Interview with Keith Shields, Co-founder and CEO - Designli

Keith Shields  

Co-founder and CEO, Designli

Give us a quick overview on Designli. When and how did you begin this journey and what were your motives to be successful?

I co-founded Designli with my good friend and business partner because we shared a mutual interest in building beautiful, helpful, and successful digital products. It started as a side project while we were both engineering students at the Ohio State University. We quickly realized it was something we wanted to dedicate ourselves to for the long run.

What is your role in the management and development of Designli?

I’m personally involved with every project. I meet with every client before we agree to work with them, then stay connected throughout the entire life of the project.

This is a lot of work, but it helps us stay in control of every relationship and make our clients as successful as possible. We only take clients when they’re the right fit, and then we do everything in our power to delight them at every step along the way.

Tell us about your biggest achievement in the industry.

While we’re the top-rated app and web-app development firm in the Southeast, we focus more on the achievements of our clients. We’ve helped countless customers go from napkin sketch to successful startup venture to exit, and have helped enterprises increase the productivity of their workers and lead to a massive increase of profits with custom-built software solutions to unique business problems. These are the achievements we count as the ‘biggest’ in our 10+ years of being in business. Recently, we took a startup from idea to launched web-app, which - within 18 months - was generating $2MM/month in recurring revenue with an ‘Airbnb’ type business model for the trucking industry. This company was recently acquired by a Private Equity firm.

How do you schedule the development phases of the project and promise timeline to your clients?

Every project is different, but we have our process down to a science. We can meet aggressive timelines and keep projects on track because we do the work upfront to lay a solid foundation in what we call our ‘SolutionLab,’ which is a project blueprinting engagement. It makes the building process predictable and repeatable, ultimately yielding successful custom software on time and under budget.

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

We employ talented developers from diverse backgrounds. Hiring people with different skill sets gives us the flexibility to be platform-agnostic. We can always do what’s best for the client without being tied to one specific platform.

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

All roads lead through our SolutionLab (with very few exceptions). It costs $6,000 to go through the SolutionLab. By the end, our clients have a clear roadmap to success.

This is the way we’re able to promise each of our clients a predictable price point and timeline. While we aren’t a ‘fixed price’ development shop - and instead allow ourselves to be more ‘agile’ with changing business conditions and feature requirements over the lifespan of a project - we’re still ultimately accountable for our client’s timeline and budget requirements at the end of the day.

We’ve found that a lot of good apps get killed by financial surprises. The SolutionLab ensures our clients don’t run into those lethal budget blowups down the road.

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

Our apps are all about enhancing the businesses we serve. A big focus of our SolutionLab is on making sure every feature is contributing to the core solution. At the end of the SolutionLab, our clients can see the estimated cost of each individual feature. It’s all about guiding them toward the type of app that will be most profitable for the business.

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

Simply put, we do what we say we will. You can see this over and over in our reviews. Designli communicates well, and our team always delivers everything we say we will (and often more).

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

We’re extremely selective about who we hire, and we put a lot of effort into maintaining and improving our process. My co-founder Joshua and I are both life-long students of technology, and we stay personally connected to each Designli project. Our personal attention and focus on hiring the best talent allow us to future-proof everything we do.

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

We’re certainly excited about new devices entering the marketplace. That said, we don’t want to overreact to changes in how people interact with technology. We believe the core principles of successful design are remaining largely unchanged.

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

Here at Designli, we think of our approach as a mix of art, science, and business. An app has to be beautiful and technically innovative while also solving an important problem. We expect to see this trend become even more pronounced in the future, which means the standard for mobile products will continue to rise.

Your quick feedback on the services of TopDevelopers.co

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