With over a million different apps in the App Store entrepreneur Ben Fisher spotted the opportunity for Appdrops – an app discovery platform to help people discover the best and those falling in price.
He chose My Website Solutions to deliver this cutting edge solution, as he explains here:
“I’ve known Damien Wilson who founded My Website Solutions for a few years so when I was pulling together the idea or concept for Appdrops I was kind of earmarking the individuals that I would want to help me on my little journey. So Damien was one of them; I knew he had the skills and had great feedback from some of my friends who worked with him, so he was first choice on my list.
Fully responsive
“While what we needed for Appdrops was quite complex and the solution he came up with was quite simple and perfect for what our requirements were. What he delivered was a responsive web app, built on an API base, so it sits separate from our database. We have a database that collects all of the information from the Apple App Store on a 24-hour cycle, once that data is refreshed we then need to publish some of our ‘hot picks’ or our apps, which drop in price.
“Our app and website will publish a list of apps and then every time someone visits our domain they get presented with the latest list of apps, whether on a iPad or if someone comes through on a mobile then they’ll see a mobile version of the website that functions and feels like our native app but you can get to it via a URL, and it makes calls to the database via an API. So it’s really, really, quite cutting edge; My Website Solutions has done a great job.
Meeting client requirements
“We had three requirements. Firstly it had to be super-fast, so the way the page renders had to be super-fast so that the user can use it straight away, while the information is still loading and collecting all of the other information to present.
“Often people are commuting or en route to work so there’s a bad signal and we wanted it to be super-fast, which was crucial. I think Damien got the response time down to milliseconds so he’s done a fab job there.
“Secondly it needed to be a well rounded experience so you can’t have something not working. The user experience is vital, it also needed to work across multiple devices, multiple Internet speeds and everything.
“Thirdly it had to look good and we had a great designer and what Damien and My Website Solutions managed to do was take that design and take the experience and implement that into the functionality of the site. So that means when you click on an app there’s a nice transition.
“We are still working with My Website Solutions. In the team we’ve built, Damien looks after the front end, everything you see, we’ve got the designer still on the board and she’ll be helping us with all of the designs and layouts and user experience and we’ve got the back end developer as well, he manages the database and then we’ve got our mathematician coming on who will help us rank and make sense of all the data we collect. So a small team, but Damien is fundamental to the success of that team and he’s delivered on time, and I’d like to continue working with him and My Website Solutions.
Trust & building relationships
“I wouldn’t recommend him! Because I want him all to myself! But that’s just selfish, so of course I would, I’d highly recommend Damien, and for anyone who’s looking to work with someone who’s not only talented but passionate about what they do, I think that’s why I identify My Website Solutions as the firm you need to get involved for your website or app project.
“As a small team, and we’re of limited budget, you need to pick your individuals or your team where everyone is going to be very crucial to our business.
“Damien’s dedicated and he’s passionate and working with other technical people, Damien stands out. His attention to detail is there, because he believes in what he’s doing and you’ll get other developers who might have attention to detail but it’s for different reasons, and you get different results. But with Damien you put a lot of trust into him, and that’s really important.
“And that’s good because you can put a lot of trust and faith into him and you don’t have to worry about it so once he’s got everything he needs, you can go along doing other stuff and you don’t have to worry about the results, you know you’re gonna get what you want with Damien which is brilliant.
Creating for the future
“We’re only plugged into the App Store, so it is available on iOS for mobile or for your iPad and the mac app store as well, so we have mac apps too. What Damien’s also done is he has help build a platform, which we can easily plug in at the Google play store and that’s one of the objectives, but we need to focus on what we’re doing right now but essentially what we’ve built can work and adapt to android as well thanks to My Website Solutions.”