Interview with Anastasia Zhuk, Co-founder and Head of Business Development - Whidegroup

Anastasia Zhuk  

Co-founder and Head of Business Development, Whidegroup

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

Whidegroup was founded in 2014, a year when political and social complications prevalence in Ukraine was high. Having previous experience in software development with our Business Partner, we’ve had a clear understanding about the niche we want to focus on, about the clients we want to work with, and about the workplace and conditions we’d like to provide to our future employees. Located in industrial city with strong engineering talents, we’ve quickly on-boarded the team of specialists, trained them and ran into the creation of unique and non-trivial development solutions for e-commerce businesses. Apps are a great way for e-commerce stores to optimize their internal processes, engage more customers, perform promo campaigns effectively, and profitable results. As Whidegroup team don’t simply know how to develop code, but deeply understand e-commerce business processes, we are highly motivated to improve businesses in that way.  

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

I work on the business side at Whidegroup – develop sales and marketing strategy, track their implementation on all company levels. As a boutique e-commerce development company, Whidegroup keeps the number of employees small enough to work closely and quickly react to changes and that is the reason I take part in interviewing and on-boarding of new members as well. This we do to make our team to be sure that principles and attitude of a new employee are perfectly aligned with the values of Whidegroup. 

Tell us about your biggest achievement in the industry

Our achievements in the industry are mainly related to the clients we have already worked with and the results they gain cooperating with us. Among dozens of e-commerce projects developed by us from the scratch and those we comprehensively support for years; our great pride is cooperation with service companies like shipping or payment service providers. We have developed apps and extensions for them to enable integration of their services with established e-commerce platforms like Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, and others. These companies are listed in Deloitte Technology Fast Companies and The Fastest-growing Private Companies in US by Inc.500.

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

Our experience allows us to predict areas that can require more efforts and time as a result for investigation, implementation or testing, so we take that into account planning project timeline. We also limit the number of change requests made by clients during the development to fit into proposed terms.

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

We always start with the current state of clients’ businesses, niche they operate in, products or services they sell, and clients they work with. Combining their vision and goals for 1-3 years with our experience about typical technical problems businesses face in such industries, we suggest the most suitable platform for their e-commerce business.

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

We usually work using time and materials pricing model as all e-commerce projects and apps we develop and support are customized or require tailored solutions and can’t be estimated from the very beginning with 100% accuracy. Only if the client has the detailed specification document, we can proceed with a fixed price model defining all conditions of cooperation and acceptance criteria for each development factor and its iteration in the agreement.

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

These are:

Responsiveness and smooth communication. Replying promptly on clients’ questions and notifying him/her the important updates, always builds trust and leaves a positive impression about the company.

Honesty. Clients come to us to reach best results and be successful. So if you think their assumptions or vision for the project are not perfect, and you are sure that you know better ways for its implementation. And, your clients will be more than happy about the final positive result.

Completion of the project within clients’ budget.

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

We keep up with innovations and latest trends – visit conferences, attend meet-ups, listen to webinars, and regularly organize our corporate knowledge-sharing events. Also, based on the researches and things learnt, we integrate new approaches and tools into our work, and development process.

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

These are very modern technologies that bring innovation into many industries and areas of our life. They provide new experiences, engage customers more and definitely advance companies that integrate them into their business.

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

People now are almost inseparable with their gadgets – we pay by phone, we can unlock our car with the phone, we read on the phone, make purchases, and many more. Mobile technology is definitely the future. Technology providers and mobile manufacturers will do everything to make mobile experiences more convenient and beneficial for people.