 categories: linear-active, multi-active, and reactive. Linear-active This category includes most of the English-speaking countries (North America, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, etc.), Northern Europe, and also Germanic countries. People who belong to this category tend to be task-oriented, organised planners. People from this category love direct discussions, facts and information from highly reliable sources. Multi-active Multi-active people belong to the impulsive type of people. People-orientation, relationship, and feelings are highly important for them. Such people try to speak and listen at the same time. They do their best to avoid silence or pause during the conversation. Reactive This category of people can also be called as “category of true listeners”. Such people listen before leaping in the conversation. All the conversation they stay focused and don’t let their mind to wander. They do their best to understand the speaker’s point of view. “Ok, but are there any general pieces of advice on how to avoid conflict situations?” Here are some pieces of advice that should help you establish friendly contact with people from other nationalities or cultures. Try to avoid any jokes, critical statements or, more importantly, stereotypes. What you consider funny may in fact be inappropriate or even insulting to the other person. One frivolous word may ruin the whole thing before it even starts. Be patient and listen. Focus on the person’s intonation. This will give you an idea of how they’ll react to this or that news, events, people, etc. Based on this information, you’ll be able to understand where your views match and, thus, find suitable topics for discussion. Finally, always do your homework. It’s way easier to communicate with someone from a different culture when you have at least a basic understanding of their values, traditions, and customs. Find the article on wikipedia about the person’s country and try to remember the most crucial facts from its history. This will also allow you to avoid sensible subjects in politics (some people just love talking about it). The Bottom Line Effective communication is crucially important for achieving common goals and providing a mutual understanding. Especially when it’s about business. The most valuable tip for building an effective communication is to be respectful to each other. This will allow you to leave all parties involved satisfied and feeling accomplished. By expressing yourself explicitly, you’ll leave no room for alteration of messages or misunderstanding. As a result, this will contribute to decreasing conflicts. In case, a conflict did arise, effective communication will allow to ensure that the situation is resolved respectfully. One more time, an effective communication consists of 3 main parts: careful listening, mutual respect, and trying to put yourself on your opponent’s shoes. Combine them all and you’ll be amazed how it may change not only your business but also your life! ### Ruby on Rails Is Dead — 2020 Edition It’s 2020, and it’s high time for us at JetRuby to once again scrutinize everything we believe in and answer the million-dollar question: “Is Ruby on Rails finally deader than a coffin nail in 2020?” The rumors of Ruby’s imminent (inevitable, immutable, irreversible) demise have been whispered about for years inside developer locker rooms. Yet, the language, Ruby on Rails, and framework are still around, powering hundreds of thousands of websites. (Sigh) Do I need to mention again that Github, AirBnB, and Hulu continue using RoR? That’s a sign of doing pretty good, arguably better than most programming languages since not all languages/tools are lucky enough to reach these peaks of prominence/awesomeness and credibility. So perhaps it’s time to move away from the morbid, sensationalist language of technological death and discuss Ruby on Rails more reasonably and meaningfully. So sit back. Pour yourself a mason jar of peppermint tea, and let’s just sensibly talk about what we mean: What is the state of Ruby on Rails at the dawn of 2020? The TIOBE index (the index that uses search engine results) places Ruby in the top 20 technologies. In a Stack Overflow 2019 survey, Ruby on Rails is in the top 10 most popular languages. And yes, none of these rankings hysterically scream “popularity” like a 6th-grade girl at a Jonas Brothers concern, but I would argue that’s a good thing. At the end of the day, what users care about is a practical, fast, intuitive, and secure app. The last thing they care about is what’s under the hood. Apps being useful — that has minimal relation to the technology stack used. Everything else I mentioned can be achieved using Ruby on Rails. It just so happens that due to the unique nature of Ruby, we’re able to write clean code — faster, which is a great thing for startups and businesses that run on lean innovation. Let’s not forget what makes Ruby on Rails great Ruby teaches you some great coding habits, such as the TDD approach, MVC pattern, separate databases, DRY code, and restful routes, which, in the end, translates to clean code that needs less testing. Ruby on Rails is created with developers in mind to make a developer happy. Happy developers make better apps, making users happy as well. Why wouldn’t you want your users to be satisfied? The Ruby on Rails support community is vast and reliable, which means it’s a viable technology, and it’s not going away anytime soon. It might not be the hot new technology, but it’s a stable, mature technology that is much more valuable for a business than just being cool. The Now Ruby is not a magic solution to all your problems; it’s simply a tool. And if you’re a startup trying to launch your product on time and budget — then it’s an excellent tool for you. And here’s where “no news is good news.” You want your next MVP built with stable, proven technology and not a fad that might disappear tomorrow, and you’ll be scrambling to find the last available developer to support you. Is it the only technology you will ever need? No. You might do what Twitter did: launch on Ruby on Rails, then move on to a new platform when you have the funds. OR — you can do what AirBnB and countless other startups did and stay with Ruby. It’s up to you, but the truth is: if you’re making a web or enterprise app with Ruby, you’ll write better quality code, spend less time testing, and launch your product before your competitors do, so you can start getting revenue and think about where to take your product next. Also, just like with any tool, it’s not necessarily how the tools are used, but WHO uses them. Over the years, we’ve cultivated real Ruby pros with know-how and best practices to tackle anything you throw at them, like a pro-bowl linebacker into a running back at 45 MPH. And guess what? At Jetruby, we’re an intellectually curious bunch — of course, we test out all the other alternatives. We’re constantly experimenting with new technologies and tools. Why? Because we have highly patient girlfriends, it’s fun to try something new: some tools we make a part of our tool belt, some we discard, and some — we put on the back burner for further testing in the future. Here’s a blog post on our experience with Node.js, React, Redux, GraphQL, and Webpack to back up my point. And we’ve recently invested in Elixir. Stay tuned for articles on that whole thing… So — dead or not, that’s not a relevant question when it comes to programming languages. I mean, you can still find someone who knows Fortran or COBOL. To ensure your product succeeds, you should use proven, reliable technology with sufficient support from the community — and Ruby offers that. At this point, we believe that for most startups who want to launch an MVP fast and within a lean budget — Ruby/Rails is the answer because it’s robust, scalable, and can be implemented with any JS library, such as React. We'll be the first to let you know whenever a better alternative appears, i.e., technology proves to be a better, faster, more secure alternative over time. ### The Top Web Development Frameworks in 2018 In our modern world, web development is necessary and desirable more than ever. That’s because each day, appear various innovations and new web development trends. That’s why all business owners need to keep in touch with the latest trends and innovations. There’s a great number of things that should be considered in web development, such as the visual look of a website, database configuration/mapping, web APIs, caching, website services, and so on. To cope with all these difficulties you’ll need a highly skilled web developer. Besides, there are various web development frameworks that will allow significantly simplify web development process. Additionally, frameworks can contribute to automating the web development activities. In this article, we’ll look at the advantages and disadvantages of the most popular frameworks in 2018. Here we go: Angular Originally, it was developed and referred to as AngularJS. Angular is a JavaScript framework by Google that was designed specifically for creating dynamic web applications. Using this framework, you’ll be able to develop your front-end based apps without the necessity to use any other plugins or frameworks. This framework has many cool features, here are some of them: Using templates, you’ll be able to show information from model and controller Angular supports MVC (Model, View, and Controller) architecture. And the cool features is that a developer just needs to split an app into MVC components and all others are managed by Angular All the expressions are like code snippets that enclosed within curly braces and do not use any loops or conditional statements. Just on the contrary, they’re used to format data and display it. All these features are part of the platform that will allow you to build a great website. Here are some cool websites that are built using this framework: Netflix, Freelancer.com, GoodFIlms and many other.   Ruby on Rails This server-side web development framework is built using such well-known programming language as Ruby. Due to reusability of the code, the web app development task becomes much faster and easier. Besides, you may add some extra functionalities. Here are some popular websites that are written with Ruby: Basecamp, Ask.fm, GitHub, 500px and so on. It’s a large development community where you can easily find some help for your project whenever and wherever you’re. We can’t say that Ruby on Rails belongs to cheap development technologies, but it provides considerable benefits that will provide speedy development with less code written and errors made. Here are other advantages of this framework: Suitable for all business industries. RoR is a pretty flexible programming language. That makes him suitable for any field of business, whether it’s a project management or a site building platform. Fast website development. Thanks to lean code base, RoR minimizes time on website development in about 30–40%. Ruby on Rails makes it easy to modify the existing code or add features that you want to your website. If your goal is to find a framework for long-term projects, you definitely need to choose RoR. The thing is that this framework is pretty stable and predictable, so substitution of a team member will never be a problem. Here’s a chart that shows the number of websites within the top 10k, 100k, and 1 million site groups that are categorized as being in the specific vertical.   Yii Yii is an open-source web application development framework that is built in PHP5. Due to clear design and user-friendly interface, this framework provides an extremely simple and quick web development. This framework is performance optimized, that’s why it can be the best choice for any sized project. Also, there are a lot of amazing tools that will help you debug and test your app as well as pronounced documentation. Here are some of the features of Yii: Yii doesn’t involve classes and objects while they won’t be necessary. This provides incredibly fast loading without any delays. It’s also highly reliable and secure as it uses OOP standards. All the professional and efficient resources are absolutely free. All these features contribute to creating a high-performance framework that will allow you to develop beautiful websites. Here are some beautiful websites that were built using this framework: Tass, Craftcms, HumHub and so on. Meteor JS Meteor JS is written in Node.js and allows developers to create real-time web applications for different platforms. One of the coolest features of Meteor JS is a great framework for creating simple websites for personal use. This is an open-source isomorphic JavaScript web framework. As a result, this allows loading the pages much faster. Besides, thanks to an integrated JavaScript stack that extends from the database to the end user’s screen, you may accomplish in 10 lines of code that would otherwise take 1000. Another cool feature is that you may use the same code whether you’re developing for iOS, web, Android or desktop. You may use various popular frameworks and tools and focus on building features instead of writing disparate components together yourself.   Express.js Express JS is a web application development network that has been developed in Node.js. You definitely need to choose this framework if your main goal is to develop web applications and APIs as fast and easy as possible. There are a number of features that are provided with the help of plugins. That consists of AngularJS framework and MongoDB database. Moreover, using Express.js you may develop mobile applications as well. For developing websites, you’ll need a simple knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript along with a basic knowledge of MongoDB. Using various modules on npm you may extend the functionalities of your website as you wish. Express is the best choice for those people whose goal it is to develop simple web services and APIs rather than web portals or high-loaded calculating backends. This framework will significantly help people who want to practice in web development and create some simple web services. Zend Zend is one of the open source web development framework based on PHP. This framework is focused on building more secure, modern, reliable, web services and applications. Zend framework makes use of various professional PHP packages. As a result, different packages make the developing of high-end websites significantly easier and faster. According to the fact that Zend makes use of MVC Architecture, it separates the database and business logic from the presentation layer. All of these contribute to making a code more understandable, clean, and simple. It uses such object-oriented programming concepts as interfaces and inheritance that will help you extend its various components. The majority of components are workable. Routing does its job flawlessly. And the Layout ability is pretty serviceable (what can be said about such structures as ASP or JSP). You’ll definitely be surprised that one can take advantage of the cache feature.   Django Django is another very popular web development framework that is written in Python and follows the Model View Template (MVC) architecture. Due to this framework, the development of complex data-driven websites has never been so fast and easy. Here are some cool features of this framework: It’s fast. The main goal of this framework was to help developers make an app as quickly as possible. Starting from an idea, production and finishing the release, Django contributes to making it both effective and cost-efficient. As a result, this framework can be the most appropriate for developers who have strict deadlines. It’s secure. If you’re working with Django, you may be absolutely sure that you can commit some mistakes related to security. These mistakes can be connected with SQL injection, cross-site request forgery, clickjacking, and cross-site scripting. I order to effectively manage all the usernames and passwords, the user authentication system plays a crucial role. It’s scalable. The majority of business sites use it to quickly meet the traffic demands. It’s fully loaded. This framework works in such a way that includes various extras to help with site maps, user authentication, content administration, RSS feeds and much more such things. As a result, all these aspects can help carry out the web development process completely. Laravel Laravel is one of the best PHP development frameworks using which you can easily develop the web and mobile applications for small websites and big businesses. Laravel has many cool features, such as Authorization technique, Artisan, Object Oriented Libraries, MVC support, Database Migration, Cross-site Request Forgery and so on. Here are other advantages of this framework: Using this framework, you may increase the number of online traffic in your website. And yes, this technology is applicable to any browser and device. Laravel incorporates various flexible features in your application. This also includes the modular packaging systems. As a result, it’ll help simplify the website. The PHP needs no special inclusion paths and maintenance. It’s due to an auto loading facility that is contained in this software. Using Laravel you may create various routes with the name of the same existing route. That’s why Laravel can create unique URLs in accordance with it. The Bottom Line Choosing the right framework for website development is one of the most important steps that can influence on the quality of your future website. Each of the listed frameworks is complete in all the respects and can be used for front or back-end development. According to your preferences in programming languages, you may decide which framework will meet your requirements as ideally as possible. ### Native vs Cross Platform App Development: Which One To Choose In 2018 Young or old, everybody has a smartphone today. Because of that, mobile applications have become a total must for modern businesses. Wait. There is a snafye to consider. It’s 2017 out there, and the market of mobile devices is insanely diverse. Dozens of new smartphones and tablets are released every month. As a result, both mobile developers and business owners are faced with an increasing number of challenges related to mobile applications. Spoiler alert: there is no magic bullet when it comes to choosing which platform to use. However, thanks to YouTeam post about mobile applications development companies, you can easily choose the best one for your project. Each of the options has its own advantages and disadvantages. Being a business owner, you should have a solid understanding of the differences between them. Advantages of native app development Allow you to fully unlock the potential of mobile devices. The essence of native applications is that they’re written for a specific platform (today, it’s either Android or iOS). Ultimately, this means that mobile developers can provide much better integration of apps’ functionality with the hardware features of mobile devices: Bluetooth, NFC, GPS sensor, Camera, microphone, accelerometer, gyroscope, etc. Access to these features is especially important for working with such data as the geographical location of the user or gestures. Aspect ratio and display control. Using a native language gives you more freedom in terms of screen optimization. Today, there’s a limitless variety of smartphones and tablets with different screen sizes and aspect ratios. Earlier this year, Samsung has presented to the world Galaxy S8 and S8+ with their stunning bezel-less displays, making the 18:9 aspect ratio a new trend in the industry. In addition, mobile manufacturers are constantly pushing the bar of display quality by increasing the dpi on their devices. That’s why, it’s crucial as ever for businesses to make sure that their applications are displayed correctly. Top-notch performance. Apart from this extended control and flexibility, better integration with the hardware of mobile devices provides another significant advantage. Native applications are blazing fast and perform noticeably better than, say, web applications. According to Jakob Nielsen’s “Usability Engineering”, users note system delays that are as short as 1 second and if an action (e.g. updating the newsfeed) takes longer, they can become distracted. Native applications fully utilize the processing power of mobile devices so their response time is minimized to the maximum extent possible. Better distribution and monetization. What’s the first place that you go to when you want to download an app? Odds are, you’ll open the app store of your platform and start looking there. Mobile applications that are built using native programming languages is that they’re displayed in Google Play or App Store and get full support from the either of the market places once approved. This also makes it easier for your marketing team to promote your mobile application since users know exactly where to find it. Finally, the fact that native apps can be downloaded only through app stores benefits users in terms of security. Internet connection isn’t a must. Since native applications are installed on the device itself, they allow you to access data in the offline mode. At the same time, web app or any other platform requires constant online connection, becoming dependent on the network speed. Combined with great performance, the ability to work offline makes native applications a perfect choice for developing mobile games. Disadvantages of native app development Cost of development. Native applications are more expensive in development than cross-platform and web applications. This is because you need to develop a separate application for each platform. Until recently, there were three of them: Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. However, a you may have heard, Microsoft has officially stopped supporting Windows Phone, which means the platform will no longer receive software updates. Nonetheless, there are still two different platforms to be supported. Intercompatibility with other mobile OS. Native apps for iOS are developed using Swift or Objective-C and can be installed on iPhones or iPads only. Likewise, Android apps aren’t compatible with iOS because they’re built with Java or Kotlin. Another aspect that is worth mentioning is version compatibility. For example, because of a variety of Android versions, providing full support to all the app users becomes a real challenge. Advantages of cross-platform app development Reusable code base. Instead of writing several different applications, mobile developers can use the same code for all platforms. When you develop a native mobile application, e.g. for iOS, you need to use a specific stack of technologies to write a new piece of code for a feature. However, when you want to implement the same feature but on a different platform, you also need to use a stack of technologies that’s different to the first one. On the other hand, this isn’t the case with cross platform apps, where you can just implement a feature for one platform and it will work on the other ones. Such reusability is also an advantage when it comes to deployment. Cost-effective. Developing an application that works across multiple platforms and uses the same codebase is very cost effective. To have your idea implemented as a cross platform application doesn’t require heavy investments in terms of resources. This is because you don’t need a dedicated team for each mobile OS. Thanks to a short learning curve and a unified stack of technologies, all platforms can be maintained by a single team. Wider audience reach and marketing opportunities. Cross platform applications target multiple platforms. As a result, businesses can grow their user base much faster than compared to native apps. This is especially beneficial for small businesses. When you have an app released for both Android and iOS at the same time, it saves you much time and money as opposed to creating only one app for either of the platforms first. This also allows you to cover all the bases, because what has perfectly worked for iOS users, for example, may not be the best idea for Android. The same UI and UX across all platforms. How your application performs is undoubtedly important. However, no less important is how the app looks like and feels. It may be challenging to keep the same UI and UX simply because there are two separate teams working on them. Using a single codebase allows cross platform applications maintain the same look and user experience across all platforms. When you’re developing native apps using different technologies. Disadvantages of cross platform app development Not as flexible as native apps. The fact that cross platform applications can be developed for both Android and iOS is an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time. Why? When you need to implement some cool feature that is expected to work and be supported on all devices equally, there is a chance that cross platform technologies won’t be able to provide you with the same level of flexibility you can find in native programming languages. In other words, if you’re wondering whether the feature will work the same across all devices — it most likely will. Will it perform to the maximum, though? — Unfortunately, it won’t. Performance isn’t the strongest side. Because cross platform applications have to give up a great deal of flexibility for the sake of wide support, they also lose in terms of performance compared to their native counterparts. Submission to the app stores is a tricky process. The process of submitting your app to the app store and getting it authorized takes a relatively big period of time. What’s more, every update that you roll out after the first release also has to be authorized by the app store before it becomes available. The Bottom Line So, if you want to impress users with a lightning fast interface, rich functionality, and overall performance, native apps is what you need. In addition, you get better security and stability. The price for this is that you’ll most likely need to hire two dedicated teams for each platform. Small business may not be able to afford develop an application for both platforms. Cross platform apps, on the other hand, can be developed for both iOS and Android, wherein the whole thing is a one-team job. Plus, cross platform apps are much easier in terms of maintenance and deployment, so you can spend more time and money on marketing and attracting new customers. However, their biggest disadvantage is lower performance, which may be especially crucial if you’re developing an application with features that require deep hardware integration. ### Best Mobile App Development Tools That Will Make Your Life Easier In our contemporary world, almost everyone has a mobile device, except Bob, but don't be like Bob. Besides, with the current technologies, you can easily access mobile app development tools. Nevertheless, there are so many mobile app development tools today that it's like an embarrassment of riches. The main questions are: Which single application should you use? How to avoid forking over too much dinero? Do you need developer skills to use these applications? If you've ever asked yourself these questions, you've come to the right place. Here, we'll look at the best mobile app dev tools and which ones are the most appropriate for your application and piggy bank. The review of mobile app development tools Xamarin This is the best choice for native applications among mobile app development tools. The software was developed by evil overlords at Microsoft. Due to the C# codebase, you can create Windows, Android, and iOS applications. Generally speaking, in C#, you may do everything you can in Objective-C, Java, or Swift. Another feature is that by using this tool, you can use the same IDE, language, and API. What's superduper cool is that into the Xamarin Studio is built a Git integration. The other advantages of Xamarin are the following: Using Xamari, you can share about 75% of developed code across major mobile platforms. As a result, it'll highly decrease time-to-market and costs. Many devices are provided with functionality testing and quality assurance to ensure seamless integration. PhoneGap Among mobile app development tools, this one falls into the category of cross-platform app development. One of the significant advantages of this baby is that it allows you to create an application capable of working on all mobile devices. Also, it works on HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. The framework is integrated with several libraries to save time and improve functionality. If you're unsatisfied with the PhoneGap architecture, you can always extend it with the help of plug-in architecture. Due to the powerful backend system, it increases the speed of application development. This tool has an Open Source License, which means it's a free framework for mobile app development for you folks who can't Google. Around PhoneGap, there's a large amount of developers who are constantly developing the quality of the app. Convertigo Convertigo is an open-source software vendor. This tool provides a mobile enterprise application platform. Convertigo has many slick features. First, it's a cross-platform that allows you to run your applications on multiple devices (Android, iOS, and Windows phones). Thanks to Convertigo FullSync data replication technology, you can make your data available without any complex coding, even if the network is out of reach after they've cut the internet off at your mom's house for your torrenting. Besides, this tool leverages any Cordova plugins and hardware device features. It can be a camera, GPS, or sensors. Sencha Ext JS Sencha Ext JS is everything a hungry developer needs to build data-intensive, cross-platform applications. One of the enormous advantages of this tool is that it has more than one hundred high-quality, pre-tested, and integrated UI components, such as charts, grids, calendars, and so on. Its framework includes a robust data package that consumes data from any backend source. This tool will also allow you to prototype, develop, code, debug, and test your web application on any browser and device. Appcelerator Appcelerator is the most appropriate name for this application, as it accelerates the app development process. Due to fewer lines of code, developers can create applications in shorter periods. Appcelerator can support Android, iOS, Windows, and other browser-based HTML5 applications. It doesn't matter whether you decide to develop a native or a cross-platform application; this tool will contribute to developing your applications. Many developers choose Appcelerator, which has various platform-specific APIs, features, and user interfaces. To build native and hybrid mobile applications, Appcelerator Titanium uses JavaScript and XML. It also may be very, very(very) useful for you in case you decide to build a web application. Besides, there's a massive community of developers, and they gather at the Appcelerator Open Mobile Marketplace. That's where you can sell, buy, and share modules, templates, and extensions. Monocross This tool is an open-source, cross-platform mobile framework. With its assistance, you'll be able to create various beautiful iOS (iPads, iPhones) and Android applications, as well as Windows Phone and Webkit-enabled devices. Monocross uses C# .NET and the Mono framework to develop apps supporting different platforms. There are other advantages of this tool. It allows users to create a custom user interface for each targeted platform but write logic and code simultaneously. Monocross flexibly uses the same code, whether natively complicated to the device or executing on the server. Kony Mobile Platform Kony Mobility Platform is an integrated, cross-platform mobile app development platform. It can be used for building universal mobile applications. Its visual design canvas and tools provide faster cross-platform design and development. The other nice feature is that developers and designers can integrate 100% of the native OS or any other open-source and third-party framework (or select a pre-built template) for a great user experience without losing speed. Nativescript This tool is another open-source platform allowing you to develop native cross-platform mobile applications. What's brilliant here is that this tool gives you every native API in JavaScript for most mobile platforms. This tool has the following features. Nativescript is extensible as it allows you to reuse existing plugins from npm, CocoaPods (iOS), and Grade (Android) directly in NativeScript projects and hundreds of NativeScript-specific plugins. Nativescript has a beautiful, platform-native, and accessible UI (that can't be compared with webviews). Define once and let NativeScript adapt to run everywhere or tailor the UI to specific devices and screens. RhoMobile RhoMobile is based on the Rhodes framework. This set of tools will be highly helpful for you in developing multi-platform, data-centered, native mobile consumer and enterprise applications. With the help of RhoStudio, a free Eclipse plugin, developers can develop, generate, debug, and test applications. And you won't even need any other hardware or emulator requirements. Codename One This is another cross-device platform that can be used in developing industry-based applications. One of the most outstanding features is that this platform supports a rapid application environment. That means you may write your code in Java, and your application will be tested and verified with Codename One's simulator devices and various automation tools. This framework supports popular IDEs like Eclipse, NetBeans, and IntelliJ IDEA. Hold on… This is not the most exciting feature. That would be that you can build native iOS and native Windows apps. And you don't even need to have a MAC or Windows. Besides, this platform is recommended for developing iOS applications. BuildFire This is a high-performance, do-it-yourself mobile app builder that's capable of supporting iOS and Android phones as well as tablets. This tool may shorten the time to launch by months or even years with the help of pre-built functionality. This includes over 40 plugins directly integrating Smooth, Segment, and others. Finally, various pre-existing templates to build from. You may think of it like a Wix or Weebly, though, for mobile applications with the actual capability to build an app that's launch-ready in 20–30 minutes. React Native With the help of React Native, you'll be able to develop mobile applications using only JavaScript. With the same design as React, you can compose a rich mobile User Interface from declarative components. React Native allows you to build your app much faster without having to recompile it. You can reload your app instantly. Using Hot Reloading, you also can run new code while retaining your application state. Another feature of React Native is that it's capable of combining smoothly with components written in Objective-C, Swift, or Java. In case you need to optimize a few aspects of your application, all you need to do is drop down to native code. The Bottom Line Nowadays, we've got oodles of mobile app development tools. All these applications vary in complexity, price, usability, and many other ways. However, the primary purpose of this article was to motivate you to start using one of these apps and simplify the process of mobile application development. I hope we achieved our goal and you found something useful. Tell us about your favorite app development tool. We're just waiting to hear from you! ### How We Built a Large Scale Web Application: Cronycle Case Study Cronycle takes the noise of mass media and provides users with only the content that matters to them most. With its powerful Boolean search filtering, they can create highly customizable feeds that deliver exactly what they’re looking for. Once users find articles they want, they can share them with their team on different boards. Teams can add articles, annotate, and highlight relevant information on these boards without having to leave the platform. Cronycle takes out the step of copying and pasting links between different apps or platforms for joint work efforts. By creating digital collaborative spaces in which professionals can select and annotate the most relevant articles or documents it brings back the days of mind mapping and brainstorming in order to enable a rich, interactive experience between a team. Challenges Before we started working on the project, the Cronycle platform comprised several Heroku-based applications to parse different sorts of content from the websites that have no API. The system data was stored on Amazon s3 while Amazon RDS hosted the database. From a financial standpoint, using these third-party cloud platforms was rather expensive, e.g. the US-based retail giant charged $10k per month. Speaking of costs, Embedly, another third-party platform used by Cronycle to aggregate content, also charged few cents for each URL it was processing. And since more and more people started using Cronycle, the number of URLs often jumped over hundreds of thousands! So the first point on our challenges-to-solve list was designing a reliable architecture and migrating to services that would suit Cronycle both technologically and financially-wise. In other words, we needed to make the platform fully independent. As the amount of information processed was also constantly growing, the platform had to grow as well in order to satisfy the needs of its users. Solution For dedicated server hosting, the Cronycle team suggested using Hetzner as they were already familiar with this provider. The first thing we moved was the database. Next, we reindexed Elasticsearch using the resources of the application. As soon as reindexing was finished, the brand new Elasticsearch was good to go. Moving Redis was easy and all about “dump+restore”. When it came to moving the Postgres database, though, we stumbled upon that Amazon RDS doesn’t allow for common data migrations like master-slave replication or replication with Londiste. Using “pg_dump/pg_restore” was not an option because it would put the application into downtime. And today, when information is shared at warp speed, even little delay in delivering it can be critical. Looking for other ways to deal with this problem, we settled on the Bucardo replication system. Being hardly the fastest of its kind, Bucardo, however, doesn’t require making any changes in the original Postgres cluster. The whole data migration procedure took us quite a while. Though, we didn’t have to stop the application which was definitely a win. Deploying Heroku-like PaaS allowed for using the same old git-push available in the original Heroku. After all, why reinvent the wheel?! At that point, both the apps and the services were running in the same place which was three dedicated staging servers combined into a cluster. If either an app or a service would go down, the other one would become unavailable as well. To prevent that, we decided to separate the apps from the services by moving them to the new servers. The part about parsing was the most elaborate of all because it required us to conduct a rather deep research on the topic. Ultimately, not only did we develop new applications but also implemented new system features and tweaks. E.g. recently we have implemented a feature that allows for grabbing author’s name on a website page. Result We built a large, complex, and independent content-aggregation platform with micro-service architecture that helps all kinds of users find and organize relevant content with just little effort. The database of the application is powered by Elasticsearch and enables storing terabytes of data. At the same time, the platform’s new infrastructure is packed with a full set of services to provide great in-app experience and shield users from the mass media noise. Currently, Cronycle is used by 2308 companies across the globe. Technologies used Microservices/Applications: Rails monolithic applications; Ruby On Rails JSON API; Python Flask applications; Node.js applications; Heavy usage of asynchronous background jobs in different parts of the system; Communication between microservices via HTTP protocol. Platform: Bare Metal servers running CentOS and CoreOS; KVM-based Virtual Machines running CentOS and CoreOS; Docker containerization; Containers orchestration with CoreOS built-in fleetd; Containers orchestration with Kubernetes; Deis PAAS; Openstack Swift and Openstack Keystone; Postgres; Redis; Elasticsearch; Memcache; Ansible provisioning; Monitoring and alerting with Datadog and Pagerduty; Centralized logging with Graylog 2. Moreover, you can keep up to date with what Cronycle is up to by liking, following and friending its socials below: Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/cronycle Twitter — https://twitter.com/cronycle LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/company/cronycle/ ### How to Travel Effortlessly: RBMalta Case Study The easy way to make your Maltese dream come true In 2017, you don’t need much time and effort to find real estate in such countries as the United States or Germany. The same can hardly be said about smaller countries, where searching for an apartment or a house can turn into a year-long adventure. When you’re on a vacation in some exotic and beautiful country, you want to spend every minute you have with pleasure, relaxing in blue lagoons and sipping cocktails, not wandering in the side streets till midnight. Even then, there is a risk you may overpay for something that’s worth only half of its price. Surely, the situation is getting better every year as more real estate agencies appear. However, on a large scale, the issue remains unresolved. One of the countries that’s becoming more popular among both tourists and those who’d like to buy real estate abroad is Malta. Located almost smack dab in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, it’s a genuine architectural pearl with views that you won’t find anywhere else on the planet. Just take a look at this photo: Image Source You wouldn’t want to miss out on a place like this because of some issues with finding an apartment to stay in, would you? Speaking of lagoons, don’t say that this one doesn’t take just take your breath away: Images Source Luckily, John Vella, a real estate specialist, came up with an idea to solve the problem and called it “RBMalta”. The purpose of RBMalta is to enable its users to effortlessly find real estate in the Republic of Malta through flexible and customizable searching filters on the website. In terms of functionality, RBMalta allows for a wide variety of options: from renting apartments to buying mansions. In addition, the website can provide you with information on how to contact specific real estate agents. John and his team of agents have a whopping 50 years of experience in real estate, so they know Malta from shore to shore. Such ample experience is one of the reason why the end application turned out to be so good. However, first things first. If you’ve ever booked a hotel online, you probably know what the typical landing page of a hotel booking site looks like. RBMalta is nothing like that. John didn’t want to annoy the users with hackneyed pictures of some fancy, baroque-style buildings and went the other way around. Enough of the talking, this is how the landing page of RBMalta looks: A cool drawing as a replacement for a typical “photostock-hotel-view-pic” Moving to the functionality of RBMalta, it’s as simple as a website can ever get, but at the same time very powerful. You can use the search form powered by Elasticsearch to find custom options or click on one of the buttons to rent or buy commercial and/or residential property. By this moment, you might have guessed what the “RB” letters stand for: rent and buy. After you enter a search query or choose either of the sections, you will be redirected to the page with the list of options and a map with a group of filters. The list is fairly simple and very responsive. Moreover, it features a customized Google Map, which, among other things, gives: approximate location of the object; off-center circle; the ability to group nearby properties and browse them in the hover section; save location every time the map moves; the ability to match list/filter/query results to the current map area. However, the real coolness begins when you start using filters: The search and filtering features in the admin panel are even more advanced, so RBMalta can easily handle 1000+ properties. Among dozens of other features, we have also implemented:   calendar schedulers for (auto) publishing; properties assigned to corresponding agents and the contact form for direct communication; good-looking property gallery and subtle watermarks on pictures for copyright protection; Despite the lack of design and relatively small budget, we were able to develop a fully-featured and high-performance application with a snappy back-office panel that is easy to use and visually appealing at the same time. We think, our dear reader, it’s time for you to go to http://rbmalta.com/ and have a look at some of the most beautiful real estate in the world. And, please, take a sec to give a thumbs up to John’s Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/rbmalta/ Real estate software development companies ### This is Why Your IT Business Should Support Open Source Software Despite many pessimistic predictions, open source is popular as ever and continues to strengthen its position. But the real paradox is that many IT businesses today depend on solutions with open code base even more than regular users. That’s right. What proprietary software aficionados were so afraid of during the last twenty years has now become true. The survey conducted by North Bridge shows that around 90% of companies are totally fine with using open source software. Moreover, it allowed them to improve on such aspects as efficiency, innovation, and interoperability. But is that really so? As a full-cycle web and mobile development company, JetRuby also relies on various open source software. For example, our backend developers use Ruby and Elasticsearch to build smooth and scalable websites with flexible search features, while Swift helps us to develop user-friendly iOS apps. Our clients’ projects are deployed on servers powered by Linux distributions. Ubuntu has been one of the standard operating systems in our company for years. In fact, there is a bunch of other open source software that has made its home in our stack of technologies: Ruby on Rails, Angular.JS, MongoDB, Python, React.JS, Gitlab, and many others. All of these tools and programming languages have allowed us to improve our development processes and consequently deliver projects to clients faster. Finally, open source software is just more secure than corporate software. If that comes out as a surprise for you, then you probably have never heard of the Linus’s law: “many eyes make all bugs shallow”. It boils down to simple mathematics. Most of the people who develop open source software are using it themselves, not mentioning that there can be up to tens of thousands of people involved in just one project. As a result, bugs and other defects are found and eliminated very quickly. The report from Coverity, a software testing company, confirms this. In a nutshell, they analyzed more than 1500 open-source projects including FreeBSD, LibreOffice, Hadoop, and some others. The results showed that open source software contains less bugs per one thousand lines of code than corporate software. So, if things look so great, why should you support open source software financially? Why would companies want invest into something that is so commercially unmeasurable as open source? From a business perspective, that kind of move hardly makes sense. You’d think…wouldn’t you? The reason is quite prosaic. Open source is not the horn of plenty. You can’t keep taking something for free, expecting it to last forever. The advantages of adopting open source have their price. When your company depends on a technology that was created by somebody else, it becomes exposed to a certain number of risks. For example, what do you think would happen if the framework your whole infrastructure is based on, ceases to be supported? Surely, if there are thousands of developers working in your company, then you’ll probably be able to allow a team or two on supporting that framework and that’s that. But what about small and midsize businesses? For them, finding an adequate replacement could be extremely challenging both in terms of time and money. That’s not mentioning potential reputational damage because of failing to continue development and/or maintenance of clients’ projects. In order to avoid that costly risk, companies need to make sure that the open source technologies they rely on will continue to be relevant and thrive in the future. That leaves you with two options: free community support and money donations. The first one is quite simple. You can contribute to development of new features, discuss them on forums, help with catching bugs, etc — we’ve been doing that for many years now. In the short term, it does help. But, in the end, it’s money donations that play the decisive role and here is why. Open source projects are the opposite of commercial software, so they have neither budget nor means to market themselves. At the same time, people who develop code for open source are usually volunteers, which means they’re paid elsewhere. So, unlike your business, they won’t lose much if their project stops. Luckily, the Internet offers many ways to donate to open source. One of them is opencollective. You can think of it as an advanced crowdfunding platform, where people can pick any of the available projects and help it financially. You’ll be surprised by the number of open source projects that are listed there. Dokku, Babel, RuboCop, Gulp.JS, redux-saga, Mocha.JS, and many others. The list is really huge there’s some names you may have heard of too! The website allows you to make monthly donations or become a sponsor. The difference between those two boils down to how much money you’re willing to donate. The first option is cheaper and mostly intended for regular users while the second one is more for businesses. In addition, the advantage of giving a larger sum of money is that your company’s logo will be placed in the section with sponsors both on the website and the GitHub page of the project. By the way, most recently we’ve donated to Webpack, a technology that has arguably made the Internet and frontend development what it is today. Since many of our projects that involved some frontend development are built using Webpack, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to support it. From this perspective, the profit of supporting open source financially is obvious. Doing that: Increases the chances of the specific technology to receive updates and develop in the future; Shows the community that your business appreciates the effort of people who work on open source; Simply promotes your company; Sometimes allows you to affect the future of not just a single technology, but the whole industry in general. The Bottom Line Open source isn’t a brand or a corporation. It’s a community of people like you who volunteered to help in solving other people’s challenges. As a result, the quality and, more importantly, the future of the open source technologies that your company uses depends on this community and its motivation. That’s why supporting open source with money donations is important as they facilitate the development of both the technology itself and the people that are around it. That’s why we do it and why we think you should too. Fintech software development companies ### How We Built Emergency App For Students: Knightly Case Study You’re not going to win any prizes for predicting that college students find themselves in awkward and sometimes even dangerous situations on an all too regular basis (but, seriously, who didn’t have fun during their college years!?). Whether it’s emulating crazy Internet challenges or hosting drunken parties only to prepare for an exam just in the nick of time, it’s well known that students tend to push their luck more often than adults. When you’re walking home alone at the crack of dawn, the odds of winding up in trouble are extremely high, especially if you live on the other side of town. Abigael Titcomb, a young entrepreneur from Boston, has experienced this problem a couple of times herself. She was in her second year at Northeastern University when she came up with the idea to create a personal emergency app that would provide safety to college students when they need it the most. The concept of her startup dubbed “Knightly” is based around a thumb-drive-sized portable device with a trigger-like button and a clip. This is what it looks like: The device is really simple, which is one of the reasons why it caught so much interest. There are two types of scenarios in which you can use Knightly. If you’re feeling uncomfortable for some reason, just slide the button once and the iOS app will send a text message with your current location to a preset emergency contact (you can specify any one). At the same time, if you know you’re in danger, slide the button and hold it in that position for three seconds. Knightly will instantly notify campus security and an officer will be dispatched to your location. Abigael contacted us to build an iOS app to pair with the device. Additionally, she needed a user-friendly dashboard from which the whole system could be managed. The app development process was not much of a concern to us since we had full confidence in our technical and management abilities. So once the brief research part was done, the rest of the work passed with flying colors. This was partly because we were able to completely understand the requirements of the iOS app and ultimately deliver the expected result. Abigael's feedback: Although I came to JetRuby with solely user stories and a very tight budget, they worked with me extensively to generate an amazing prototype spec that met all my needs and a development plan that worked for me. I have experienced nothing but great work ethic, reliability, high-quality code, and much-needed helpfulness. They use the most up to date technology and are pros at finding the best solutions for your technical problems — all at an unbeatable value. JetRuby isn’t just another development agency, they are a highly skilled and business savvy team of developers who will deliver exceptional work and creative problem-solving for a great price. Working with the team now to develop user stories for next round! Excited to get started! The opportunity to build an emergency app for Abigael wasn’t just another piece of experience on how to better use this or that technology or approach. No, it was much more than that. Abigael gave us a unique opportunity to contribute to a solution that saves people’s lives, literally. After all, there is nothing more valuable in this world than a person’s life. And so it happened that students are exposed to various risks more than older people. Having Knightly installed on their phones, they can now feel more secure. We’re extremely grateful to Abigael that she chose us as her partner to implement the idea of Knightly. We also hope that her example will inspire and encourage other young entrepreneurs and simply inspire people, who want to change this world for the better. As Chauncey Depew, a famous American politician, once said: “The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are”. Technologies we used: Ruby on Rails ES6 ReactJS Redux Google Maps PostgreSQL UIKit CoreBluetooth Foundation AddressBook AFNetworking ReactiveCocoa MBProgressHUD IQKeyboardManager Fabric Crashlytics SDWebImage Mixpanel Twilio Knightly Twitter — https://twitter.com/knightly_app ### Building a University App : NameCoach Case Study You’re standing waiting for a job interview. You’re standing at the front of the classroom, waiting to meet your students for the first time, in hospital meeting a patient. It’s a non-native citizen with an unpronounceable looking name…the fear hits you..what if you get it wrong?! You’ll never get the job, your students won’t respect you from the beginning, your patient will be downcast… don’t worry. As always, we got your back! Check out the solution here…. Many international students are studying at foreign universities (especially American Uni’s), and even more so with the advent of the EU Erasmus Project! But when a teacher wants to address a foreign student, they may find themselves facing a potentially nightmarish situation! Most likely, they will mispronounce and the communication between student and teacher will break down, respect will be lost, valuable time wasted and the Student/Teacher relationship will suffer for years to come… This is the smart bit. For about 3 years, our company has been working with NameCoach on a project to solve this problem. It’s a unique web application that offers a simple yet very effective solution to the ubiquitous and common problem of mispronouncing names! Used by some of the largest US universities and colleges in the world — to name a few: Stanford, Xavier, Haverford, CMU and Northwestern. NameCoach successfully tackles the problem of unnecessary alienation and embarrassment that occurs at graduation ceremonies and other important events: more frequently than you’d expect. At this moment, there are around 100,000 active users (and growing daily) that have been freed from this problem. One less problem for you to worry about, that little bit of extra productivity you can put into your day. Helping you achieve more and feel better. We look forward to the continuation of our fruitful collaboration with NameCoach, as we understand that these guys came up with an amazing idea, a real problem within the multicultural society we now live in and found an inventive, intuitive and above all simple way to solve it. Days like this, we really love the job we do and being able to make even a small difference to people’s lives, make them better in some way. Isn’t that what life’s about? That’s what we and NameCoach do, every day. Thanks to them for choosing us to be part of something that makes such a huge difference. Website: — https://cloud.name-coach.com LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/company/3633307 Twitter — https://twitter.com/NameCoach ### How To Stay In The Loop: LOOP Messenger Case Study Have you ever had this awesome idea on how to have a great time but you didn’t want to do it alone? The LOOP Messenger application allows you make new friends by creating and sharing your suggestions with other people or choose from available activities, deals, offers, events, or just random cool stuff. Based on your personal preferences and interests, the in-app feed provides only the most relevant suggestions. Sharing is based on either a specific location or a group of previously selected people (friends). LOOP Messenger is your ultimate way to always keep abreast of everything that’s upcoming regardless of where you are. The story Before the idea of LOOP Messenger emerged, the market had already been quite saturated with a wide range of social apps for posting, chatting, photos and videos exchange, etc. However, the vast majority of those services were nothing but media content aggregators. As the online activity and the amount of content generated were growing, users started to have more and more irrelevant information in their app feeds. So while others were focused on adding tons of sophisticated features in an attempt to hopefully balance the media flood, Tom Klein, the founder of LOOP Messenger, decided to go the other way around. Instead of creating a kind of a versatile media hub aimed to suit every possible user need, he decided to create a simple mobile app with just several but powerful features that would provide users with what other services never managed to — a better way of spending good time and making new friends. Objectives One of the fundamental components to be implemented was a highly personalized feed that would give the most accurate suggestions based solely on the user preferences, not people followed, and deliver the best possible “keep-me-posted” experience. Further, because of extreme competitiveness, it was crucial that the app architecture would allow for sudden and drastic changes to meet market trends. Solution Within a short period of time, our team built a simple application with an extremely flexible architecture that allowed for quick implementation of several major changes based on the client’s feedback. To provide the fastest possible user request processing, we used pure SQL since Active Record available in Rails by default is much slower due to specific limitations. In addition, it doesn’t always make optimized requests. Moving all the processes that calculate how user actions affect the feed of the other users to the background enabled the app to work with absolutely no delay. Result Simple and fast, LOOP Messenger is a mobile application that does exactly what a good social service is supposed to — provide users with an opportunity to find new friends and have a great time without having to spend hours on managing their newsfeeds and getting into hot online debates. Technologies that we used High-load PostgreSQL configuration; Ruby 2.0; Rails 4.2.6; Redis; Omniauth; Sidekiq; Puma; ElasticSearch. ### Top Five Reasons To Outsource Web And Mobile Development Delegating has been a recognizably useful tool for management, almost since the beginning of time. So has outsourcing. Recently, though, the latter has become somewhat of a hot topic in certain countries, after certain elections. It is true that keeping jobs local, matters. It is also true that sometimes outsourcing them really is the only or even best solution (Mr. President). So, make a cup of tea, (other beverages are available) and settle down to our top five reasons why outsourcing is not a divisive or difficult decision, it’s actually just good business sense… Outsourcing will allow you to focus on your core business processes This is an axiom which has been expounded upon by everyone from Richard Branson, through to even Oprah Winfrey, (Probably, at some point? Right…?). This is because it’s true. If the business was founded to provide banking services, for example, it’s because the founders had experience, knew the market and probably (even unbelievably) were passionate about it. Very few people are interested in development and code and even fewer of them are both passionate about it and have talent. So if your business deserves the best in terms of talent and commitment, why wouldn’t you hire people who are passionate about it? If that’s not you (which, Mr/Ms.StartUp, it probably isn’t) then find someone that is and give them the resources, space and opportunity to create something truly remarkable, born of passion and a deep knowledge-base, in a way that only a full-time developer can. Outsourcing web and mobile development allows a company to focus on the big picture: driving revenue. Without it, more jobs could be lost. Or, worse yet, the company could go under. Find what you need, and then find someone who does it with passion. Outsourcing supports your local economy In terms of web and mobile development, there are legitimate reasons to outsource — such as the well-documented shortage of developers in the United States and the high salaries that these guys command (which SMEs may not be able to afford). There’s not much choice but to seek talent outside the United States for many companies who struggle to hire development resources locally. The same is true in many other countries. Otherwise, the economic impact becomes bigger than the perceived threat of a job being done a few time zones away; it becomes a tale of economic stagnation, unprofitability for enterprises and lack of innovation on the home-front. Outsourcing web and mobile development supports a company’s profitability, which builds a robust local economy; spurs innovation, which is needed for companies to grow and compete around the globe. Outsourcing is an effective way for companies to achieve their goals, while still contributing effectively to the local economy. Having all experts you need in one place We all know Techies are extremely important (and let’s be honest, ever so slightly cool!). But many other job roles are needed to bring your web or mobile project from page to screen. Let’s not forget about QAs, who will ferret out every bug with their watchful eyes and endless capability to press buttons in the wrong order, write mind bendingly complex and illateral tests, PMs, whose job it is to keep in check your merry band of programmers as well as UX/UI designers, who will take care of enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and if we get it right, pleasure. And of course finding and hiring all these people requires money and time. So, the next plus to outsourcing web and mobile development is the fact that you have all people you need in one place. One phone call and we’re there. We don’t need complex discussions about hiring procedure, matching of work ethics, salaries, etc. The team just gets it done. Fast. Time is money right? And let’s be honest, that goes for you and us. Reduced business risks How about this…..’’your business, our problem’’. To all those micro-managers out there this literally sounds like their worst nightmare, ‘’your business, your baby’’ sounds more legit. But for those businesses focused on rapid, effective growth, trusting in a collaborative meritocracy, which, let’s face it, is most modern businesses; might prick up a few ears! Software houses and BPO companies face far higher liabilities than in-house staff, which makes us less of a risk for your business. It’s simple. We have more to lose if we don’t follow through on our agreements. We’re responsible for our mistakes. So when you’re outsourcing your digital product, you can be sure that if anything goes wrong your software house will fix it on the house. In the case of hiring an in-house dev team… then it’s your problem and your money. Sound good? Didn’t think so. Being ahead of the tech curve Finally, and certainly not least, mobile and web technologies are constantly evolving, so for your business to be able to compete with the top players in your field, you’re going to need access to the most advanced tools and resources. With the latest technologies and strategies, you’re able to maintain a competitive edge in a fast-paced marketplace. In business, time is money. Ineffective or inefficient software development equates to lost money and potentially lost customers. Let your third-party design and development team work out the time-consuming kinks of your project so that your products or services can hit the market as quickly as possible, thus saving you both time and money. Everyone has heard of the first mover advantage, right? Don’t lose yours by simply not following the time honoured rules of business, Do what you do, better than anyone else. Find people who have the same attitude, and let them do the rest. By the way, take a look at the article about Outsourced Software Development Projects. Also, if you liked the article, don’t forget to leave comments below and share it in your socials with your friends! ### We Held Our First Hackathon And It’s Been Amazing With summertime around the corner, people are looking forward to have fun more and more every day. Despite being a solid IT company that’s all about standards and best practices, we know how to have fun too. So, recently, JetRuby has held a Hackathon. Basically, it’s a place where you can contribute to projects of other people or come up with your own idea and bring it to life. “How’s it different to a regular day at work?” First, there are no guidelines or rules you would normally find while working on an actual commercial project. Second, the time allowed for the implementation of a whole project (or a minimum deliverable) is usually very limited. In our case, the teams were given two days. Finally, people can try themselves in different roles. If you’re a developer and you’ve always wanted to experience what it’s like to be a project manager/QA engineer/designer/etc., you can become one for the time a Hackathon is held. “Ok, but how’s that fun?” Well, since there are no strict rules, teams can have drinks or play a couple of matches in FIFA while waiting for their code to be compiled. What’s more, in addition to learning a lot of new tech stuff, Hackathon also allows you to see that working in a team can be truly fun! In this article, we’re going to tell you about the most interesting projects that our guys were working on. There is also a short part after that, in which they’re sharing their thoughts and emotions about this event. Project #1 — Telegram bot Idea of the project: create a Telegram bot that would convert website articles into telegraph pages and send them right to your smartphone. People on the team: 2. Time spent: 8 hours. Technologies used:Ruby on Rails, Telegram API, and Telegraph API. Challenges Considering the time limitation, getting started with Telegram’s API took some effort. Main features The bot leverages the “Instant View” feature so that you can receive your articles within seconds. Downloaded articles can be accessed offline. The bot stores a backup copy of your articles on the Telegraph servers. You can promptly receive push-notifications about newly published articles. Nice and clean UI. What’s been accomplished The team was able to develop a telegram bot with a mailing list. https://jetruby.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/ezgif.com-gif-maker.mp4 Project #2 — Arcade game Idea of the project: Develop an engaging arcade game with an appealing and simple interface. Number of people on the team: 2. Time spent: 6 hours. Technologies used: Unity and С#. Challenges Rendering of elements was a new thing to the team. Main features The game script consists of a certain number of levels. You’re playing as a ball, which is trapped inside a labyrinth and needs to find a way out (you can see the gameplay screenshots below). The main feature of the game is that the circles of the labyrinth are constantly rotating, wherein the speed can change depending on a specific level. For skilled players, the game can offer various bonuses and perks, e.g. you can simply “freeze” the circles and finish the level within a couple of seconds. What’s been accomplished The team fully implemented the basic logic of the application and the first two levels of the game. https://jetruby.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/ezgif.com-gif-maker-1.mp4 Project #3 — virtual remote office Idea of the project: create an application that would provide smooth interaction between teams, emulating real office communication. People on the team: 4. Time spent: 60 hours. Technologies used: Elixir/Phoenix, VueJS, WebSocket and WebRTC. Challenges Despite the fact that WebRTC is quite stable and has been being used for a while, it turned out to be challenging for the team. Looking into all the specifications, knowing we had only one day in store, was quite a struggle. There are great examples and wrappers, but they either have really poor documentation or are too inflexible to implement right off the bat. Main features The application has many advantages for remote employees. It allows for creating fully custom virtual offices with an unlimited number of rooms. After you’ve created a map, you can enter any room to join a text or voice chat with your colleagues. What’s been accomplished Within a short period of time, we were able to make a proof of concept and set plans for the future development of the project. Project #4 — Gourmand Idea of the project: create an application to simplify the procedure of submitting and tracking expenses for the company employees. Number of people on the team: 3. Time spent: 15 hours. Technologies used: Ruby on Rails. Main features The app allows you to sign in using your Google account. Uploading a photo of your lunch receipts takes just a few clicks. The calendar provides all the necessary information. You can easily access and keep track of your budget balance. What’s been accomplished The team fully implemented their project being able to develop both mobile and desktop versions. Using this application, office managers can forget about daunting and time-consuming paperwork, while company employees can rest assured knowing their week budget isn’t going to shrink because of lost receipts. https://jetruby.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/ezgif.com-gif-maker-2.mp4 What the participants think about the event Oleg (the organizer): I enjoyed this Hackathon a lot. I think the biggest win was that we didn’t have to rush like crazy and were able to define the scope of tasks and come up with basic functionality before the actual development started. Our team also knew that we might not be able to implement every piece of functionality in time, especially that we decided to experiment with mixing technologies like Elixir+Phoenix, Vuejs, and WebRTC. But that didn’t upset us. Anyway, that feeling when you’re sitting with your team knowing you’ve finally achieved the goal after one sleepless night is hard to put into words. But the event didn’t stop there. We had an office party up to 5 AM, which was also great!  Bogdan (Front-end developer): For me, taking part in a Hackathon is like doing an all-nighter with Heroes of Might and Magic and stuff — there is no way you can know how it will end :) I liked that everybody was able to choose from activities that they enjoy in the first place. Another thing I liked was that several people could work on the same task (e.g. Bob writes code while Alice refines it afterward). The quality you get in the end is insane.  Andrey (Elixir developer): The reason Hackathon grabbed my attention was that I saw a great opportunity to gain new experience. At first, I was only excited about working with new technologies, but then I started to dig the idea of creating a virtual office. After all, I had an actual opportunity to create something useful for my team and for the company in general. In spite of the fact that we faced some challenges during the development, I think that we did a great job. Artur (Front-end developer): I decided to participate because I found the concept (of a virtual office) appealing. I’m very proud that I had a chance to work with such a great team and was able to contribute.  Pavel (Author; RoR backend): I’ve been having a lot of ideas and Hackathon enabled me to bring all of them to life! I was working in two different teams. In the first one, I was working as the author of the mobile game and in the second one, I was helping to develop the telegram bot. I’m glad that we have accomplished everything we wanted. Alexey (RoR backend): I took part in Hackathon and it’s been amazing. I was able not only to gain new experience but also to make something that’s truly useful for my company. Our goal was to create a solution that we could use in our office, which we did. I am very happy. Summing up This was the first time we had an event like Hackathon. Because this was only a beta version, the list of participant included only JetRuby employees. However, we learned a lot and have already come up with lots of cool things for the next Hackathon. More importantly, we’ll be sure to invite people from other companies, which will definitely make the event truly amazing and unforgettable. Hope you’ve enjoyed this post! ### Implementing the “Abandoned Cart” Gem or How to Return Your Customers According to Baymard Institute’s research, which they conducted in 2015, the online shopping cart abandonment rate was 68.63%. This means that for every 100 possible online customers, 68 of them left the website without buying a darn thing. What stopped them? Lots of things! For example, overpriced and low-quality goods, expensive or delayed delivery etc. However, the biggest reason why customers left, was poor implementation quality of the websites they visited. Too slow payment processing systems, buggy user interface, no mobile version support — that’s the price for entrusting your business to amateurs. “Is there a way to prevent that?” Yes, there is. We recommend using the solution called “abandoned cart”. It prevents shopping carts, well, from being abandoned. Basically, this feature sends trigger emails with the lists of cart items. A user opens the email, sees the list of his cart items and goes back to the website. “Why are you so sure it even works?” According to marketing experts 30% of customers who receive these emails return. Moreover, 70% of them are most likely to complete the purchase. But that’s true only if your emails look unobtrusive and nicely composed. Also, if there is a solution that can provide you with the mentioned features right out of the box, it’s a MailChimp and Mandrill combo for the win. MailChimp MailChimp is a multifunctional online paid solution for email marketing. It allows you to manage subscriptions and mailing lists by subscribers. This feature may come in really handy for quick A/B testing. Further, MailChimp can gather statistics like mailing results and letters openings. The service has an embedded template editor that is basically just a set of ready templates. Customization features include the ability to code in HTML. It might even seem that the basic version is too overloaded with HTML elements. The templates can be adjusted for mobile devices. As for the cons, old browsers and Outlook aren’t supported, and custom fonts take quite a lot of time to work with. JetRuby’s advice: use web fonts similar to ones from your Google Fonts collection. For developers, MailChimp provides a well documented and functional API. It has integrable libraries and modules written in popular languages including Ruby and GoLang. MailChimp has also its own transactional platform with almost the same convenient API — Mandrill. Solving the abandoned cart problem We developed a Ruby gem called “spree_abandoned_cart” which can be easily integrated into Mandrill API. The very implementation of this gem consists of 3 steps: Schedule your email send-out. The step also includes marketing and design works. Ask your backend team to find carts that were abandoned. Automate the mailing and monitoring process to search for abandoned carts available. Let’s take a closer look at the second point. We’ll use the code sample for Spree Commerce (3 methods of the “Spree::Order” class). The first method returns the “Spree::Order” samples collection. Wherein “Spree::Order” should meet particular requirements: unfinished and unpaid orders with set expiration date and the emails to which they haven’t been sent before. Calling the mailer to send an email to the necessary address: The method is usually extended with additional perks like the ones responsible for calling the planner of the next mailing. Further, you can see we call the first two methods for the selected “abandoned carts”. This method is also convenient to use say in a background worker or in any other place where you need to call upon this logic. The perfect recipe to send abandoned cart emails JetRuby advice: sending a series of 3 emails per customer works best. What’s more important, this allows you to conduct A/B testing. Thus, you can check the efficiency of your email-campaign. Basically, A/B testing is exactly what it sounds like: you’ve got two versions of something and a metric that defines success. To determine which version is better, you subject both versions to experimentation at the same time. After that you see which one was more successful and pick that version for real-world use. It’s all about the right timing “What do I need to include into the emails?” Pictures of items from the abandoned cart, customer feedback, item specials and discounts, service support, refund info etc. A highlighted CTA telling the customer to complete the purchase, e.g. a well placed and nice button. It’s important to remind your customers about what they were doing on your website because 97.8% of them forget about it after 9 days, according to experts. “How often do I need to send the emails?” Send the first email within the first 2 hours after the customer abandoned his cart. Send the second one within 2 days after the first email was sent. Offer the customer some specials or a discount. Send the third one within 7 days after the second email was sent. Offer a lower discount — the customer is likely to take the second offer seeing that it has more benefits for him. Up to 70% of returns through “abandoned cart” emails occur within the first 2 hours after the purchase. “Can I send more than 3 emails?” Sending more than 3 emails to one customer is ineffective. Also, this will most likely ruffle their feathers. Analytics and A/B testing There are 3 ways to track user behavior and conversion rate as well as other important indicators. The easiest one is to use the standard tools of MailChimp and Mandrill. They can provide you with some pretty versatile A/B testing tools. Another common way to test email marketing efficiency is to set up Google Analytics. We recommend you configuring Enhanced Ecommerce from GA. If you encounter any issues during configuration, feel free to ask us here. However, the best way to track user behavior and conversion rate is to create your own analytical system with partial synchronization with other analytical resources. “When do I need it?” It will be of great help if you have a highly-loaded middle- or premium-segment online store. Not cheap to develop, but such custom solution pays off. Usually, similar features offered by external services like Google are very expensive and not safe in terms of data protection from different kinds of business intelligence. The Bottom Line Ever since online shopping has appeared, customers have become even more difficult to satisfy. But as long as you have a well planned marketing strategy any sale bottleneck such as abandoned cart can be easily solved. Simply follow the tips we’ve enlisted in the article and most of the related problems won’t even try bothering you =) ### Top 20 E-Commerce Business Ideas One idea can have big impact or even totally change a business. It could boost revenue, lower expenses, or attract new customers. In this article, the leading industry experts are sharing solid, innovative E-commerce ideas to help your business. If you want to find out more about the best eCommerce software systems, read this post about E-commerce Software Development companies. 1. Go Mobile Now More consumers are shopping on their mobile devices. If you haven’t already, now’s the time to invest in a mobile-optimized website. Make sure your entire website is optimized, not just your home page, and consider a responsive CSS design, not a separate stand-alone mobile website. – Steve Bulger, eFulfillment Service 2. Never Let your E-Commerce Site Look Old Review the look-and-feel of your website against your competitors. Make sure that they’ve not leaped ahead and built sites that look better. What passed as attractive and professional a few years ago may now look outdated and cheap. – Richard Stubbings, E-Commerce Merchant, KultureShock.co.uk 3. Create a simple Shopping Experience Smaller E-Commerce businesses sometimes make their sites too complex, with much product hierarchy, which makes it difficult for shoppers to find the exact products that they are looking for. Remember how your shoppers think of your products, such as by type (shirts vs. pants), features (red vs. blue), or by product variations (long sleeve vs. short). Then create a simple shopping experience to help them easily find what they need. – Jerry Jao, Retention Science. 4. Show your products You need to show how your products work, and look ( including different angles) to potential customers. Consider creating 3d models or animations. – Jason Lawrence, Jason Lawrence, Arqspin 5. High-quality images matter The picture sells it for you. It may not be cheap to hire a professional photographer to catalog your entire product line, but it’ll definitely pay off in the short term. In addition, markets such as eBay and Amazon and other powerful trading platforms put severe demands on the quality of the images, so your investment can help increase sales through repeated use in multiple sales channels. – Steve Bulger, eFulfillment Service 6. Ask More of Manufacturers Too often businesses invest unnecessary resources and time creating product photos and videos when manufacturers would gladly provide them for free, if only the businesses would ask. Talk to the manufacturer, write him, visit his promotional website before you grab your Nikon. – Jason Lawrence, Arqspin 7. Review Site-search Data for ‘No Results’ Be sure that you’re capturing searches on your site that return no results.This can be through Google Analytics (recording a Google Analytics event, updating a custom variable, or using the “Category” value within the Site Search configuration) or through your site-search engine’s native reporting. For the most common search terms that return no results, consider adding content to your site to suggest products that might be a good alternative. – Tim Wilson, Web Analytics Demystified 8. Encourage Customer Contact Reward your shoppers every time they they interact with your business. If they fill out the “contact us” form, make sure your response addresses whatever question they had, but also include a discount or other special offer. Consider giving shoppers something — a discount, free shipping certificate, a free item, or similar — each time they proactively contact your store. – Roggio Armando, E-Commerce Consultant, Author, Developer 9. Use customer feedback for marketing purposes Send feedback surveys within two weeks of shipping customer orders. This is your best opportunity to gather their opinions when the experience is still fresh in their minds. Try to group your products into five categories, and get customers to select the product they bought in one category as one of your first questions. This exposes them to your other products. Also, if you sell anything that can be marketed as gifts, ask them when they would give these items as gifts. You may discover, for example, they would give Category A for Christmas gifts, Category B for baby gifts and Mother’s Day gifts, and Category C for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and wedding gifts. You may find that people view your products as potential gifts for occasions you may not have considered and see niche opportunities via age, gender, location, and spending patterns. – Elizabeth Ball, E-Commerce Merchant, ItsInTheStarsOnline.com 10. Avoid Additional Offers During the Checkout Process — Gagan Mehra, Ecommerce Data-management Consultant Keep a laser focus on your customers’ buying the products they have added to the cart, versus showing more cross-sells, up-sells, or other promotions as part of the checkout process. Only after the purchase is complete should your site show the customer any offers or recommendations. This ensures the customer has no other option but to complete the purchase during the checkout flow. – Gagan Mehra, E-Commerce Data-management Consultant 11. Send Thank You Cards to New, Loyal Shoppers — Armando Roggio, Ecommerce Consultant, Author, and Developer Consider sending new customers, or customers who have placed multiple orders, a thank you card, hand signed. The card should tell the shopper that you appreciate the business and that you’re available to help. Be sure to include your direct phone number and email address. – Armando Roggio, E-Commerce Consultant, Author, Developer 12. Focus on Retaining Existing Customers What proportion of your business comes from existing customers versus new ones? Compare this to your sales and marketing spend. How much is spent on existing customers versus new? Consider making customer retention your new acquisition strategy. Focus sales and marketing expenditures on delivering remarkable experiences worth recommending. That is the secret to sustainable growth. – Paul Chaney, Chaney Marketing Group 13. Audit your E-Commerce Business Conduct an audit of your ecommerce site at least every week. Purchase a product via a complete checkout. Visit a wide variety of pages. Double check the recent promotions to ensure stale links and landing pages are removed. Make sure seasonal items are still appropriate. Do your own quality check to ensure your customer experience is the way you planned. – Dale Traxler, E-Commerce Consultant, Author 14. Experiment Try new things regularly. Use A/B testing to identify optimal content, designs, and landing pages. Raise or lower prices on selected items. Try unusual products. Create a new offer for free shipping. Offer a “Finally It’s Friday” sale once a quarter. In other words, don’t let your online store become stagnant. Don’t want to change everything all at once? Keep it discreet and simple so no one can track the impact. – Dale Traxler, E-Commerce Consultant, Author 15. Use Social Sharing Include social sharing on all product-detail pages to easily enable shoppers to share via social channels. This will give shoppers an easy way to share their favorite products with their friends on Facebook and Twitter or pin a product to Pinterest. By including social sharing, you not only provide value to the shopper, you also put your products in the social feeds of those shoppers’ friends. – Tina Kelly, Digital Marketing Consultant 16. Use Incentivized Time Constraints An incentivized time constraint is when you make an offer that has a time limit on it. There are tools that make this easy, like Time2Buy. It allows you to pop-up an offer based on an action set. So if your user visits three pages or has been on your site for 90 seconds (or whatever criteria you want) you can pop-up a window with a relevant offer that says something like, “Check out within the next 5 minutes and get 10% off.” The window will have a countdown timer. It encourages shoppers to make quick decisions. – Ezra Firestone, SmartMarketer.com 17. For Affiliate Marketing, Get Creative Affiliate marketing is no longer restricted to just ad banners appearing in sidebars. Provide your affiliates with creative and informative copy and you’ll stand a good chance of capturing central real estate on their sites as affiliates incorporate your copy in their content. – Carolyn Kmet, All Inclusive Marketing 18. Shopping Cart Recovery Emails Generate High ROI oughly 70 percent of consumers that place items in an online shopping cart will abandon it and not purchase. Sending triggered recovery emails is remarkably effective, and should recover between 10 and 30 percent of abandoners, which translates into one of the highest investment returns in ecommerce. Send a sequence of emails, typically three, starting with the first in real time. It’s a simple concept: trigger an email when someone abandons the shopping cart, but avoid two major pitfalls. First, ensure that your campaign is always in step with customers. This means tracking visitors on the site in real time to ensure that you do not send emails to customers that have already purchased. Second, take great pains with promotions to ensure that you don’t train customers to abandon more to receive a promotional offer. – Charles Nicholls, SeeWhy 19. Be Transparent with Shipping Costs Surprises can lead to shopping cart abandonment. Try to be transparent as possible with your shipping policy. If you have free or flat-rate shipping, make sure people know it. Plaster it on the top of your home page and throughout your website: “Everyday free shipping on orders over $50!” – Steve Bulger, eFulfillment Service 20. Match Each of your Products to Keywords Matching each of your products to keywords will get you very cheap clicks on paid, comparison-shopping engines like Google Shopping and PriceGrabber. Most retailers use the standard product names given to them by their suppliers. If you’re selling a gift basket that has smoked salmon in it, for example, call it a “smoked salmon gift basket.” This way you have keyword-relevant products. When someone types in that query to a shopping engine, you could be the only one with a relevant product and therefore get cheaper clicks than everyone else.Most retailers don’t take the time to match their products to keywords. – Ezra Firestone, SmartMarketer.com Which one of these E-Commerce ideas resonated with you the most? Did you agree with all of them? Share your thoughts in the comments below! ### Tools Which Make Our Communication Highly Effective The way you communicate both within a team and with customers, plays an extremely important role in the project’s success. The better communication processes are established , the more likely you’ll meet the client’s expectations and he’ll be satisfied with the results. The main question is how to build really effective communication on a daily basis. Nowadays there are many services which can help you organize the communication process. And every day new ones emerge on the market. It’s difficult to evaluate the tool until you use it or someone gives you tips. As one of the to Mobile App Development Companies, we’d like to share our own experience with you. PLANNING “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” said Benjamin Franklin. We completely agree. That’s why we devote enough time and resources to determining the correct requirements. We schedule iteration planning meetings where the requirements are defined and analyzed. Thereafter developers offer a cost-efficient solution with proper estimates. It’s important for every team member to take part in these meetings in order to get a clear understanding of his scope of work and the expected results. We use a Pivotal Tracker to make our planning organized. It’s a project management tool where the whole picture of the development process is displayed. In the very beginning, new stories are created in the Backlog. After certain tasks are selected for development, they are moved to the Current and the ones which are not in priority can be moved to the Icebox. We form a new iteration with a definite time frame, estimate every task and assign it to a developer. If a story is not clear, or the client has additional requirements, there is a possibility for discussion inside every task. All comments (both ours and customer’s) connected to a specific feature are gathered in one place so that everyone could look through them and understand the requirements properly. It’s very convenient to track the work in Pivotal. You can always see in the interface whether an indicated task is started, finished or delivered. That allows one not to distract developers from work each time you want to determine real-time information about progress. STANDUPS Every day starts with a stand-up meeting where everybody shares their accomplishments for the previous day, plans for the upcoming day and issues that block further work. We discuss these blockers and try to resolve them immediately during the meeting. If an issue requires some time to deal with it, it’s assigned to the person who is aware of how to figure it out. What’s new and seems difficult for one person can be a minute task for a more experienced one. We always lend each other a helping hand and it significantly saves hours which could be spent on googling in behalf of the project development. Short meeting notes with assigned tasks are shared with all team members right after a standup. It is difficult to keep everything in mind. That’s why a list of should-be-done tasks is a good organizer and helps not to forget about important things to do. For a while we’ve been looking for a good tool to write down meeting notes. Willing to have several services combined we decided to try out Do, a young and promising startup. Do caught our attention by comprehensible interface, nice design and ease in use. It’s not feature-rich service but it has all we need — timeline with events, possibility to assign tasks and track follow-ups, share meeting notes with all participants and see its history. Furthermore it has an integration with Google Calendar which is a big advantage for us, as we do not have to do double work and duplicate events. RETROSPECTIVES We carefully plan our work, accurately write code and scrupulously check it. Still, we always look for ways to make our work better and more effective. Once every two weeks we discuss the progress at the retrospective meeting. We speak about everything, starting from accuracy of specifying requirements and making estimates up to the right time to notify the client about deploy to production. This analysis allows us to see our strengths and weaknesses and convert weaknesses into strengths. Trello helps us a lot with this activity. With its different lists and cards, retrospectives have become a pleasant process. There are three lists: what we did well during past two weeks, what puzzles us and what can be improved. Before the meeting, all team members add cards with description to each column. The big plus is that we can see who created the card, so it’s easy to take into account the opinion or understand the needs of every person. _________ DAY-TO-DAY COMMUNICATION We were using combination of Skype and Email for daily communication. When we got acquainted with Slack this situation changed. You might be surprised, but now 80% of our communications are done through Slack. What’s more, I cannot imagine how we could work effectively without this awesome tool. Slack has many features which make our life easier. It provides real-time communication between teammates in private and in groups. You can say this functionality is the same as Skype. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. The most interesting is going to be revealed further in the article. What we love in Slack: #1 Integration with external services We work with different programs, such as Github, Pivotal Tracker, Google Drive, Trello etc. More than half of our emails were from these tools. It was sometimes difficult to find needed email in such a flow. Slack brings all notifications into one place. Integrations can be set up to post to Slack as events occur in outside services. That makes easier tracking all actions — whether it is adding a new task in Pivotal Tracker or closing pull requests in GitHub — and allows us to react faster to any issues. #2 Open channels For projects/topics we create channels which are open for every team member who wants to join . Channels increase transparency by sharing knowledge with everyone. Messages, files, comments, integration with tools are gathered in channels. All internal discussions related to projects take place there. During conversations specific people can be mentioned, thereafter they get a notification and understand that their participation is required. #3 Private groups Besides open channels, we use private groups in Slack. Only invited people see the content of these groups. We use them to communicate with clients in a daily work. It’s very convenient to be able to discuss issues with customers in a real time and get quick feedback. #4 Advanced search There is a possibility to add Word docs, Google Docs, PDFs, Photoshop files, commit messages to Slack. No matter how your file is uploaded –directly or through integrations — you can search inside anything you add to Slack. #5 Have an update wherever you are What a big plus it is that slack will notify you of new activity on your mobile, desktop or via email. That’s very convenient, especially for the team members that are moving around a lot. As you can see from above, Slack is a great tool. However we use traditional emails and Skype too. While real time communication with clients is done in Slack, daily/weekly/iteration reports are sent to customer via email. We also use email project groups to send an important update to all team members. Stand-ups, retrospectives, release dates and many other events are planned in Google Calendar. When any changes occur, participants are notified via email in advance, accordingly everyone can organize own schedule properly. Having combined all these tools we have an established communication system that shows positive results. All the information is in the right places and everyone knows where to find it. This allows us to spare more time for work and make it much more productive. ### Log Management: Graylog vs ELK Whether you are a developer or a DevOps engineer, sooner or later you will need to check production logs which are usually scattered across different servers. What complicates the situation is that when data volume starts growing, management and maintenance of the environment can take a lot more time than you would want it to. Moreover, bigger data flows result in delayed insights on your project status. At this point, a question arises: what can I do to keep things in check? Tech Tip: Transform yourself into a tech-savvy and 24*7 productive programming professional; by remotely accessing your essential programming tools such as emulators and IDE`s on your smartphone device itself with citrix vdifrom CloudDesktopOnline.com. If you prefer a gpu dedicated server, Rent a server at affordable prices from Apps4Rent! The best way to avoid any mess without having to spend much time is to store server/application logs in one place. In this article, we’re going to make a comparison of two most popular open-source solutions that we use to simplify the logs management procedure: Graylog vs ELK(Elasticsearch+Logstash+Kibana). Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana ELK is a combo of three separate services. All of them are open-source and developed by the same team. Elasticsearch is a very powerful and highly scalable search engine that can store large amounts of data and be used as a cluster. Logstash is a tool for fetching data from/to a specific location. Comes with a wide variety of plugins and a big user community. Kibana is a GUI that provides you the ability to search, analyze and visualize large amounts of complex data from the Elasticsearch database. The deployment process takes not more than 5 minutes. Since we’re mainly interested in logs aggregation, we’ll probably skip the part about Elasticsearch. ELK in a nutshell In most cases, the ELK stack uses Filebeat. The purpose of this tool is to deliver logs to a specific server. After they have been delivered with Filebeat and processed with Logstash, they are put into ElasticSearch cluster. From there, the logs are taken for visualization by Kibana. All the mentioned steps are described in the scheme below. Logstash Pros The reason why Logstash is so popular is because it can be easily integrated with other Elastic products. In addition, there is a whole bunch of plugins making this tool extremely flexible. It also comes with comprehensive documentation that has everything necessary for you configure and use Logstash in pretty much any case scenario. Finally, the installation procedure is very simple. Logstash Cons Logstash’s weak spot has always been performance and resource consumption. Though performance is now a lot better than a couple of years ago, it is still quite slow compared to other solutions. This can be an issue for high traffic deployments when Logstash servers would require to be comparable with the Elasticsearch ones. And the last but not least — Logstash has no GUI in the out-of-the-box version so you need to manually configure it by modifying the config files. What about Kibana? Since we used Kibana on one of our recent projects we decided why not include to include some screenshots on how to output and visualize data through this tool. And because the Internet is full of set-up tutorials like this one, we won’t dwell on this point and get straight to business. The screen below is the place where you can choose the necessary visualization type. After you’ve selected the type, you will be asked which index you want to get information from. The choice of index is based on what indexes are currently available in your ElasticSearch cluster. On the screenshot below, you can see that you need to add the data or/and value fields depending on the kind of data there is. When it’s done, Kibana will output and visualize the statistics in the form of the chart selected. In addition to storing data and visualizing it, we use Kibana to provide our clients with detailed information and statistics on how their applications work in a production environment. Overall, ELK is a versatile combo. The stack can be used as a stand-alone application, or be integrated with existing applications to receive the most updated data. Graylog Graylog is a powerful tool for logs management that gives you lots of options on analyzing incoming logs from different servers. The way Graylog works is pretty much similar to ELK. In addition to the very Graylog server, which consists of the application and the web interface server, you will also need to have MongoDB and Elasticsearch in order to make the whole stack fully operable. For production usage, we recommend installing all the components on different servers. This will improve stability and performance. So, these are the ingredients you’ll need: Elasticsearch. MongoDB — a widely used database engine for storing configurations and metadata. Graylog main server — receives data from its clients installed on different servers. Graylog web interface — gives you access to the web interface that visualizes data and allows you to work with logs aggregated by the main server. The configuration process consists of 2 steps: Creation of a tagged Graylog configuration to be used by the clients on the server side. Sending the configurations to the clients. For instance, when you set up a client, you mark its configuration file with a “production” tag. After that, you create detailed configurations on the server for the clients with the “production” tag. Now all changes will be automatically picked up from the server as soon as you apply them, no other changes are required to be done on the client’s side. As we said before, Graylog provides you with really good management options: you can search for all the IP addresses blocked by a firewall for the past week, all the unsuccessful SSH logins. Further, you can create filters based on specified parameters. From our experience, this greatly simplifies the searching process in future. Mind that creating a user is required to get into the web interface. You need to configure “Inputs” from different servers which will send logs to your Graylog instance. These logs is where you will be extracting data from: If you click “Show received messages” you will be taken directly to actual logs which were sent from the input source. The search bar: “gl2-source-input” specifies the exact source of your graylog client. You can type any query and it will filter logs in a way that only the necessary information will be shown. Also, there is a time filter. Say, you want to see if there was anything blocked from 12 am till 7 am on a particular server. That’s one of the reasons we’re using Graylog. Graylog pros It has a friendly GUI and supports a wide range of data formats. Provides you with good options to control authentication and user permissions. You can also configure it to receive alerts via emails. Finally, Graylog uses good-ol REST API. Graylog cons Graylog can’t read from syslog files, so you need to send your messages to Graylog directly. In terms of management, it’s not friendly enough on the dashboard front. Reporting functionality is quite poor. Graylog vs ELK — which is better? Both solutions are very similar in terms of a basic set of features. However, as Elasticsearch fans, we still prefer Graylog over ELK since it has a friendly GUI right out of the box and allows you to manage permissions. Also, Kibana has no feature to create users. However, we managed to solve this problem by setting up basic HTTP authentication in Nginx. It has a server running on a random port which forwards requests to your Kibana web interface. ### The Elixir Language — Who Said Magic Doesn’t Exist? As you’ve probably guessed (based on the name of our company), we’re fans of Ruby on Rails. It helped us implement various projects and feel comfortable in the world of programming. Nevertheless, everything is constantly evolving. Every day appear new languages, frameworks, and architectures that bring new approaches and opportunities. This episode will be devoted to one of these opportunities: the Elixir language. Among all the thousand of various programming languages this powerful technology will allow you to implement your project using simple but at the same time elegant solutions. Before we tell you the story of our experience with the Elixir language, let’s find out how it joins the ranks of top-class coding languages. The story behind the Elixir language Elixir was invented by José Valim, who’s famous Ruby developer and creator of many cool gems. When developing Elixir, he wanted to enable higher extensibility and productivity in the Erlang Virtual Machine, while keeping compatibility with Erlang’s ecosystem. Here’s what José tells how he comes to that matter: “It is a long story, but I will try to make it short and sweet. Back in 2010, I was working on improving Rails performance when working with multi-core systems, as our machines and production systems are shipping with more and more cores. However, the whole experience was quite frustrating as Ruby does not provide the proper tool for solving concurrency problems. That’s when I started to look at other technologies and I eventually fell in love with the Erlang Virtual Machine. I started using Erlang more and more and, with experience, I noticed that I was missing some constructs available in many other languages, including functional ones. That’s when I decided to create Elixir, as an attempt to bring different constructs and excellent tooling on top of the Erlang VM.” No sooner said than done and José Valim made his dream a reality. This is how the world saw Elixir. As soon as we realized that this technology can make the development process even more effective, we started using it without a second thought! Alright, let’s get to the point. Imagine a usual morning of some usual software developer. They make themselves a cup of coffee, open some post about the advantages of a programming language and see the following phrase: “Just add more servers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” Here’s the point, when a programming language is quite slow in terms of its performance, this advice can be considered just as one of the justifications. Just add more servers… Actually, let’s be honest, thanks to the orchestration tools of containers (Kubernetes, OpenStack), you won’t need to make much efforts to meet this challenge. Nevertheless, there’s one downside. A software package should be implemented as a stateless service. If we talk about regular web-service, it all comes down to storing the files in a cloud (Amazon S3, Minio) as well as using some database management system. Having made our application stateless, we just move tasks of scaling from one tool to another(from runtime to a database). Honestly, do you really find Node.js a good tool? After all this? You can use any other platform instead nodejs and you’ll get the same valid statement. Even various esoteric languages can be scaled this way. On the other hand, the question is: “How difficult will it be to use these languages for writing the programs?” Thanks to the stateless approach, we can unnoticeably replace containers and provide a high availability to the server. Now we’re getting to real life examples where we used the magic of Elixir. Our experience with Elixir language One of the projects we worked with was an online game. Each session of this game can last for 4 hours, where can participate about 4 players. There’s a fixed time limit for each player to make a move. So there were the following non-functional requirements: concurrency and availability (our game should always answer and can’t be blocked by other processes on the server); bidirectional communication (the data should be retrieved by the client both on his request and the server’s initiative); save server upgrade (there should be a mechanism for updating the servers without losing any data); performance (this requirement is especially important when it comes to games); By implementing all these requirements, putting stateless to absolute will make more harm rather than good. For writing the functionality, we used the Elixir language. As you know this programming language uses the famous Erlang virtual machine — BEAM. Perfect pro-competitive measures and multithreading, exchange of asynchronous notifications in accordance with the actors models: that’s all we need to lay a proper foundation for our app. One of the things a game server is responsible for is to be an initiator for some changes along with players. It shouldn’t only broadcast notifications from one players to other. This means that there should be a distinct process, which will be responsible for this task. A proper work with processes is a “must-have.” The more effective it is, the better it is. There are some games that stop their servers for updating. On the other hand, there are games that add new servers and allow old games to finish. However, all these processes overload DevOps department. There’s one more option: upgrade a server code on-the-fly. Despite the fact that there are not so many processes with this feature, we found it in BEAM. This allowed us to provide a communication between a server and clients. Having used web-sockets with hot code swapping, we got rid of any problems with an internet connection during the updating. However, the time of client connection with the server may negatively influence the game results. At the same time, we reserve the right to use the first two options, if necessary. It’s always cool to have several options, isn’t it? Since speed is crucial criteria for every game, we don’t have to choose between In-Memory state and persistence. Our games are isolated from each other so that we use a separate process for every game (GenServer), which save a condition in itself. In case, we wanted to create something like that on Ruby (one of the main tool we use), we’d probably use celluloid. When reviewing the issues on Github, out attention was attracted to the following issues memory leak with timers. We also need to consider the fact that the version 0.17.3. is considered as a stable one. Elixir, in its turn, doesn’t have such a challenge as BEAM provides an automatic garbage collection for every process individually. As we put the results of the game into the persistent database only after the end of the game, this provides us with a high speed. Nevertheless, there’s no need to concentrate exclusively on stateless and 12-factors. Otherwise, it may significantly complicate the project implementation by looking for the technologies you won’t need at all. Mainly it happens because of the main tools limitation. The Bottom Line Based on our experience, we can definitely say that one of the most effective solutions was achieved using BEAM. Its effectiveness and at the same time simplicity of inter process communication is amazing! It has great development tools for building concurrent apps. Basically, you won’t find anything better if your app will have a great number of users, such as an IoT, chat or social media app. It has a comprehensive documentation with highly accessible tooling and resources. Elixir is one of those technologies that allow you to use a phrase “Just add more cores” before “Just add more servers.” ## News ### JetRuby Launches Q4 Specials to Help Product Teams Get Ready for 2026 Why Proactive Planning Matters As the year winds down, we at JetRuby know the pressure is on. You’re probably already thinking about 2026, and getting ahead can feel like a marathon when you’re juggling current projects and planning for the future. We’ve all been there — those unreasonable deadlines, the risk of team burnout (did you know 48% of workers feel this way?), and the constant battle against projects running over schedule because, well, we’re all a bit optimistic with our timelines. Our Q4 Specials: Your Head Start for 2026 That’s why we are stepping in with some Q4 specials, designed to help you hit the ground running in 2026. These offers apply to both our existing and new clients, so that anyone could benefit from them. We believe in smart investments now to prevent those Q1 bottlenecks and delays. After all, effective capacity planning isn't limited to managing resources; it also sets your team up for sustainable growth, boosts productivity, and even improves morale. When you proactively secure your development capacity, you’re hitting both: avoiding the headaches of unfilled roles (a challenge for 20-30% of companies), and ensuring your team is focused, engaged, and ready to tackle what’s next. From now until December 15, 2025, we’re offering limited-time promotions on Rails upgrades, QA automation, and engineering capacity. It’s our way of helping you build stronger infrastructure and faster development cycles, so you can truly thrive in the new year. Featured Offers   Rails Modernization Sprint – A 2-week fixed-scope upgrade assessment for teams on Rails 6.x or older. Includes audit, Hotwire enablement, and performance quick wins. 20% off when booked during Q4. AQA Kickstart Program – A hands-on QA automation readiness program that delivers 25-40 automated test specs, plus future discounts on long-term QA work. 5%-7% discounts on 2026 QA projects. Early Bird Booking for 2026 – Book now and receive 15-20% off on any 2026 Rails, QA, or custom development project, with complete flexibility to define the start date. Black Friday Dev Blocks – Prepaid engineering hours for Q1 2026 with up to 20% off, ideal for product iterations, tech debt cleanup, or ad hoc feature work. A Word from Our Head of CSM For more information or to claim an offer, visit the offer page or schedule a free consultation with our Sales Manager. ### Improved Rates for Node.js Development Teams — Available Through Q3 2025 We are pleased to introduce improved engagement terms for companies looking to scale their web development capabilities with dedicated Node.js teams. Throughout Q3 2025, we’re offering special conditions that make working with JetRuby’s Node.js engineers even more accessible, with optimized rates available during the initial engagement period. Why now? According to Statista, Node.js is used by over 40% of global developers as of 2024, making it one of the most in-demand backend technologies. Businesses leveraging Node.js report up to 50% faster performance in real-time web applications compared to legacy technologies. JetRuby’s Node.js teams have successfully delivered solutions for healthcare, fintech, and logistics, ensuring both speed and reliability. This offer is valid until September 30, 2025. If your business is looking to enhance backend systems, optimize performance, or build new products using Node.js, now is a great time to connect with us. 📩 For detailed information, contact our sales team today. Save on Hiring! Request seasoned Node.js Developers at a reasonable price until September 30, 2025 Request a Discount ### JetRuby’s Insurance Coverage: Client-Focused Solutions We take care of our clients, so we’ve raised the bar on project safety. JetRuby now carries Professional Liability (Errors & Omissions) and Commercial General Liability policies to protect our clients and our work. Let's find out what it does! What’s New Our primary goal is to provide our clients with the best possible quality solutions. All our engineering processes are designed to minimize client risks by default. However, we’ve gone the extra mile to deliver truly bullet-proof solutions. From now on, every JetRuby engagement comes with built-in insurance, so you’re protected from day one. We know that our clients can’t afford surprises, so our expanded coverage shifts key risks from your balance sheet to ours and once again proves that we are confident in our product and expertise.  What Our Coverage Means We have two types of insurance. Let's look at them in more detail: Professional Liability (E&O) — Limit $3,000,000 Our E&O policy activates when a bug, missed deadline, or strategic misstep costs a client money. It pays for legal defense, court costs, settlements, and judgments — even if the allegation proves unfounded. It lets you stay focused on growth while we and the insurer handle the dispute. Commercial General Liability (CGL) — Limit $2,000,000 CGL answers third-party claims for bodily injury, property damage, or personal and advertising injury. These are liabilities most service contracts leave uncovered. While JetRuby has never faced an incident of visitor injury, equipment damage, or defamation, our policy still shields your project should such an unlikely event ever occur. Benefits For Our Clients Peace of Mind. You face lower financial risk if a claim arises. Project Continuity Coverage lets us resolve issues quickly and keep your work on track. Partner Confidence You know we stand behind our services and take responsibility. Risk Transfer We carry the liability so you don’t have to worry about unexpected costs. Ready to know more? Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions. Work with a fully insured partner and see how coverage plus skill protects your roadmap from day one. ### Limited-Time Offer on Hiring Software Developers by JetRuby Agency Our winter sale delighted many, and its success led to valuable feedback. Several customers requested extra time to adjust their budgets.  We listened and decided to extend our special offer for another quarter. Now, you can still boost your development team and kick-start projects with our improved rates until June 30, 2025. Let Us Remind You What We Offer A Dedicated Team Three Software Engineers at 35% OFF the normal rate A complimentary QA Engineer included A fully operational team ready to start within two weeks An Individual Developer 25% OFF the standard rate A flexible, streamlined onboarding process that integrates with your workflow A developer ready to join your project in just one week Why This Timing Matters Our winter sale proved to be an excellent opportunity for many businesses. After the sale, several companies asked for extra time to finalize their budgets and strategic plans.  We understand that budget adjustments are crucial for project planning. By extending our offer through Q2, we provide you the chance to secure top-tier developers without compromising your financial planning. By taking advantage of this Q2 offer, you lock in competitive pricing and secure expert developers before the peak season demands extra resources. Balancing Cost and Quality JetRuby Agency delivers high-quality software solutions across various industries, including Healthcare, eCommerce, and Fintech.  Companies like Neveo and 40Grid have already seized our previous Winter Sale offer and are now reaping the benefits. Neveo used the promotion to conduct a comprehensive AQA discovery project at a discounted rate, an initiative that their budget wouldn’t have allowed otherwise.  At the same time, 40Grid expanded their team by adding an extra full-time equivalent (FTE). Their success illustrates how our solutions can provide cost-effective access to expert developers while meeting project timelines. Use this opportunity to give your project the boost it requires. Whether you need a trio of engineers with a QA expert or a single developer to optimize your codebase, our offer strikes a balance between affordability and top-notch expertise. Act Before June 30, 2025 This special offer remains active until June 30, 2025. Once the window closes, top-tier developers may be harder to secure as demand increases.  Act now to reserve the talent you need at a significant discount! Ready to Learn More? Contact our sales team today for further details or a personalized quote.  We help you determine whether a dedicated team or individual developer best fits your project. Enhance your next initiative with this time-sensitive offer and secure high-quality development talent without delay. ### Limited-Time Offer on Hiring Software Developers by JetRuby Agency If you’ve considered boosting your dev team — now’s your chance to do it without breaking the bank. Recognizing that many businesses set new budgets and kick off projects between March and May, we’re rolling out a limited-time offer that ends on March 31, 2025 — just in time for your next big launch. Here’s what’s on the table Hire a Dedicated Team Three Software Engineers at 35% OFF the usual rate Complimentary QA Engineer included Fully operational team ready to start within two weeks Hire an Individual Developer 25% OFF the standard rate Simple, flexible onboarding to fit your existing workflow Staffed quickly/lightning-fast within one week Why This Timing Matters According to multiple industry reports, including data from Deloitte and insights from popular platforms like Upwork, outsourced development demand spikes in the spring.  After budgets are approved and strategic plans for the year are finalized, companies often look to outsource key projects. By engaging with JetRuby Agency now, you’ll leverage this window of opportunity to lock in a team (or individual talent) before the rush picks up and market rates rise. Balancing Cost and Quality JetRuby is known for delivering high-quality software solutions across various sectors: healthcare, e-commerce, fintech, and more.  Whether you need a trio of engineers plus QA to handle a large-scale platform or a single expert developer to streamline your current codebase, our aim is to offer a cost-effective solution without cutting corners on expertise. Act Before March 31, 2025 This offer closes on March 31, 2025, so now is the best time to make your move.  Once we hit peak season, top-tier developers can be harder to find, and quick-turnaround teams may become scarce. Get ahead of the game by securing the talent you need at an attractive discount. Ready to Learn More? Contact our sales department today for details or a personalized quote.  We’ll help you decide whether the dedicated team package or the individual developer plan best suits your project. Don’t let your next innovative idea wait — leverage this limited-time offer and stay ahead of the competition. Save on Hiring! Request Senior-level Software Developers at a reasonable price until March 31, 2025 Request a Discount ### Celebrating 14 Years of Innovation and Excellence! This year, we proudly mark JetRuby's 14th birthday! For the past 14 years, we have been at the forefront of delivering high-quality, custom software solutions that empower businesses to thrive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. What started in 2010 as an ambitious YC startup with a small team of tech-savvy people building custom web and mobile solutions has evolved into a full-cycle software development agency. JetRuby Agency has successfully navigated through multiple worldwide economic crises, and became stronger, continuously expanding capabilities and services despite global challenges. Our ability to adapt and grow in tough times is a testament to our resilience and strategic foresight. Throughout these periods of uncertainty, we have remained steadfast in our commitment to our clients, ensuring that they receive unwavering support, no matter the circumstances. We foster long-term, reliable partnerships with our clients, built on trust, collaboration, and a deep understanding of their needs. Among these clients are companies we partnered with during their early startup phases, providing them with the tools and solutions necessary to scale their businesses. Two of those companies have achieved unicorn status, a reflection of the mutual success we’ve helped cultivate. We dedicate ourselves to driving client growth through software development and by building the foundations of lasting partnerships. Today, JetRuby has evolved into a globally recognized leader in software development, consistently expanding our services to meet the needs of a growing client base. Since 2010, we have provided solutions to over 250 clients across 30 countries, and 15% of our clients are early-stage startups. 75% of our customers (mainly in the U.S.) use our Managed Delivery Services. Our dedicated team consists of more than 300 in-house engineers driving our success, and 60% of them are senior+ level. Our expertise is further strengthened by our active contributions to the Ruby community, with over 30 million downloads of our Ruby packages. At JetRuby, we are dedicated to crafting robust, end-to-end digital products and services. We understand that our clients seek innovation without compromising quality, and we deliver just that. With our extensive expertise in numerous industries such as HRTech, Agritech, Healthcare and others, our digital solutions remain ahead of the curve, setting new benchmarks in the software development world. 14 years… and we're just getting started! With a strong global presence and valued partnerships, JetRuby remains at the forefront of shaping the future of software development. As we celebrate 14 years of service, we eagerly anticipate many more years of innovation, growth, and success …with releases of AI-based product solutions expected to launch as early as 2025! We extend heartfelt thanks to our clients, partners, and dedicated team for being part of our journey. We value greatly your continued support. Together, we'll continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in the digital world! ### JetRuby Agency Named Among Top 20 Fastest-Growing Startups Globally for Technological Innovation and Excellence We are excited to share that JetRuby Agency has been recognized among the top 20 fastest-growing startups in the USA and globally. Since our founding in 2010, JetRuby Agency has been at the forefront of technological innovation, delivering and implementing over 250 projects across a wide array of sectors. Our expertise spans startup application development, eCommerce, Internet of Things (IoT), E-learning, digital distribution, and many other areas. JetRuby Agency's inclusion in this prestigious list is a testament to our unwavering commitment to excellence and our ability to consistently deliver high-quality, avant-garde solutions. Our team of skilled professionals is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what is possible in app development, ensuring that we meet and exceed the expectations of our clients. As we continue to grow and evolve, we remain committed to providing exceptional service and innovative solutions that drive success for businesses around the world. MobileAppDaily is a premier service dedicated to helping businesses navigate the vast landscape of service providers, ensuring they find the best matches that align with their specific vision, budget, project requirements, and industry demands. This service is an invaluable resource for businesses seeking top-tier partners for their projects. Every year, MobileAppDaily compiles and publishes a highly anticipated list of the Fastest Growing App Development Companies. This list showcases the leading names in the mobile app industry, spotlighting companies that have distinguished themselves through their innovative and cutting-edge app development services. ### JetRuby Agency: A Leader in Custom Software Development JetRuby Agency, a premier custom software development company, is proud to announce its inclusion in the Techreviewer Top 100 Custom Software Development Companies in the USA for 2024. This recognition underscores JetRuby's commitment to delivering exceptional software solutions tailored to meet the unique needs of businesses across various industries. Our expertise spans a wide range of technologies, including Ruby on Rails, Swift, React JS, and more, ensuring we provide our clients with cutting-edge solutions. This accolade from Techreviewer not only highlights our technical prowess but also our dedication to client satisfaction and long-term success. As a trusted technology partner, JetRuby continues to uphold the highest standards of quality and innovation in custom software development, helping businesses achieve their strategic objectives and thrive in a competitive landscape. During our 14-year success path, we have developed hundreds of products and services, comprising millions of lines of code, including: Logistics optimization solution for ANOVA Sortly — the #1 inventory app for the iOS platform A very simple and functional business marketplace — Beazzy A two-sided temporary jobs marketplace — HelpMyTask And dozens of others. All these projects are a reflection of our commitment to bringing business ideas to digital life. About Techreviewer Techreviewer is a leading B2B review and rating platform that publishes prestigious industry rankings for software development companies. The platform evaluates companies based on various criteria, including client reviews, market presence, and overall performance. Techreviewer’s rankings are highly respected in the industry, providing businesses with a reliable resource to identify top-performing companies for their software development needs. ### How JetRuby Academy Ensures Developers’ Excellence: 5 central stages of the growth process! This review sheds light on our approach to selecting top-quality engineers for our Ruby Academy and outlines how we facilitate their ongoing training process. About the JetRuby Academy The Ruby Academy was established to support the training of Ruby engineers, beginning with entry-level students. It targets individuals with basic technical backgrounds eager to acquire practical skills firsthand. Throughout their training, candidates explore the nuances of programming and create real-world projects guided by seasoned Ruby practitioners. Students complete the program by defending their graduation project. We choose only the top candidates for our Academy, with an applicant-to-hire ratio of 200:1. Matching the perfect fit for client projects is a multifaceted challenge considering numerous variables. Beyond carefully choosing candidates for our Academy and teaching them programming languages and frameworks, we also equip them to undertake client projects. This kind of training transcends what tutorials or books can’t offer, as such experience can only be obtained first-hand and passed from a mentor to an apprentice. Selection process Each applicant to the Ruby Academy undergoes a rigorous selection process to assess their knowledge and the mix of hard and soft skills. We thoughtfully structure each phase of this process. The training program must be offered at no cost, and we ensure it’s free for candidates. Personality assessment At this stage, we evaluate the applicant’s personality traits, approach to tasks, and potential engagement in their work. Examination of skills We evaluate candidates’ understanding of technical concepts and ability to apply mathematical principles. Additionally, we examine their choice of algorithms when solving problems, aiming to understand their decision-making process and proficiency in optimizing solutions. Live assessment In this stage, candidates are interviewed by the company’s specialists, who evaluate their communication abilities and creative thinking. Training at the Ruby Academy Candidates gain invaluable work experience throughout their training at our Ruby Academy. As the program progresses, we conduct intermediate assessments to evaluate progress. We identify and retain only the most promising candidates based on these screenings. The next paragraphs describe how we build the training program. Education and graduation Once the selection process is complete, we start training focused on hard skills. This phase marks the start of in-depth education, where candidates immerse themselves in the essentials of the Ruby on Rails framework, the intricacies of programming languages, and other critical technical skills. Hard skills are the foundation of our entire training program. What exactly does this phase include? The basics of algorithmization and its underlying principles. Knowledge of the Ruby on Rails framework and Ruby programming language. Basic understanding of the web applications’ architecture. Insights into product testing and the creation of automated tests. The essentials of managing and working with infrastructure. Soft skills are no less important to the aspiring engineer. (Feel free to download our guide on Soft Skills Development here.) In our Academy, developers with at least five years of experience lead the training, fostering teamwork and guiding students through task-related interactions. What sets our developer course apart? While numerous developer courses are available, ours goes above and beyond by offering 50% more content than typical courses. We equip our students with practical experience by simulating real-life project scenarios and subjecting them to professional reviews, preparing them for work on actual client projects. “Client” projects represent the complex tasks that most frequently arise on real projects we manage, involving the Resource Access Control (RAC) system and requiring collaboration among 2-3 developers Also, we emulate situations where the developer needs to decide with limited information about the problem. Although the objective is clear, the means of achieving it through the interface are poorly understood. The student’s task is to figure out how to do it, gather requirements from the task contributor, document information in the task, map out the work plan, and implement it. Another challenge students must learn to overcome is managing the pressure of deadlines. For this purpose, we simulate the part of tasks marked by urgency and instruct them how to handle stress caused by the feeling of urgency. Upon completing core training, students will undergo final tests. Only 4% of the initial pool of applicants successfully graduate from our Academy, which averages a selection ratio 200:1. Graduates have gained comprehensive knowledge of the Ruby on Rails framework but have yet to obtain commercial experience. Results of training and further growth Graduates naturally focus on career excellence and skill development. Their further advancement commences at the junior beginner level, with the enhancement program directed by the personal development plan. This plan is built by the responsible team lead based on the results of intermediate evaluations. The following stages are central to the growth process: Setting goalsWe help developers choose their missions. These career goals range from learning a new programming language to mastering public speaking. Skill mappingDevelopers address the skill gap to develop and achieve PDP goals. Training and learningThis is when they decide how to acquire those skills. They could take online courses, workshops, conferences, or have hands-on experience with a new project. Mentoring and supportLike having a guide in a game, they get a mentor who helps them navigate, offers advice, and provides feedback. Review and adaptResponsible team leads regularly review engineers’ PDPs to assess their performance and adjust if their goals change or obstacles arise. Conclusion The foundation of training at our Ruby Academy is built on a rigorous selection process and our commitment to providing client projects with highly qualified engineers. After graduation from the Academy, the top-performing candidates continue their careers with our company. A personal development plan guides their progression to higher levels. Ruby Academy is a part of our comprehensive framework dedicated to the upbringing of a seasoned, goal-oriented, and competent Ruby engineer. We also recommend you check out the following guides: Grading system template Hiring Guide Talent management system Soft skills development program ### JetRuby Agency Joins Ranks of World’s Leading Companies Publishing ISO30414 Human Capital Reports Allianz, one of the world’s largest insurance companies, with over 150,000 full time employees, has published its annual human capital report in conformance with ISO 30414 human capital standards and verified by an independent auditor, Dr. Heiko Mauterer, Board Member of Germany-based 4C GROUP AG – Management Consultancy. That makes JetRuby Agency the fourth company in the world with an ISO30414 conforming human capital report, in our case verified by David Simmonds FCIPD, one of the world’s first human capital auditors certified in ISO30414 reporting. Learn about why human capital reporting is a marketing issue and meet the first SO30414 #humancapital reporting implementers and auditors on this Enterprise Engagement Alliance webinar April 6 at 1 pm ET. As your questions of marketing experts Allan Steinmetz and Ralf Specht. and to learn about human capital reporting from human capital expert Dr. Solange Charas, ISO and business management expert Dr. Heiko Mauterer, and our CHRO Svetlana Goryushkina, the fourth company in the world to publish an ISO 30414 conforming human capital report. Other companies with ISO 30414-based human capital reports are Deutsche Bank and DWS Group. ### Special Note on Our Situation in Ukraine We greatly appreciate the support of our customers and employees during this very difficult time. As you can imagine, we stopped sharing our “tech” watch posts on LinkedIn while we focused on immediate priorities. As a technology company specializing in bringing the talents of Eastern European developers to Western countries, JetRuby Agency employs many Ukrainians. In fact, 30% of our developers come from Ukraine, and perhaps as many as 50% of our Russian employees have friends and/or family there. The safety of our employees is a crucial part of Jetruby’s long-term policy. So far, we have managed to relocate the majority of our colleagues with their families away from risky areas, so they can safely continue working on current projects. Our company is making every effort to successfully adapt to the changing environment. After the safety of our employees, our top priority is the continuity of work on all our projects and the fulfillment of our commitments to partners. At the moment, nothing threatens the stability of our company. We are confident we will successfully overcome the obstacles and cooperate fruitfully to achieve our partners’ goals during these difficult times and in so doing help keep many deserving people meaningfully employed and safe. Please click here for a regularly updated report on our blog.   ### Learn About our People Strategies Through Our Human Capital Management Report JetRuby may be the first tech company to publish a human capital report designed to conform with ISO 30414 human capital standards incorporating elements of ISO 10018 people engagement to address how we treat all stakeholders. We will periodically publish excerpts, including this overview of our company. Founded in 2010 as a Y-Combinator startup, Digital Future Group is a privately held professional software engineering company with several subsidiary brands (JetRuby, Jet Solutions, OZ Solutions, etc.). The headquarters are in the USA and engineering offices are located in the Ukraine and Russia. (See the special note on circumstances in Ukraine in the introduction to our human capital report.) JetRuby may be the first tech company to publish a human capital report designed to conform with ISO 30414 human capital standards incorporating elements of ISO 10018 people engagement to address how we treat all stakeholders. We will periodically publish excerpts, including this overview of our company. Founded in 2010 as a Y-Combinator startup, Digital Future Group is a privately held professional software engineering company with several subsidiary brands (JetRuby, Jet Solutions, OZ Solutions, etc.). The headquarters are in the USA and engineering offices are located in the Ukraine and Russia. (See the special note on circumstances in Ukraine in the introduction to our human capital report.) We have the capacity, passion, and expertise to bring our clients’ vision to reality. 10+ years of experience 200+ people including remote teams worldwide 250+ accomplished projects clients from 24 countries worldwide NPS = 44.2% 9.1 out of 10 – employees rate how deeply they are engaged and share the company’s mission & values Top-rated by Clutch yearly during 2017-2021 Top Mobile App Development Companies for Startups in 2020 and in 2021 Our mission is to help tech companies around the world develop top SaaS products that people enjoy so that our clients are successful and their customers are happy. We become long-term business partners for our clients. We offer the best solutions and take responsibility for their implementation by understanding their business goals and enhancing their business results. We measure our success by the happiness of our clients and their customers. We do our best so that they enjoy the full benefits of our product because we’ve thoroughly considered their needs. The product adds value to people, so they are ready to pay for it, willing to consistently use it, and recommend it to their friends. Our mission is to help tech companies around the world develop top SaaS products that people enjoy so that our clients are successful and their customers are happy. We become long-term business partners for our clients. We offer the best solutions and take responsibility for their implementation by understanding their business goals and enhancing their business results. We measure our success by the happiness of our clients and their customers. We do our best so that they enjoy the full benefits of our product because we’ve thoroughly considered their needs. The product adds value to people, so they are ready to pay for it, willing to consistently use it, and recommend it to their friends. ### Update on Our Eastern European Operations Update 03-15-2022 The safety of our employees is a crucial part of JetRuby’s long-term policy. So far, we have managed to relocate the majority of our colleagues with their families away from risky areas, so they can safely continue working on current projects. Our company is making every effort to adapt to the changing environment successfully. However, our top priority is the continuity of work on all our projects and the fulfillment of our commitments to partners. At the moment, nothing threatens the stability of our company. We are confident we will successfully overcome all obstacles and cooperate fruitfully to achieve our partners’ goals. Update 03-10-2022 The situation in Ukraine is still far from being resolved successfully. We are accomplishing a successful transition to the new circumstances. People first! We, along with other volunteers from around the globe, are helping our people. We’ve spent thousands of dollars to advance payments to people in need during the last few days – from direct financial support and up to provisioning supplies. We keep providing them with everything necessary for everyday life and work. We explore the opportunities to relocate some of our developers away from the Russian Federation to neutral countries: Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia. We would build small local communities where people could move for at least three months. This plan is aimed to mitigate the development velocity risks in case of direct labor usage sanctions. We will be ready to act quickly and perform these actions with minimal downtime for your business. Stay safe and pray for peace! Update 02-24-2022 JetRuby Agency was founded in 2012 to bring the best application development talent from Eastern Europe and other countries to startups and other firms in North America, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, and that remains our mission. We believe that our expertise, cultural similarities, English language capabilities, and our time zone convenient for western countries provide the best offshore options for companies seeking a combination of great talent, effective project management, and affordability. While we hope for peace and that war will be avoided, we are prepared for any eventuality. Before the current tensions and the Covid-19 pandemic, we created a fully remote workforce process so our developers could work from anywhere without any need to come to our offices. We already successfully and seamlessly manage most projects with remote engineers in multiple countries. For those of our developers located in Ukraine, we have created provisions to relocate any of them who desire to our other locations in the event of hostilities. We have always had a US subsidiary to securely and seamlessly maintain our operations without any risk of interruption. Our processes have never been affected by geopolitical issues. We are committed to serving the needs of our customers all over the world, no matter what happens. If you have any questions, please contact Ivan directly. ### Digital Future Group Is Here to Help Our company’s new social media strategy is aligned with our commitment to help organizations develop the most effective applications for their marketplaces. Just as our developers regularly contribute code to the Ruby on Rails community, we are now committed to continually combing news sources for trends, ideas, warnings or other issues from which both the economic decision makers and developers at any organization involved with apps can benefit. Whether you follow us via our CEO Ivan LinkedIn community, our blogs, or e-newsletters, you’ll find information on: new technology trends; new potential sources of funding; success stories; warnings and challenges; and useful suggestions from our large community of developers and customers. Feel free to share with us news you feel would be of interest to the application development world, especially those running on Ruby on Rails. ### JetRuby Agency Named as one of the World’s Top 1000 B2B Service Providers by Clutch Our team over here at JetRuby Agency has some exciting news to announce to all our loyal customers! The esteemed Clutch.co named us one of the top 1000 B2B companies in the world! They’re highlighting us for our work in web development. Investing in your business is incredibly important for improving your business to bring in better results! Clutch.co is located in the center of America’s capital city, just steps away from the Capitol building. They have a dedicated team of well-educated analysts who take the time to painstakingly independently review each and every client review they conduct, curating them so that buyers of B2B services can be confident in their purchase! That is why we’re so honored to have an amazing average on Clutch.co! We have many outstanding reviews, like this one from the CTO of NameCoach. These many great reviews have led Clutch, the leading platform for B2B learning, to name us as one of their top service providers in 2020! We’re honored to be highlighted by a source as honest and trustworthy as Clutch, and named as one of the world’s top 2020 1000 B2B service providers. Ivan Linko CEO of JetRuby Agency We are extremely honored to be receiving such an important award. We are earnestly grateful for the recognition we’ve received for our work because we’re very sure millions of other nominees for this award were as capable, if not more, of being listed here. We’ve faced several challenges on the way here, but each one of them has only strengthened our team and made us what we are today; thorough and well-known professionals who know exactly how to provide the highest quality of services. If you’re looking for award winning service, give us a call today! ### JetRuby Agency Thanks Our Wonderful Clients At JetRuby Agency, we have spent the past decade delivering quality products for our clients. We have the knowledge, passion, and integrity to help your web development project succeed! JetRuby Agency is proud to be featured on Clutch, a B2B ratings and reviews firm based in Washington, DC. Clutch’s independent team interviews the past clients of service providers and these interviews form the basis of their verified reviews. Having reviews on Clutch increases legitimacy in the B2B space. We recently received a new review on Clutch! Our client was a software development consultancy in need of more developers. The JetRuby Agency team was up for the task! We augmented their staff to help build feature-rich web applications. Our team helped the client deliver the platform on time, sticking to the budget and timeline. They help us deliver our services at a high quality and a lower cost than local market rates. Co-Founder / Software Development Consultancy Another 5-star client was a marketplace startup. After an analysis phase, our team developed a straightforward platform and integrated a payment processing system. The platform also includes a chat function. While the platform has not yet launched, our client had great feedback for us! Our team was able to deliver quality code for the project in a timely manner. I’ve been most impressed by the personal attention and human relationship, which were the main things that attracted me to them. I have a good connection with the project manager and the rest of the team. CEO / Marketplace Startup We are honored to have been part of such wonderful projects! Clutch also has two sister sites, the Manifest and Visual Objects. The Manifest is a company listing site, organizing service providers by geographic location and main service line. The site also features business survey data and how-to guides. JetRuby Agency is featured on the Manifest as a top web development company in Lviv! A service provider builds reputation by posting their portfolio to Visual Objects. The site allows users to look through the past work of designers and developers to find the best fit for their next project. We have been named a top mobile app development company in Russia by Visual Objects! We are honored to have been part of so many amazing projects over the years and look forward to forming new partnerships in 2020. Interested parties can check out our Clutch profile to hear more about our projects or get in contact with us directly to get started on their next project. ### JetRuby Agency Appreciates Its Awesome Customers While mobile devices are quickly becoming the main way we consume content — and mobile apps take a whopping 50% of that traffic — websites are still a huge content driver. But having a top-notch website is important to keep users coming to your page. 40% of web users will leave a page if it takes longer than three (!) seconds to load. So how do you make sure that you’re getting those visitors to stay on your site? And how do you determine whether an app or a website is the best platform for your product? At JetRuby Agency, we can help advise you on those crucial decisions. Our customers can then stay under one roof to get their web or app content designed and built out. We’re thrilled to say that B2B ratings firm Clutch’s research shows that we’re a top Lviv-based web developer. We’re also among the best web agencies, as listed on Visual Objects, Clutch’s sister site. We couldn’t have gotten here without our number one supporter: our clients. One of our satisfied customers is an electronic manufacturing company that needed help building an MVP of a web app within a short timeline. The app involved lighting controls and sensor feedback — features that we integrated into the platform. We also built the frontend UI and a physical demonstrator for showing off the prototype to stakeholders who were both internal and external to the company. We delivered the prototype on time — even after a minor expansion in scope — and hit every requirement on the nose. Our usage of sprints and project management tools such as Slack ensured that we were constantly in contact and that nothing got overlooked. As a result, we earned high ratings over every category. JetRuby is very customer-oriented, which impresses me. … They really make us feel that we’re being treated well, that we have their attention, and that they are supporting us. Business Field Manager / Electronic Manufacturing Company Another success story involved a photo editing app. We’re designing and building the product for iOS devices. Although the project is still underway, the app is coming along well. We’ve met our client’s standards for quality and led an uneventful collaboration. We received nearly perfect scores for our meticulousness, as well as our ability to meet every deadline and request so far. They’re very thorough, providing lots of updates and documenting everything they’re working on throughout the engagement. Managing Director / Photo Editing App We’re pleased to present these success stories among many. Feedback from these trusted voices drives us to grow and improve our services every day. They’re also the reason why we’re ranked on The Manifest, a company resource site, as one of the top app developers in Eastern Europe. ### JetRuby Agency Named Top Ruby on Rails Developer by Clutch Founded in 2010 and based in Ukraine, JetRuby Agency has nine years of experience with a skilled team of over 100 employees designed to create reliable apps that will continue to perform. We are excellent at communicating with our clients, committing to our projects, and we possess all skills necessary to successfully finish your project. We have expertise in a multitude of areas such as web development, app development, and e-commerce development. Our experience and expertise has led to Clutch.co listing JetRuby as one of the top Ruby on rails developers in our industry. Clutch is a B2B ratings and review firm nestled in downtown Washington, D.C. Clutch analyzes thousands of service providers in order to connect them with clients who are in need of their services. Service providers are listed on Clutch in accordance with their ability to produce cutting edge services and solutions for their clients. Clutch analysts expertly match service providers with clients by conducting personal interviews with service provider’s previous clients. These interviews are key to creating personalized reviews which are accurate and unbiased. Clutch is invested in providing accurate reviews, portfolios, and data-driven content which potential clients can browse for free. Clutch’s unique methodology has produced wonderful reviews for JetRuby, such as the one posted below: In addition to recognition by Clutch, JetRuby has also been featured on the firm’s two sister sites, The Manifest and Visual Objects. The Manifest is a business news and how-to website which compiles practical business knowledge for entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and all those in between. The Manifest is a great resource to discover state-of-tech top performing companies through a unique lens. The Manifest has graciously award our company with a title as one of the top internet of things developers currently in the market. Visual Objects is a portfolio website which features the successes of top creative design firms around the world. JetRuby has also been recognized on Visual Objects as one of the top developers in the world. Visual Objects is a great platform to view our company’s creative abilities and proven work. We are thrilled to be working with Clutch and so pleased that our previous clients have been satisfied with our work. As we continue to progress in the web and app development market we hope to continue our partnership with Clutch.