Interview with Maxim Ivanov, Co-Founder & CEO - Aimprosoft

Maxim Ivanov  

Co-Founder & CEO, Aimprosoft

1. Give us a quick overview on Aimprosoft. When and how did you begin this journey and what were your motives to be successful in app development? 

In my twelve, I wrote my first code, and a spark of development ignited, then gradually spreading to establish my own company. Aimprosoft is a digital transformation partner for businesses that want to harness technology innovation to be resilient at any wavering times.

I started my entrepreneurial journey in 2005 firmly believing that a customer focus, professional empathy, daily efforts, and love for what you do are the pillars of success, be it app development or growing corn. Now we are a trusted partner for clients from 23 countries with over 500 closed projects in Automotive, Telecom, Real Estate, Retail, eCommerce, Healthcare, Education, Manufacturing, and other domains.

The starting point was Web application development for enterprises. Eventually, our portfolio expanded with Mobile development, UI/UX design, Business Analysis, Project management, and Quality Assurance for SMB and startups.

2. What is your role in the management and development of Aimprosoft?

I stood at the origins of Aimprosoft having a vision of business transformation. Today I’m accountable for a company’s strategy and growth, business process evolution, partnership development, and product ownership. However, my experience proved that two heads are better than one when running a company. So I can’t help mentioning my business partner Igor taking the technology strategy and evolution of Aimprosoft. Together we go this path, setting goals and staying focused on achieving them.

3. Tell us about your biggest achievement in the industry.

I consider the most remarkable achievement is our team, which we have assembled. United by one goal, all people are on the same wave. Our teammates are our main asset. Taking care of team members, we take care of our customers. 

A few examples of customers speak for themselves. Motive Retail decreased a time-consuming labor intensity thirty times and actually changed the automotive industry. Virtual1 reached a coverage of 75% of all UK businesses with their telecommunications offering, got a 100 times increase in requests, and was recognized as a Network Provider of the year. Crop Trust enabled people all over the world to explore data of over 4M plant samples to underpin crop diversity.
You know it's inspiring when I recognize that our efforts weren't in vain and we managed to help someone up to the next level.

4. How do you schedule the development phases of the apps to promise the timeline to your clients?

A project-based dedicated team from the Aimprosoft talent pool is our proven offering for clients who expect to get things done in the right way. All clients want to get outlined deliverables in figures of cost and time. Our pre-sale team of business analytics, project managers, and system architects take through on every particular case elaborating on the tech stack and people behind this. Any client can get a consultation based on their initial vision set of the project. Or our prospects can go through business analysis and design-based idea visualization to get a rough and detailed estimate.

If the client has a basic idea, then we provide business analysis services, the result of which is project documentation, on the basis of which it is possible to calculate the cost of the project or its part.

5. How do you help your clients in choosing the right yet profitable platform for app development?

Trying the business idea itself is on the client’s side as usual. We primarily focus on software solutions to put the project into practice. We care that the technical part is feasible to work in the future to prevent fast obsolescence, will be affordable, maintained well and long. For example, we definitely will suggest retail clients consider cloud hosting. Clouds offer several computing capabilities that help improve development and save time. Yes, cloud hosting investments will be higher compared to local hosting, but the result will come faster, and ROI will not be long in coming if the business idea is successful.

6. Which would you suggest for a successful and profitable business progression, Native or hybrid apps? How do you define the factors that influenced you to make this choice?

It depends on the application. Native apps are used for the most demanding projects where speed, performance, and responsiveness are of utter importance. The application can be made hybrid if there are no specific features planned that are difficult to implement at the moment, you need fast time-to-market, then the hybrid will save time in development and support costs. You need to test the app and enter the market as soon as possible.

At Aimprosoft, you can expect hybrid development on React Native for management apps. However, I’d recommend considering native app development with high-quality UI/UX, security, and long-term benefits standards for social media apps. Each particular case must be considered separately.

7. How do you scheme your pricing model? How do you fix your budget?

We estimate the work in man-hours and then offer prices depending on the type of services we provide.
The most acceptable models turned out to be fixed price and Time & Materials. The latter is most suitable if the client plans an iterative development using an agile methodology and knows the final result. In this case, there is no need to work out all the functionality that may never be written. The T&M model works perfectly for large projects with ongoing development and is the choice of startups. For cases with a clear understanding of deliverables from a client, we divide the scope into small pieces up to 1000 hours and estimate the project partially to work according to the fixed price model.

We can help a client prioritize delivery outputs and find a solution that will fit into their budget.

8. How helpful are the mobile apps developed by your team, for enhancing your clients’ business?

There is nothing more pleasant than knowing that your efforts were for a reason. A healthcare app for personal use we developed to save human lives saved over 100 000 lives due to in-time aid. An AI-driven analytics platform from the UK – Avora got a 5-times increase in system performance, being a product that accelerates other businesses the same way in 5 times. With an app for tablets, we helped a US law firm to protect the rights of people and companies with 60% higher documents processing compared to the previous paper manual period. Technology can be a solution for many cases.

9. What according to you are the best practices to attain client satisfaction?

We try to embrace the subject area in which we work and find the client's pain. If we understand this, then we are able to give advice and do our work efficiently. In addition, we always keep in touch and collect feedback to help way better. The client's challenges demand from us being multifaceted and well versed in any area. Aimprosoft's talent pool is rich in diverse practitioners from various domains, among whom we can pick up a perfect match for a particular project. This balance forms the positive attitude of people to the project; they put their hearts into what they're doing.

10. How do you update your business system to be in pace with the technological advancements?

Watching market trends is not enough. We practice devoting time for personal level-ups among developers that score in a shared contribution. Each team lead makes up a personal development plan for team members to master a particular technology that we find perspective. It is not, however, rare for a software developer who comes up with an initiative to learn something new.

We give our full support in every way possible. Thus, we extended our portfolio with Machine Learning, Scala, and the Internet of Things offering for the last three years. Also, we’re active in the open-source community and contribute our groundwork to our peers. In transformative 2020, our guys released the CBM module to help peers with fast data migration and backup while developing SAP Commerce Cloud-based systems.

11. What are your thoughts about AR, VR and Internet of Things (IoT)?

AR and VR are a kind of immersive technology that blurs lines between the real and virtual worlds. Besides its familiar entertainment adaptation, they are promising to fill the communication gap and explore the world. Look, VR literally saved millions of us in 2020 when we were isolated.

As for AR, its commercial use plays a vital role in Healthcare, enabling medical education and pre-operative planning. AR apps can help explore insides before the scalpel touches the body.

Consumption-conscious countries are growing in number. I’m happy that people tend to adopt the IoT to make living smart. An application for smart homes aimed to reduce electricity consumption and an app for remote charging of electric cars in our portfolio illustrates this. This technology has disrupted the reality once and firmly stays on the ground. So my point is that technology should be harnessed as much as possible to make our lives better. I’m open to discussing new ideas with entrepreneurs to help them make a step ahead.

12. What do you think will be the future of Mobile technology?

In the way of technology adaptation, I see mobile is getting more human. It's like a "Little Me" in the pocket. Look at this, more and more stuff gets over from the physical to the digital world. We managed to augment digital content with physical mass, insert our business in it, and take over control of our living. But each time, it's not enough. This continuous lack drives deeper penetration of mobile technology that is developed rapidly, and more and more life challenges can be solved with the help of mobile.

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