Trioskyhttp://www.triosky.com/blog/2014-08-27T08:25:01+00:00An open source content management platform.5 Tips on using Elance and Odesk2014-08-27T08:25:01+00:00Ziwei Zhou/blog/author/ziweizhou/http://www.triosky.com/blog/5-tips-on-using-elance-and-odesk/<p>Recent couple years, I have been using both <a target="_blank" href="http://www.elance.com">Elance</a> and <a href="http://www.odesk.com">ODesk</a> alot for my venture ideas. Even being a technical person for all my life, it took me some time to use it very effectively. At here, I want to share some of the lession learned with all of you. </p>
<p><strong>1. A Properly Written Project Description</strong></p>
<p>There is a whole world difference between you are describing your project in plain English and in technical language. Using proper technical terms to describe the project can help your freelancer to understand the difficulty and scope of the project. Believe or Not, it saves money as well. Just imagine if you are trying to build a house without proper architect specs, it will be very difficult for the contractor to give you a proper quote. They cannot get into your mind to know what you want.</p>
<p><strong>2. Provide Wireframe Of Your Project</strong></p>
<p>One picture says a thousand words, please take the time to use pencil and paper to draw down your app idea page by page. So the developer will know what you want to have on each page. </p>
<p><b>3. Synchronize Your Lingual</b></p>
<p>Try to spend some time with your potential freelancer and make sure you know what he means, when he says "Modal Window, Authentication, Authorization, etc". Also make sure he knows what do you mean by "Go here and there". Giving a name for each page on your wireframe will also reduce the misunderstand on communication. Give benefit of doubt to people. When he says "no", make sure you ask what he means. </p>
<p><strong>4. Validate their work on regular bases. </strong></p>
<p>Nowdays any IT related work is verifiable by milestones. Anyone who tells you that he cannot let you test the app until it is finished, that is not true. You can use <a href="https://www.testflightapp.com/">TestFlights</a> for your mobile application and <a href="heroku.com">Heroku</a> for Web Applications.</p>
<p><strong>5. Take Screenshots and make videos clips of what you want.</strong></p>
<p>If there is anything specific you want with your app, either a specific effect or transitions, it will be great if you can take some screenshot or make a video of it from some reference app. Like if you like Vine's Signup process, don't just say please make the signup process like Vine. Instead, take screenshots of Vine's App and send it to the Freelancer. </p>
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<p>I hope you find this information useful, leave me a note if you have any suggestion and question.</p>
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<p></p>4 things to consider when choosing a mobile app development company in Singapore2014-08-20T05:09:13+00:00Ziwei Zhou/blog/author/ziweizhou/http://www.triosky.com/blog/4-things-to-consider-when-choosing-a-mobile-app-company/<p>Now days there are many mobile application development companies. As a small business owner, some times, it can be very hard to find a reliable and affordable mobile app dev company. From the years of my software development experience. I concluded following four key things to consider before hiring.</p>
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<p><strong>1. Local or Foreign Company.</strong></p>
<p>Being in Singapore, we have vast choices on picking development company. App Development companies in India, China and Indonesia are generally cheaper than Singapore local company. If you like to save money, and if you are not technical person, then my suggestion is don't pick price over location. Working with a local company is much easier for communication and getting a final product as you are dreamed of.</p>
<p><strong>2. Big Company or Small Company.</strong></p>
<p>When I was in US and trying to get my life insurance. I asked one of the smaller size insurance company, "When is insurance in MetLife costs more than yours?", and his reply was "Because they spend a lot of money on their Dog Logo". It was kind of funny to me at the time, but it is true. For a large company, a large portion of your project fee goes to their marketing, sales and project management department. If money is a concern to you, I would rather work with smaller size company.</p>
<p><strong>3. How to screen a mobile application development company?</strong></p>
<p><strong></strong>When hiring a company, communication and responsiveness is the key. If you cannot get someone to reply your email within a day, then probably either they are way overloaded with work or none is checking email. Either way it is bad news for you. Imagining some of your customer found a bug within your app and you want to get it fixed ASAP. Not being able to reach your dev company, it is always a very frustrating thing.</p>
<p>Of course, besides the communication part, you should always review their track record, social media sites to see what others say about them.</p>
<p><b>4. Getting a propose and establish milestones and final deliverable deadline.</b></p>
<p>Once you find "the one", you want to make sure they can deliver. When it is normal for most of the companies to ask for down payment, but you need to make clear with them on the deadlines and checkpoint/milestones. This way you will know where they are at with the project and you can see the project gradually come in life. </p>