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Latest news, page 2

<h1>DeFi development with Golang</h1>
Decentralized Finances or DeFi is one of the most notable emerging trends in the financial industry. Providing an alternative to traditional financial services enabled all the market players to find new revenue streams while ensuring superior quality of services to their users. However, there still are quite a few questions every business must answer before adopting DeFi:
<ul>
<li>What are DeFi apps and how do they work?</li>
<li>What benefits can DeFI apps (or dapps) provide for my business?</li>
<li>What technology do they use and are they compatible with the rest of my tech stack?</li>
</ul>
As an experienced technology partner, Spintech shares some insights on how to make DeFi work for your business why Golang can be the best choice for DeFi development.
<h2>What is DeFi and how do dapps work?</h2>
The main difference between DeFi and traditional centralized financial apps and services is that dapps rely on distributed copies of the ledger to store the immutable and transparent database. While presenting certain challenges in terms of DeFi development, this approach ensures security of operations, resilience of the system, traceability of changes, interoperability within the ecosystem, etc.
Below we list the most common types of DeFi development services:
<ul>
<li>Dapp development — create feature rich, secure and intuitive financial apps with distributed data ledger</li>
<li>Token development — your dapps need tokens to operate, so having a functional, reliable token will increase the value of your dapp and help attract investors</li>
<li>DeFi exchange development — such platforms can be used to any end, not only for trading cryptocurrency while retaining the same transparency and traceability</li>
<li>DeFi lending and borrowing tools — this software can provide internal lending/borrowing instruments for private communities of public markets, either as a fork of an existing solution, or built from scratch</li>
<li>Yield farming and staking — since 2020, this new niche is rapidly growing, allowing investors to gain additional yield based on the amount of liquidity invested</li>
<li>Smart contract development — smart contracts with preset terms of completion are the mainstay of DeFi industry and are needed for almost every dapp project</li>
<li>DeFi wallet development — a way to provide your customers with utmost security and control over their funds and financial data</li>
</ul>
As you can see, there is quite a wide range of DeFi development projects that can be useful to your business. The question is — why would you decide to go for dapps in the first place?
<img src="/uploads/business-benefits-of-dapps.jpg">
<h2>Business benefits of dapps</h2>
As mentioned before, transparency of operations, traceability of updates, security of ledger data are among the most crucial DeFi benefits. But the game-changing one is the high load ability.
When using centralized financial products or services, you rely on the provider to ensure data security, system performance, and accessibility. However, should they come under DDoS attack or meet higher visitor traffic than they expected, they can lag or crash under the load.
This is not the case with high-load DeFi applications, as they run in a distributed environment. When every user runs a small portion of the whole, shutting down the service is impossible.
What are the business benefits of distributed apps then? We list the key of them below:
<ul>
<li>There are no fees for transactions and services, as these are performed by all participants, not by any single entity</li>
<li>You keep your money and digital assets in a secure wallet protected by the whole network and do not entrust them to a single bank</li>
<li>You don’t need anyone’s approval to use any feature or function — only an Internet uplink</li>
<li>Funds transfers are instant, as they don’t require multiple layers of approvals</li>
</ul>
As you can see, Dapps are definitely worth looking into and can bring significant benefits for any business that deals with online transactions.
<h2>High-load DeFi development from Spintech</h2>
We’ve briefly mentioned the challenges of DeFi development. While there are a few, they are not unbearable and can be dealt with, if you have sufficient expertise.
The challenges include:
<ul>
<li>the need to ensure data integrity in case of a failure of any of the system parts</li>
<li>the need to scale up and down automatically to conserve resources and meet traffic fluctuations</li>
<li>the need to ensure high system performance for every user</li>
</ul>
Spintech addresses all of these concerns based on our in-depth expertise with blockchain development, command of the most appropriate programming languages, and in-depth knowledge of development best practices and frameworks.
We use <a href="https://spintech.software/technologies/go" rel="nofollow">Golang</a> to ensure high performance, transparency, and adjustability of code, as Golang works well with many other languages and frameworks. We design systems on the principles of availability, security, and reliability of operations. We implement in-depth testing and close monitoring of all the DeFi systems we develop. We constantly write down all possible crash reasons and implement step-by-step crash recovery scenarios to ensure your Dapp can continue operating after any kind of failure.
We can continue this list for quite some time, but seeing once is better than hearing thrice. <a href="https://spintech.software/#contact_us" rel="nofollow">Contact us</a> for a free consultation and see what Spintech can do to help make your DeFi project a reality!

Providing an alternative to traditional financial services enabled all the market players to find new revenue streams while ensuring superior quality of services to their users.

DeFi development with Golang

<h1>Enterprise mainframe solutions in 2021 - why are they still being used and are there any alternatives?</h1>
Mainframe languages like COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal, Java, Basic, and Algol are the 3rd generation procedural High-Level Languages, which have to be compiled into machine language to execute the program. They were first developed more than 40 years ago to serve the needs of high-power computational facilities in airports, banking systems, educational institutions, and other organizations running high-load mainframe architectures.
<img src="/uploads/enterprise2.jpg">
The point is — they are still actively used 40 years later. Despite Go and Ruby, Python and React strengthening their positions and cloud computing offering an alternative to mainframe infrastructures, some enterprise mainframe solutions will remain as they are. This means they need to be maintained and updated if possible, which poses several issues. Read on to learn how to handle mainframe enterprise solution challenges best in 2022.
<h2>Cloud computing — a worthy alternative?</h2>
The core goal of mainframe architecture is to provide near-limitless data storage, computational power, and multitasking. Cloud computing provides it all off the bat, but the problem here is the data transfer speed.
<img src="/uploads/enterprise3.jpg">
Unless an organization hosts an on-prem cloud solution, they have to use an Internet uplink to access their data storage and operate them. This limits the system performance down to the Ethernet channel throughput capacity, be it 10Gbps or 100 Gbps. Let’s take a closer look at the pros of such a mainframe alternative:
<ul>
<li>PAYG. The Pay As You Go billing model ensures you don’t pay for idling resources</li>
<li>Scalability. You can scale your infrastructure up and down with ease when the need be</li>
<li>Security. Cloud computing comes with cutting-edge cybersecurity measures and tools</li>
<li>Interoperability. Using modern solutions makes integrating the latest tools with them quite simple</li>
</ul>
Let’s now take a look at some of the disadvantages:
<ul>
<li>Bandwidth limitations. As mentioned above, unless you build an on-prem cloud ecosystem, your data processing speed is limited by the capacity of your Internet uplink. This limits the speed of Big Data analytics, training Machine Learning models, and building Artificial Intelligence algorithms. Well, the existing 1Gbps and 10Gbps bandwidth options should suffice for most of your needs...</li>
<li>I/O throughput. Mainframe computers are built to provide near limitless computational power, while cloud solutions rely on combining the resources of multiple CPUs for that. Some tasks, like huge database queries, are not done well by a cluster of small machines and are best executed by a single monolithic mainframe.</li>
<li>Complexity. Operating an on-prem cloud solution is a chore in itself, involving significant expenses on component replacement and staff training.</li>
</ul>
To wrap it up, despite cloud computing becoming more and more popular recently, it is still not a silver bullet, and enterprise mainframe solutions are here to stay, for the next 5-10 years at least.
<h2>Why are mainframe systems still used?</h2>
The simplest explanation is that they still get the work done. A banking system mainframe might require some serious adjustments to support innovative tech like mobile payments, cryptocurrency, or NFT transfers — but it still processes millions of transactions per minute and ensures the security of operations.
We’ve touched a pain point of many enterprise executives: they need to ensure mainframe solutions that support their mission-critical operations can adapt to the innovations of the 21st century without disrupting their normal operations. Doing this requires a very specific set of skills, which is not easy to come by on a modern IT job market.
First of all, there are lots of Python, Java, Ruby, or PHP courses, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find some IT school that teaches FORTRAN or COBOL. 
<img src="/uploads/enterprise4.jpg"> 
Secondly, while the task of integrating something like mobile payments into airport mainframe infrastructure is of humongous importance, it is actually not so long to implement. This means you need to find a very rare specialist, who will do their job in several months, and whom you will have to keep on standby just in case — or part ways and risk not having them at hand the next time you need them.
<h2>Solution: IT outsourcing</h2>
The situation above is a classic picture for IT outsourcing, and it is, indeed, the best solution for mainframe maintenance and development. IT outsourcing/outstaffing agencies like Spintech have long ago hired mainframe development experts or invested time and effort into training them internally.
This enables Spintech to assist and provide value to enterprises from day one, instead of forcing you to spend 5-6 months looking for a relevant expert. You get the mainframe development services you need, and can either sign-up for hands-on maintenance monthly, or lend the expert once again whenever needed. A continuous influx of such contracts forms a win-win situation for all parties.
Should you have any additional inquiries or want to discuss the details of your mainframe development project — <a href="https://spintech.software/#contact_us" rel="nofollow">contact us</a>, Spintech is always ready to help!

How to handle mainframe enterprise solution challenges best in 2022. 

Enterprise mainframe solutions in 2021 - why are they still being used?

<h1>Why outsourcing/outstaffing services is a great risk-off strategy</h1>
Investors are well-versed in risk-on risk-off strategy, but startup founders might not be as experienced with it. In short, when the economic conditions are risky (like during the 2008 banking crisis), investors prefer to keep their money in low-risk assets, like US treasury bonds. Vice versa, when the market is stable, investors have a higher risk appetite and are more likely to invest in projects with bigger risks — and better potential yields.
What does it mean when applied to business? During the crisis times (like the coronavirus pandemic), most businesses prefer to follow a risk-off strategy by halting the development of new projects and products, conserving cash, laying off non-critical employees, headhunting crucial talents from competitors, etc. Everything works to keep your boat afloat, eh?
However, when some company curtails their initiatives, an empty space appears on the market, which means room for growth for a bolder company, which perceives crisis as a risk-on opportunity. Just make a Queen’s Gambit: instead of folding your development projects in the headquarters, outsource them to a reliable technology vendor in Ukraine.
<h2>Benefits of outsourcing/outstaffing to Ukraine</h2>
Why outsource to Ukraine and not Poland, India, or the Philippines for that matter? For several reasons:
<ul>
<li>Ukraine has the world’s 4th largest pool of certified software developers (over 200,000)</li>
<li>Many Ukrainian IT companies were working remotely long before the lockdowns and the IT industry as a whole adopted remote work quite quickly and efficiently</li>
<li>Most IT specialists in Ukraine are already vaccinated, which lowers the risk of abrupt project halts due to leading talents falling ill</li>
<li>Ukraine is a renowned IT hub with polished outsourcing/outstaffing processes, good English proficiency overall, and cultural fit with Western companies.</li>
<li>did not risk writing about low Covid-19 rates, they are currently skyrocketing</li>
</ul>
Well, this all seems fine and fair, but what about the money? Outsourcing to Ukraine provides several important benefits in this regard:
<ul>
<li>You can easily establish a legal entity here or work through your technical partner’s entity</li>
<li>All the management processes are legal and transparent</li>
<li>Favorable taxation for IT services</li>
<li>Big liquidity of job market, as talents constantly finish previous employments and are ready to engage on new projects, reducing your recruitment expenses</li>
<li>Polished business processes both for recruitment of new teams and for software delivery, ensuring timely project kick-off and successful completion.</li>
</ul>
Okay, but how to know whether outsourcing is the right solution for your situation?
<img src="/uploads/outsourcing-outstaffing2.jpg">
<h2>When to outsource/outstaff software development?</h2>
First, let’s make a clear distinction:
<ul>
<li>Outsourcing means delegating some tasks entirely to an external team or specialist. The difference with hiring a freelancer here is that you outsource to a vendor, not an individual, and have contractual obligations much more reliable than promises on Upwork</li>
<li>Outstaffing means hiring remote talents from a technology vendor for some period of time. This way, you keep the responsibility for the tasks within your organization and just bridge the skill gaps by hiring the needed talents for the duration of the project.</li>
</ul>
What are the benefits of such approaches for your business?
<ul>
<li>instead of waiting for an uncertain time to hire a talent in-house, you gain instant access to a pool of experts who can provide value from day one</li>
<li>good old costs reduction, as hiring a senior developer in Ukraine will cost at least 50% less as compared to hiring in the US, due to a much lower cost of living there.</li>
<li>external resources integrate into your delivery process, use your communication channels and issue tracking systems, report to your project managers, etc.</li>
<li>access to rich expertise, as while some tasks might be new and challenging for you, they can be quite menial for your outstaffed employees and they might have ready solutions for the roadblocks you face.</li>
</ul>
Thus said, you can offset multiple software delivery risks by outsourcing /outstaffing to a reliable technology partner.
<h2>Wrapping up</h2>
The question is — where to find such a partner? We will say it without any false modesty — Spintech is the right choice. We have ample expertise in building expert teams to empower our customers’ projects. Take a look at our <a href="https://spintech.software/#projects" rel="nofollow">portfolio</a> and hear what <a href="https://spintech.software/#testimonials" rel="nofollow">clients have to say</a> about us — and you will see that Spintech can become the factor that will turn a risk-off situation into a risk-on opportunity for you! Should you want to try it out — <a href="https://spintech.software/#contact_us" rel="nofollow">contact us</a>, we are always ready to talk business!

Just make a Queen’s Gambit: instead of folding your development projects in the headquarters, outsource them to a reliable technology vendor in Ukraine.

Why outsourcing/outstaffing services is a great risk-off strategy

<h1>Briefly about Complex - Mobile Application Development</h1>
Nowadays, most of the tasks we do daily are done using mobile apps. From games and listening to music to chatting with friends, tracking calorie intake, monitoring health details, or even e-signing important documents or <a href="https://diia.gov.ua/" rel="nofollow">using government services</a> — we’ve now got a ton of apps for everything, and mobile app development is a very popular domain today. But how to ensure your mobile app is successful, appeals to the target audience, works fast, and is updated seamlessly? Read on to discover succinct and on-point hints about mobile application development based on Spintech’s rich expertise with the topic.
<h2>Choosing the language</h2>
This is one of the most fundamental choices — either you build native apps (Swift, Objective-C for iOS or Java/Kotlin for Android), cross-platform ones (ReactJS, NodeJS, Ruby, Python, Dart/Flutter), or progressive web applications (which are actually websites running on mobile devices without the need to install the app).
Based on the results you expect to achieve and your target audience, some choices can be preferential to others — but only in-depth mobile development expertise can ensure you select the best language and framework for the task at hand. Thus, unless this is your umpteenth project and you know all there is to know about how to develop mobile apps — it’s best to consult with a technology provider like Spintech to choose the best fit for your needs.
Naturally, the best programming language for any app is the one you will not have any trouble with when supporting the mobile application in the future. Thus, you should think of the costs of development and support, and the best language will be the one your team is most acquainted with.
<h2>Appointing the timeframe</h2>
Yet another important decision is whether you want to ride some hype wave and publish an app quickly in hope of getting some traction, or you have a business idea that will still be relevant in a year, so you can dedicate more time to develop the app. There is a popular misconception regarding developer seniority, saying that “100 juniors will never do as much as 4 seniors”. We have an article explaining <a href="https://spintech.software/blog/software-development-team-structure-guide" rel="nofollow">why hiring a balanced team is better than hiring 4 seniors</a>.
Consider this — quick development does not mean low-quality deliverables, but it also does not necessarily mean high quality of the resulting code. It will be cheaper, yes, but cheap also is not relevant to quality. Needless to say, a product written in a month will not be as fleshed out as a product built for 4 months, but if the former has all the needed features and suffices for the user’s needs — this can also be a viable approach.
Thus said, you should try to find the optimal balance between the scope of the product, the must-have features to include, the nice-to-have features you’d like to see implemented, your budget limitations, and the time you are ready to dedicate to the project.
<h2>Mobile app success stories</h2>
<img src="/uploads/mobile-app-success-stories.jpg">
Here are several real-life examples of mobile apps that did well, became market leaders in their category, or were bought by international corporations, turning their developers into millionaires overnight.
<h3>Lift</h3>
One of the most popular self-motivation tools around, Lift provides a personalized approach to every user, sending them quotes to lift their spirits. In a world where you have to constantly stay motivated to achieve the expected results, Lift gives that little extra push that keeps the people going and achieving success in the end. A good marketing campaign made Lift stand out of a myriad of “self-motivation apps”, making it become a huge part of its users’ lives.
<h3>SportMe</h3>
Developed by an AI and automation expert, SportMe gathered a huge following among people preparing for various sports tournaments, undergoing weight loss programs, or just trying to live a more healthy and sporty life. Being an expert in fitness himself, SportMe’s original developer applied his knowledge to ensure his app actually solves the issues people face. As a result, an ever-growing community of people uses SportMe to track their progress in sports and is happy to pay for this handy app.
<h3>BenevolentAI</h3>
One of the best ways to ensure app success is to spot an underserved market niche and serve it exquisitely well. This is the approach BenevolentAI took, as it combined AI analytics with the EHR systems. Thus, it allows finding the best matches between drugs and people with incurable diseases, many of which are unresponsive to traditional therapies. With this app, people with glioblastoma, Parkinson’s, or motor neuron disease can apply for treatments their doctors were not even aware of.
<h3>Uber</h3>
What a simple yet brilliant idea — to allow car owners to earn some extra as part-time taxi drivers if they can spare the time to pick up a person and drive them to their destination if it is near their own route! What started as a car ride app, became one of the most popular mobile apps in the world and revolutionized multiple industries. Uber is by far not the only ride app — but a comprehensive marketing strategy, convenient UI and UX both for drivers and for passengers, permanent sponsorships for various events, and media presence definitely helped this platform to become an indisputable market leader.
<h2>Wrapping up</h2>
2021 is as good a year to start mobile app development as ever. As the COVID-19 pandemic is yet far from subsiding, and remote way of life is here to stay, people need more and more apps to address various aspects of their lives. The question is — how to find reliable mobile app developers to ensure the success of your project?
The answer is quite straightforward:
<ul>
<li>apply your expertise in some niche to ensure your app can serve the needs of the target audience better than the competition.</li>
<li>select the timeframe, language, and framework to develop your mobile app based on their availability now and in the future.</li>
<li>if you don’t have the necessary expertise in-house, outsource the task to reliable experts who can help select the best technology stack for the project and provide the necessary talents to develop the app.</li>
</ul>
Spintech can assist you with this task, as we have in-depth expertise in developing mobile apps for various industries. Most importantly, you need to strike the balance between the price and the quality, to ensure you spend sufficient funds to receive a high-quality product. Should you have any questions or inquiries — feel free to <a href="https://spintech.software/#contact_us" rel="nofollow">contact us</a>, let’s discuss your next project!

Read on to discover succinct and on-point hints about mobile application development based on Spintech’s rich expertise with the topic.

Briefly about Complex - Mobile Application Development

<h1>The reality of the Ukrainian IT market</h1>
Ukraine is one of the most popular outsourcing destinations worldwide, due to housing more than 200,000 skilled IT engineers — the 4th largest software developers community in the EU. Companies from around the world outsource to Ukraine to tap into this talent pool and build their software quickly and cost-efficiently.
However, this results in severe talent shortages on the market. Spintech describes the situation with the Ukrainian IT community from within and explains what you should look for in order not to be fooled.
<h2>Hiring superheroes will cost you, a lot</h2>
The faster you want a talent hired for your project, the bigger salary you should pay. Don’t you worry, it will still be miles lower than the cost of hiring such a talent in the US, but be prepared to untie the laces on your coin bags.
<img src="/uploads/1_the-reality_2.jpg">
GRAPH, x= SPEED, y = COSTS, straight line
That’s it, there are no other rules. Good specialists — and you don’t want to hire mediocre ones, do you? — aren’t ever unemployed. They always have a project to deliver and a queue of recruiters waiting with new offers. Working for a world-known brand means nothing to them — they have projects from half a dozen similar companies to select from.
Professional growth is also not a deciding factor, as senior developers, software architects, and team leads have nearly the same range of responsibilities and challenges in any company they work for.
What is even worse, there are no “average” costs or “approximate” budgets. Every software development project is unique and must be estimated individually. Not following this maxim leads to multiple hidden risks unbeknownst to customers and service providers, which can derail the project.
<h2>Don’t believe median salaries from job portals</h2>
The devil is always in the details. Median salaries from job portals are good for statistics that have no real-life application. In real projects, a couple of talents with similar skill sets can work on the same positions and one will have $500-$1,000/more than the other.
Why? Because there are individual factors that affect how much a specialist can earn:
<ul>
<li>one is a workaholic, as he is single and work is his main source of drive and fun — while another is a family guy, goes home every evening at 5 p.m. and never works long hours.</li>
<li>one prefers automating every little task to avoid repetitive monkey work, while another just has a library of macros at hand and has no issue writing the same line of code as many times as need be.</li>
<li>one is a genius thinker and idea generator, but spends most of the time working in solitude — while the other is a mentor for junior team members and can’t dedicate as much time to writing code per se.</li>
<li>one works with a legacy framework which is still crucial to support the project architecture (and this skill is quite valuable), while the other uses the latest tools on the market to ride the hype wave (and can be easily replaced with another expert with similar knowledge, should the need arise).</li>
<li>etc, etc, ad infinitum.</li>
</ul>
Thus said, one middle developer can cost you $5,000/mo. and the other will cost $4,000/mo, and both will be satisfied with their wages. Therefore, when hiring talent for your project, you need to evaluate all the aspects, not merely the median salary for this programming language and seniority level.
<h2>Mice are at play when the cat is away</h2>
Unfortunately, not all companies know in detail what affects the developer’s price tag, nor do they bother. They pay the median salaries regardless of the actual value delivered by the particular developer.
This allows some service providers to sell middle developers from their bench as senior specialists, and junior developers as mid-level experts. Naturally, this affects the outcome of the project directly, resulting in the sub-par quality of the code. For example, when <a href="https://ain.ua/en/2020/09/17/softserve-data-breach/" rel="nofollow">SoftServe was hacked in 2020</a>, not only did its employee’s data and passports surface online, but some of the code repositories on GitHub were also made public. Analysis of the code in these repos shows the sub-par quality of deliverables, which is only possible when developers are given tasks well beyond their seniority level.
If that was done by one of the biggest IT service providers in Ukraine, which works on projects for Microsoft, Amazon, Google Cloud, SalesForce and others — the same can be expected of lesser companies.
<h2>What to do to avoid such a blunder?</h2>
Nevertheless, hiring a good specialist is still possible if you know what to look for and what to expect:
<ul>
<li>
Once again, good specialists are never unemployed. Whenever you need them, your outsourcing partner will have to compete for their attention with 5-6 other offers from other companies. On the other hand, a specialist crucial for your project can receive a better offer at any moment.
The solution: 
a) understand that a month or two is needed to hire a specialist (at the very least) 
b) be prepared to pay the real price, not the market median 
c) form legal contracts for long-term engagements
</li>
<li>
You need tech expertise to assess the dev’s background. When going for <a href="https://spintech.software/blog/why-spintech-is-a-good-fit-for-eu-agencies" rel="nofollow">IT outstaffing in Ukraine</a>, you need a tech expert in-house to test the candidates to ensure they are indeed middle or senior specialists, not juniors sold under a better price tag. When outsourcing, a service provider should handle this aspect — but having an in-house tech expert check the candidates never hurts.
</li>
<li>
Don’t necessarily aim to build an all-star team. A cohesive team of 1 senior, 2 middle, and 2 junior developers who have worked together already is much more productive than hiring 3 senior engineers. It is so because they have established communication and polished processes in place.
</li>
</ul>
This is the Spintech approach and below we will explain why it is so.
<h2>Spintech approach: build a team, not a superhero squad</h2>
Marvel and DC movies tell us that superheroes form great teams able to overcome any opponent. Well, you can believe it, for 2 hours of movie time — and even then they still have their struggles.
In real life, there are no supervillains and the goal is not saving Earth. The key objective is to deliver a high-quality product and the main opponents are deadlines and… boredom.
Yup. Boredom. What you rarely think about is that Hulk would not be good as a janitor or school bus driver. He is a superhero, he has superpowers — and he wants to have a purpose in life. However, janitors are also needed or we will drown in the trash.
The harsh reality is that senior engineers are proud individuals with ample expertise and a tail of successes behind them. They know their respective domains inside out and can do anything — from high-level software architecture planning all the way down to writing every string of code needed to implement those functions.
The point is, they don’t want to. They want to design the software and solve challenges (and do it their way). Thus, 3 seniors will most likely bicker and argue about every little trickle — just like the superheroes do all the way up to the final boss fight.
Spintech walks another road. We know firsthand that senior developers should work with middle and junior developers and delegate tasks. This way, seniors have no one to argue with, can train their team-leading skills, and can unleash their full potential at solving the project challenges. This ensures efficiency from multiple facets:
<ul>
<li>A senior developer knows what time is needed to implement this or that function and to prepare tests for it. This allows them to plan ahead, delegate, and prioritize the tasks, so everything is ready by the deadline — and they don’t have to write all the code from scratch.</li>
<li>Middle engineers have a clear backlog and can work without hassle, while also mentoring the junior devs</li>
<li>Junior developers deliver all the work they must do and gain invaluable experience while freeing up the time and resources of their more experienced peers.</li>
</ul>
You save time, money, and nerves, as the team works along with the project roadmap and delivers the expected results on time instead of fighting among themselves. The only question is — how to select such a team?
<h2>How to mitigate risks while selecting a vendor and deliver an IT product successfully</h2>
When considering an outsourcing vendor, there are 3 key parameters to look at:
<ul>
<li>Relevant expertise. A company specializing in mobile app development might not be the best partner to deliver an ERP system, obviously. Check the company’s expertise and case studies and ensure they are familiar with your project’s domain.</li>
<li>Project management approach. Ask for references to previous customers (or contact the ones listed on the site) to find out how the vendor performed from the project management side.</li>
<li>Unbiased reviews. Companies try to post only positive reviews on various websites. However, sometimes frustrated customers post negative reviews too. Even taken with a grain of salt, such reviews can show whether the vendor actually values the partnership. If a customer states that the vendor sold middle engineers as seniors, the chances are, they will do it again with you.</li>
</ul>
Most importantly, check their attitude during sales and tech calls. If a company promises to do everything and anything, quickly and with high quality — most likely they are pulling your leg. A reliable partner will explain what they can do and what they will need time for, and warn you of the possible underwater reefs with your project implementation.
<h2>Bottom line</h2>
Outsourcing to Ukraine is indeed a great way to gain access to affordable and high-quality software development services. The only issue here is the need to verify that the vendor you select is indeed able to deliver on their promises. Brand visibility has nothing to do with the company’s reliability as a vendor. But many Ukrainian companies can become your trusted long-term technical partners.
Should you like to give Spintech a try — <a href="https://spintech.software/#contact_us" rel="nofollow">contact us</a>, we are always happy to discuss your project details!

Are you going to outsource to Ukraine? Learn of the underwater reefs you should avoid and what to expect from such a collaboration.

The reality of the Ukrainian IT market

<h1>Usage of NFT and blockchain-related technologies in business</h1>
NFT is all the hype recently, both in the cryptocurrency world and outside it. Really, the idea of claiming ownership of a piece of digital art — a meme, a gif, a video, a song or an image — such an idea might seem strange, as such objects are indefinitely replicable. This is where NFT or Non-Fungible Tokens come to the rescue. 
Read on to find out how it works, how it can be used outside of the cryptocurrency domain, and discover 5 potential business use cases for this emerging technology. This way, you can introduce them faster than your competitors and win the hearts and wallets of your customers…
<h2>What the heck is NFT?</h2>
NFT is a unique digital record that can be attached to a real-world or digital asset. The idea behind NFTs is that there are no two same, so the objects they represent are unique, unlike dollar bills or bitcoins. While every dollar bill has a unique number, a dollar is a dollar — and if you exchange one bill for a coin, the value of your assets won’t change. The same is with bitcoins — while each one is unique, they are worth exactly the same.
Enter NFT based on Ethereum smart contracts. Every token determines one, and only object, even if there are countless copies of it. For example, the NFT of the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/5/22316320/jack-dorsey-original-tweet-nft-cent-valuables" rel="nofollow">first ever tweet by the Twitter’s founder was sold for nearly $3 million dollars</a>. While you can freely copy it anywhere, from now on, all the rest are copies, and the only original is the one with NFT.
<img src="/uploads/2_what-the-heck-is-nft-1.jpg">
Everyone can make a photo or a copy of Mona Lisa and it will be worth nothing. But the only real one is in Louvre, and it is priceless.
This approach opens immense business opportunities. As for now, the most popular one is selling rights to unique piece of digital art. As with any fine arts collecting, the pieces bought for one price can become more valuable with time and be sold for more — and due to the smart contracts and blockchain transparency, the creator can still earn some money every time the NFT changes hands. This money is currently available only as Ether, but with time it will definitely be available for exchanging to any fiat.
<h2>Business uses of NFT</h2>
While digital arts collecting is a good profit avenue, it will concentrate on one-time sales, just like that <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/11/22325054/beeple-christies-nft-sale-cost-everydays-69-million" rel="nofollow">Beeple picture sold for $69 million at Christy’s</a>. But we all know the real profit lies in millions of smaller microtransactions, not in one purchase worth millions. This is how NFTs can be used in business outside of digital arts ownership niche.
<img src="/uploads/4_business-uses-of-nft-1.jpg">
<h2>Document licensing</h2>
Adding NFTs to passports. driver licences or COVID-19 vaccination certificates can help prevent their forgeries. This can also greatly streamline the issuance and acknowledgement of scientifical degrees, birth and death certificates, academic certificates and other legal documents. There already are startups working to <a href="https://searchcio.techtarget.com/feature/7-must-know-blockchain-trends?_gl=1*16czdqz*_ga*MjExNTY3NDQxNS4xNjMwOTM3NjU2*_ga_TQKE4GS5P9*MTYzMDkzNzY1NS4xLjAuMTYzMDkzNzY1NS4w&#x26;_ga=2.124557002.1914393098.1630937656-2115674415.1630937656" rel="nofollow">enable NFT issuance of various documents</a>. 
Well, these can be issued all they want, but they are useless unless they are accepted, yes? Good news is, the <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/san-marino-adopts-nft-vaccine-092053414.html" rel="nofollow">Republic of San Marino is already accepting NFT-based COVID certificates</a>. Thus said, using NFTs to ensure the authenticity and uniqueness of documents is a feasible business case.
<h2>Domain name registration</h2>
Standard DNS or Domain Name System controlled by ICANN cannot enforce sufficient domain name ownership transparency. Both security and possible censorship concerns are never out of question. Blockchain at its core is a transparent ledger of records and <a href="https://medium.com/unstoppabledomains/intro-to-blockchain-domain-nfts-bba976942272" rel="nofollow">NFTs enable users to register unique domain names</a> they can easily trade. The only limitation is that, unlike an Instagram or Twitter handle, the NFT-based domain name cannot be changed once it switches hands.
<h2>Real estate</h2>
Using NFT records instead of records of deed in real estate ledgers ensures the immutability and transparency of the ownership history. Besides, this is much cheaper to produce and maintain than conventional real estate registries. There are certain downsides, however, like the need to both keep your private key at hand and to securely store it. Should you forget the key or it gets stolen, the NFT record (and the associated real estate ownership data) will be inaccessible.
<img src="/uploads/3_nft-1.jpg">
<h2>Digital art, sports, memorabilia</h2>
Sports fans and digital art connoisseurs can now purchase a moment in history — a famous gif (like the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/18/22287956/nyan-cat-crypto-art-foundation-nft-sale-chris-torres" rel="nofollow">Nyan Cat</a>), a video of a game-winning goal, a moment when a player understands he is now a champion and much, much more. Fine arts collecting is on the rise after games like CryptoKitties showed people are ready to invest millions in owning and managing digital pets.
<h2>Logistics and supply chain control</h2>
Using blockchain smart contracts for controlling the origin, route and quality of product logistics is old news. However, with <a href="https://searcherp.techtarget.com/feature/4-key-blockchain-in-supply-chain-use-cases-and-examples?_gl=1*8qgiwe*_ga*MjExNTY3NDQxNS4xNjMwOTM3NjU2*_ga_TQKE4GS5P9*MTYzMDkzNzY1NS4xLjAuMTYzMDkzNzY1NS4w&#x26;_ga=2.253073353.1914393098.1630937656-2115674415.1630937656" rel="nofollow">NFT a business can easily determine where the produce has been</a> and for how long — and this data cannot be altered due to transparency and immutability of records. This is what makes NFT a worthy choice for dairy, fresh meat and other perishable food distribution, where knowing the route and its longevity is vital. 
Conclusions
NFTs are really in their infancy right now and the entrance cost to the market is quite low. The technology behind this new market niche was around for some time, and now the interest in NFTs has skyrocketed due to the fact that nearly any digital or physical asset can become a unique merchandise with NFT, and like with all collectibles, it’s price might grow tenfold with time.
Thus said, whether you want to invest in any particular NFT, want to launch a marketplace for them or have some other blockchain-based business idea in mind — now it’s high time to hop aboard the hype wagon.

Read on to find out how it works, how it can be used outside of the cryptocurrency domain, and discover 5 potential business use cases for this emerging technology. 

Usage of NFT and blockchain-related technologies in business

Whether you are a daring startup aiming to launch a new product or an established company planning to digitize your operations, you will need a software development team to get it done. However, project specifics affect the way you should structure this team in order to ensure it succeeds with the tasks at hand. Кeep reading to find out the main approaches to organizing a software development team, as well as the key roles it must include.
<h2>What to look at before you start</h2>
You need to plan the team roles and positions in advance and have a clear picture in place before you start hiring people. There are several important questions to answer, and these answers define the scope of the team and the roles it should include.
<ul>
<li>Project scope — building a Proof of Concept or a Minimal Viable Product requires much less time and headcount than building a full-size feature-rich app. 
For the former, you need 4-5 people (a Product Owner, a Software Architect, a UI/UX designer, a Business Analyst, a Project Manager and maybe a Team Lead). 
For MVP development. you add leading developers and QA engineers to plan the product architecture correctly from the start. 
Finally, building a full-scale product might require varying numbers of specialists, based on the project management model chosen (Agile or Waterfall), and the actual number of features you want to implement.</li>
<li>Project time — naturally, 4 senior developers can deliver more results in a couple of months than 8 middle developers in half a year. But they will also cost you much more. Thus, you need to balance the team scope against your budget limitations. Speaking of which…</li>
<li>Project budget — we all would like to have unlimited budgets at our disposal, but in harsh reality, this is not the case. Thus, you need to decide how many people you can hire, what their seniority should be, and how many features the product must have at release. Using Agile methodology helps a lot, as you can quickly roll out an MVP and then add more features with time, to ensure better cost-efficiency of the development.</li>
<li>Project management approach — A lot depends on whether you follow the Agile or Waterfall project management paradigm. With Waterfall, you plan the project from the start to the finish and it goes in strict sequential phases. If you decide to deprecate or add some feature mid-development, this is nearly impossible to do. However, you get a predictable development roadmap and timeline. This project works best with the Fixed Price project approach. 
With Agile, the development is split into 2-weeks-long sprints, and you get a working batch of code at the end of each sprint, so the product can evolve incrementally. This greatly eases the adjustments mid-development, if any changes are needed — but this also makes the process quite vaguely predictable. Time&#x26;Materiel is the best project approach for Agile development.</li>
</ul>
<img src="/uploads/team-size-and-composition_cmprsd.jpg">
<h2>Defining the team size and composition</h2>
Having selected all the above, you come to the need to define the product team size and seniority. This is best done at the Discovery phase of project delivery, in collaboration between the Product Owner, the Business Analyst, and the Software Architect.
The Business Analyst gathers all the possible input from your business stakeholders on all aspects of the project. Product Owner and Software Architect transform your expectations into project requirements. These requirements help the Team Lead define what tasks must be accomplished and what level of seniority is needed for them.
For example, if you need to integrate Stripe or any other payments processor with your app, and you have some custom requirements, you will need to hire a Stripe API developer to implement them. This will require quite an expert, as custom Stripe API implementation is a chore and a half, so you will need to look for a senior or strong middle specialist.
But should your app use only standard Stripe functions, it will do just fine using predefined integration routines described in the developer documentation. This task can be performed by a junior Stripe developer (or any junior or middle developer really, it will just take more time). Thus, if even the increased time is still within the allotted project timeline — you can save on hiring an expensive talent without compromising the quality of the product.
The same logic applies to every role in the team. 5 senior developers might do everything perfectly well and within a very tight deadline. But — they can also start pulling the blanket, arguing about various aspects, asserting their leadership and derailing the project in the process (this variant is much more possible). Thus, should you want to avoid unneeded in-team competition and you have some time to spare — hiring middle or even junior specialists can still do the job.
As a technology partner, Spintech is used to building teams of all scopes and seniority levels for various kinds of projects. We will be happy to help you define the team size and composition based on your unique project requirements. <a href="https://spintech.software/#contact_us" rel="nofollow">Contact us</a> and let’s start working on your next project today!

Кeep reading this article to find out the main approaches to organizing a software development team, as well as the key roles it must include.

Software development team structure guide

This is a question we at Spintech hear quite a lot. While the IT industry is rapidly growing, many people still have concerns regarding possible career choices and are not sure whether it is worth becoming a software developer. More importantly, it is unclear what programming language to choose next after English. This article will cover all these points.
<h2>Should I become a developer?</h2>
Yes, absolutely. Software development is one of the few occupations where you don’t have to dedicate a lifetime to master a specialty. With dedication and perseverance, you can grasp the basics of QA, design, project management, system administration, or programming in mere 6 months. This is totally possible to do on your own using plenty of educational materials available on the Internet for free (or by finishing some paid courses).
Add 6 more months to finish advanced courses or learn more tricks by self-educating using various coding boot camps. Work on your portfolio and apply for open positions. This way, in a year anyone can enter the IT industry as a trainee or Junior specialist. From there — with hard work, only the sky is the limit, and depending on the quality and quantity of completed projects, you can progress to a Middle engineer in a couple of years, to a Senior in a couple more, and to a System Architect in 2-3 more years.
Thus said, the way from a trainee to a senior specialist is quite short in IT, and many developers complete it in 6 years only.
<h2>What programming language should I learn?</h2>
First of all, think about whether you really want to write code. There are many auxiliary positions that pay as well or even better than developers. Graphic and UI/UX designers, recruiters, HR specialists, QA testers, DevOps, project managers, business analysts, product owners, risk managers, Big Data analysts, and many, many more. Therefore, everyone can select the domain that fits their expectations most, instead of blindly following the most common routes.
Should you decide to actually become a developer, the choice of your first programming language should depend on the career path you want to pursue.
<img src="/uploads/bdeveloper2-1.jpg">
Do you want to develop Android apps? Go for Java, Kotlin, and JavaScript. Aiming to become an iOS developer? Objective C and Swift are your choices. Do you want to build web apps? JavaScript and Typescript are your best bets. Going for game development? Learn Unity and TypeScript, etc.
Besides, you can never go wrong with React/React Native for cross/platform mobile app development Python (back-end development, DevOps scripts, Big Data analytics, AI/ML training), Golang (complex cloud-based systems, desktop apps, and back-end development), Angular or Ruby-on-Rails (almost all of the above).
There are several new kids on the block, like Flutter for rapid web/mobile/cross-platform app development, or Rlang for AI/ML scripting. Choosing them might seem a great idea to gain expertise in a popular domain, but they are quite complex to understand without previous experience in other languages. Thus, we recommend you gaining a solid understanding of the basics before jumping for the <a href="https://statisticstimes.com/tech/top-computer-languages.php" rel="nofollow">most popular programming languages of 2021</a>.
<h2>Wrapping it up</h2>
As you can see, becoming a developer in 2021 is totally worth it — and is quite doable if you dedicate enough time and effort. Most importantly, there always are vacancies for nearly all kinds of IT talent. At Spintech, we hire developers of all maturity levels and help you grow as a specialist, by embarking on a variety of projects and providing in-house training.
IT industry can be a perfect destination for every inquiring mind not afraid of learning new skills and solving new challenges. Software development and related technologies are dynamically evolving and something new appears nearly every day. 
While you grow from Junior to Senior/Architect, programming languages also evolve. This should be taken into consideration when you choose your future primary specialty. Pay close attention to languages and frameworks that gained popularity within the past 5 years, to ensure your skills will be needed both in the nearest future and in a mid-to-long-term perspective.
Should you like to give it a try — we are always glad to talk! <a href="https://spintech.software/#contact_us" rel="nofollow">Contact us</a> and let’s discuss your next career move!

 Looking for a new career path and wondering if becoming a developer is worth it in 2021? Read on to find the answer!

Is becoming a developer worth it in 2021?

While the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak was a severe challenge and disrupted the global logistics chain, it also served as a major boosting factor for online shopping. People made a transition from buying groceries in corner shops to online shopping in mere days, and e-Commerce platforms exploded with new customers. According to Statista, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/379046/worldwide-retail-e-commerce-sales/" rel="nofollow">retail e-Commerce sales in 2020 amounted to USD $4.28 trillion</a> and are projected to grow to a whopping USD $5.4 trillion in 2022.
This means that in order to remain competitive in this rapidly expanding and evolving market, you should provide an innovative and positive customer experience. Simply offering mobile-friendly cross-platform design won’t do, as people demand more functionality and convenience, forming new e-Commerce market trends for the years to come. Here is what you should deliver to ensure your visitors turn into customers and bring their friends to your online shopping platform.
<h2>A seamless cross-platform experience is a must</h2>
Since 2019, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-traffic-coming-from-mobile-devices/" rel="nofollow">mobile traffic forms more than 50% of overall web traffic</a>. In e-Commerce though, this is more like 90%, so you must ensure your platform provides a seamless cross-platform experience, loads lightning-fast, and is optimized to work mobile-first.
The problem here, however, is that there really is quite a limited number of design templates. We are not talking about coloring and fonts, but about the elements positioning and layout. So when there are hundreds of e-Commerce platforms, they feel like clones and lose their individuality.
There is a move towards so-called headless e-Commerce, where front-end storefronts are decoupled from back-end systems that run the platform. This allows experimenting with designs and creating truly unique and personalized customer journeys, but requires an in-depth understanding of the ways your chosen e-Commerce platform APIs work. Thus, to implement this approach and reap its benefits, you might need to go for programming outsourcing and use external help.
<h2>Hyper-personalized shopping using AR/VR and AI</h2>
This point naturally stems from the previous one. If you provide personalized shopping journeys, empower them to the extreme using AR/VR. According to Shopify, their merchants had a <a href="https://www.shopify.com/blog/3d-models-video" rel="nofollow">250% increase in sales</a> after adding AR-based 3D videos to their stores, so their customers could try the clothing and apparel on immediately. This removes the biggest online shopping roadblock when a buyer can’t see what an item of clothing will look like on them. Now they can.
<img src="/uploads/crop_2.jpg">
Now they can.
In addition, according to Bllomreach, 87% of customers value personalization above all and are most likely to shop more on platforms that remember their preferences, previously viewed items, and provide relevant suggestions. This requires implementing AI/ML models that predict the best choices based on historical data. Luckily, lots of such models are now available from AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure, and other cloud technology providers, so you only need your web development consultants to help you select the most fitting one for your business and train it for you.
<h2>Frictionless billing and verification</h2>
As mentioned above, when the customers like their experience, they tend to come back for more and bring friends. One of the key elements in ensuring a positive buying experience is providing a frictionless checkout. If each of your customers has to enter their credit card details and CVV code every time they make an order, it’s not frictionless. However, storing credit card details is dangerous as this is sensitive data. You must ensure it is not lost in case of a hacking attack.
This is why e-Commerce is now heading towards one-time QR-codes, Face ID, and fingerprint ID verification with digital wallets, etc. This way, the customer can input their credit card details only once in a secure environment, and after that, the technology handles the rest while ensuring the security of stored financial details. But to enable this for your online store, you need integration with other systems, as standard e-Commerce dashboards do not provide such functionality yet.
<h2>Hire a dedicated team to get it done!</h2>
The best way to reap the benefits of the online shopping boom is to hire a dedicated team to implement all the innovative functionality described above for your store. The companies that integrate the latest technology into their offers will attract customers from their not so tech-savvy competitors — and you definitely don’t want to be among the latter!
Spintech is a software development company with ample experience in building <a href="https://spintech.software/projects/3d" rel="nofollow">successful highly personalized e-Commerce platforms</a> with robust and innovative features. If you want to future-proof your online shopping business — <a href="https://spintech.software/#contact_us" rel="nofollow">contact us</a>, we will be glad to help!

Here is what you should deliver to ensure your visitors turn into customers and bring their friends to your online shopping platform.

The future of the online shopping industry

Every Millennial, Gen X and Indigo in developed countries have a smartphone nowadays. This makes web, iOS and mobile Android apps development a very lucrative niche. However, while you can come up with the app idea relatively easily, developing an application for Android requires some effort and expertise. This is why many startups search for reliable companies who make apps to ensure their budgets are invested correctly and their projects come to a successful conclusion.
If you are such a startup, read on to learn all you need to know about Android apps, how to develop and publish them, and how to select the best company for app development.
Most of the steps below can be done by you or third-party specialists you hire. Obviously, if you do not know how to code, you will not write the code. But you can do the preliminary research, sketch some UI drafts, contact Google regarding publishing your app to the Play Store, work with customer feedback, etc.
Without further ado, here are the 10 basic steps you need to make to develop an Android app:
<ol>
<li>Come up with the app idea</li>
<li>Perform an in-depth market research</li>
<li>Form a list of features for your app</li>
<li>Prepare design and UI/UX mockups</li>
<li>Create a graphic design</li>
<li>Write and test the code of your app</li>
<li>Prepare a marketing plan for publishing the app</li>
<li>Submit your app to Google Play Store</li>
<li>Promote your app and monetize it</li>
<li>Use user feedback to continuously improve your app</li>
</ol>
Let’s now take a look at each of these points in more detail.
<h2>Generating an app idea</h2>
You might think that your app idea is unique, but with <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/276623/number-of-apps-available-in-leading-app-stores/" rel="nofollow">more than 4 million apps already in the stores</a>, chances are somebody has already implemented your idea. If they did — do not worry, this does not mean they did it perfectly. You will be able to learn from their mistakes (see more on that in the 2nd step) and improve on them. 
If you cannot find an existing app that uses your idea — this does not mean there is none. Perhaps somebody has it 99% ready and will publish it tomorrow, and let this also not discourage you. You can mix and match good features from existing apps to create a perfect user journey.
In any case, you should try to implement our idea, because maybe your app will have some unique points the competitors did not think of and you will become the market leader in that niche.
<img src="/uploads/shutterstock_1146232034.jpg">
<h2>Performing and in-depth competitive research</h2>
If you find a lot of apps similar to the one you want to build, take a look at their reviews in the Play Store and on their social media. Some users express their frustration on Facebook or Twitter and never bother writing a review at Google Play. These negative pieces of feedback are invaluable to you, as they highlight what your competitors do WRONG, meaning you can understand what you can do BETTER.
<h2>Forming a list of features</h2>
After doing this research, you will have a better picture of must-have features for your app, as well as nice-to-haves. Write them down, this helps visualize the future use cases, hint at some design features or even understand that something should be dropped (or excluded from the MVP scope at least).
<h2>Preparing design mockups</h2>
There are lots of tools for creating design mockups, from Balsamiq and Mockingbird to Hotgloo and Mockup Builder. Even a pen and paper might suffice at first, to give your designer an idea of what you want to get in the result. Form these mockups based on the use cases and features you prepared earlier. Even with Lorem ipsum placeholders instead of content blocks, it will help the designer prepare design drafts faster.
<h2>Creating a full-scale graphic design</h2>
Once you definitely know what your app should do and how the workflow should unfold, it’s time to create stylish designs. Hiring a good designer is crucial, as you won’t get a chance to show your potential users all the range of features if they don’t like the look and feel of the first screen of your app. Luckily, there are great <a href="https://developer.android.com/design" rel="nofollow">guides on Material design for Android developers</a>, so you can ensure your app screens are sleek and appealing.
<img src="/uploads/shutterstock_696064312.jpg">
<h2>Writing and testing the app code</h2>
This usually is the stage where startups start outsourcing to third-party companies that make apps. The point is, the cost of failure to meet the deadlines is high and the risks of making mistakes in the code (or hiring the wrong person) are ever-present when working with in-house developers.
On the other hand, the outsourced app development cost is much lower, as hiring remote teams from countries like Ukraine, Poland or other outsourcing hubs allows saving up to 70% of budget compared to working with US-based developers. Once you partner with a good team, they will write and test your app code, ensuring it is of high quality and properly tested, as their payment and business reputation is at stake. To build good Android apps, look for decent Java and Kotlin development expertise that can be proven by previous satisfied customers.
<h2>Preparing a marketing campaign</h2>
You can have the best app in the world that will go totally unnoticed if you don’t promote it correctly. There is a paid Google Play Store promotion, but it is good to come up with a marketing plan in advance and cause some traction in the media to interest a pool of early adopters and influencers, who will further promote your app if they like it — or provide invaluable feedback on improving it if they don’t.
<h2>Submitting your app to the Play Store</h2>
There are detailed Google guides on <a href="https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9859152?hl=en" rel="nofollow">publishing your app to the Play Store</a>. While you might try to do it yourself and succeed, there are little hints and tricks to use to ensure your app gets maximum exposure after the launch — and a good outsourcing company can make it happen.
<h2>Promoting and monetizing your app</h2>
While the choice of monetization model should have been made on ideation stage, there often are multiple cross-selling and integration opportunities arising after a good launch. While the target audience is hyped for your app, use this opportunity to land good partnership deals or maybe even make a successful exit and sell the app to a big publisher for a hefty sum.
<h2>Improving your app based on feedback</h2>
Should you decide to continue managing your app yourself, pay close attention to user requests in their support tickets, as well as their reviews. Just as you used negative reviews on the competitors to avoid their mistakes, you will now use feedback on your product to make it even better. Implement the most demanded features quickly and you will have your customer base satisfied and promoting your app with word of mouth — the best kind of promotion ever.
<h2>Conclusions</h2>
This is a pretty high-level guide on mobile Android app development. Every step includes little gimmicks and best practices that professionals know and outsiders don’t. While this guide shows the general direction to move in, it’s those little details that make all the difference.
Working with Spintech, you can be sure we use our in-depth Android app development expertise to help achieve your project goals successfully. Would you like to try it out for yourself? <a href="https://spintech.software/#contact_us" rel="nofollow">Schedule a call</a> and let’s discuss how Spintech can help you make your next Android app a success!

Here are the 10 basic steps you need to make to develop an Android app.

10 Basic steps to create an Android app

One of the most important aspects of launching a startup is hiring a programmer. After all, the key components, without which the project's success is impossible, will depend on him. So, how to begin the search? Here are five stages of building this process, which we want to share with you.
Stage 1. Choose the Type of Cooperation.
Hiring an outsourcing programming specialist is one of the most popular ways to solve missing in-house developers. In this case, you pay only for the result of the work. On the other hand, the programmer may not understand what exactly you want to do. Therefore, you will need time to explain all the details of your ideas.
The staff member will do the work considerably faster than the protégé. However, its financial demands will be more costly. Plus you will have to pay a lot of additional expenses. In addition to taxes, you will also become forced to cover the employee's insurance.
Stage 2. Set Your Priorities.
Firstly, make a requirements list. Secondly, clear it of unnecessary items or move them down. For example, solution architect responsibilities are pretty extensive. But we recommend that you highlight a few basic ones. It will save you time and effort in the future. Thirdly, if your list is too long, consider the option of hiring a development team.
Stage 3. Use Special Services to Find Workers.
Now it's time to find the right person for the open position. The classic option is recommendations from your acquaintances. However, it is not always possible to use it. Especially since it is easier to find specialists for specific tasks on the Internet. There are many websites where you can get in touch with programmers. Including but not limited to:
<ul>
<li>Upwork;</li>
<li>GitHub;</li>
<li>Hired;</li>
<li>Freelancer;</li>
<li>Clutch;</li>
<li>LinkedIn.</li>
</ul>
<img src="/uploads/startup2_compression.jpg">
Also, don't forget to take advantage of Facebook. There are many relevant groups where you can find qualified experts in many fields. By the way, Mark Zuckerberg also once started a startup and asked himself a simple question, which eventually led him to the status of a billionaire. It sounds like "how to build a social network website from scratch?" 
Stage 4. Ten to Five.
Analyze the range of developers available to you. Choose the ten ones whose experience is the most relevant to your tasks. To do this, go through each candidate's portfolio. Then schedule an interview with them. Before the meeting, create a list of questions that you will ask. Make sure you ask qualifying ones to filter out those programmers who will not help you.
<img src="/uploads/startup1_compression.jpg">
For example, let's talk about the need for integration with other systems. Not every programmer knows how to implement this kind of task. Preferably, after the first phase of filtering, you should have five candidates left. If this number is slightly different - it is not a problem. Your main goal here should be to form a "core" of the most suitable specialists.
Stage 5. Define the Winner.
So, in the end, you need to choose from the remaining candidates the one that you think is the ideal developer for your startup. Or at least the person who best combines the qualities that you expect to see in this specialist. A few key tips:
<ul>
<li>do not hire the cheapest developer because you have to make a lot of edits to its code. And this can only be done by a more experienced and expensive programmer. But keep in mind that the price can also be affected by the location of the person. To better understand the skill level, we suggest that you first take a specialist on a probationary period. Prepare a budget and the tasks that they need to perform during this time. In the end, you will be able to evaluate your programmer objectively;</li>
<li>make sure that the specialist is capable of performing your tasks. Sometimes a person can claim to be able to do anything, as long as you hire them. You need to analyze this point in detail at personal interviews and team meetings. You can also use trackers, which allow you to see how the specialist is working. They make it easier to monitor the candidate's performance during the probationary period;</li>
<li>it is desirable that you can quickly contact the developer and get a response in the shortest time. There are cases when startups develop several times slower than they could have because of slow replies. Use the Agile methodology to control feedback and make it more productive.</li>
</ul>
However, you don't have to go through this long process if you use the services of <a href="https://spintech.software/#contact_us" rel="nofollow">Spintech Software</a>. Thanks to this step, you will save time and energy, which you can use to improve your startup. Contact us, and our specialists will answer all your questions.
These are the actions we recommend if you want to find a quality developer for the project. Thanks for your attention, and good luck with your search!

In this article, you will find useful tips to help you choose developers for your tasks. It recommended reading for everyone who is going to start their project.

How to Find a Programmer for a Startup

With the worst of the pandemic seemingly over and vaccination fully underway, many European countries are planning to lift the quarantine limitations to tourists with vaccination passports. Thus, the tourism industry is preparing to rise anew like a phoenix from the ashes. Booking plane/train tickets, hotel rooms, and cars are going to rebound soon.
Thus, many startups entertain the thought of developing a booking platform to ride this hype wave. If you are such a startup, keep on reading to get an overview of the current market leaders, their most useful features and real-life booking software development examples from Spintech.
<h2>10 popular booking apps in Europe</h2>
Without much ado, here are the top 10 most downloaded and widely used booking apps in the EU as of 2021:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.omio.com/" rel="nofollow">Omio</a>(former GoEuro) — a ticket price comparison platform, helping backpack travelers get cheap tickets across the EU. A web and a mobile app allow comparing the prices, planning the route and tracking it with ease.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.rome2rio.com/" rel="nofollow">Rome2Rio</a> — another route planner app. Unlike Omio, it does not provide exact pricing, but it allows selecting the best among all the possible plane, train, bus, car, and ferry routes between any two points.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.skyscanner.com/" rel="nofollow">Skyscanner</a> — is the go-to app for planning a trip, as it allows finding the cheapest flight tickets, hotel rooms, and car rentals, allowing to compare a wide range of services within one platform. 
One of Skyscanner’s most prominent features is the open date search, showing you the best ticket deals in any location for a given month, which is great for digital nomads, who migrate whenever and wherever they want.</li>
<li><a href="https://housinganywhere.com/" rel="nofollow">HousingAnywhere</a> — a popular student-oriented global platform for long-term room rentals and listing own rooms for rent built with tourist/student convenience in mind. This means lots of filters to form the listings, convenient payment methods to confirm the booking at once, and real-time updates of the available room lists to ensure the users can view the recently added rooms sooner. Using our expertise, the customer developed this <a href="/projects/housing-platform">platform</a> to be a tool of choice for housing management.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.flixbus.com/" rel="nofollow">Flixbus</a> — a German bus operator offering the biggest number of cheap bus rides across the EU. Bus ticket booking, alert on delays, bus tracking and many more options make this app the favorite one for countless backpack travelers across 29 countries in Europe.</li>
</ul>
<img src="/uploads/bookingln2.jpg">
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.blablacar.com/" rel="nofollow">BlaBlaCar</a> — the famous carpooling platform, allowing the drivers to offer free cabin space in exchange for gas cost payments. This allows traveling much cheaper than using a plane or train, and much faster than on a bus — while chatting with new people and making friends on every trip. 
The most requested BlaBlaCar features are requesting custom rides for drivers to accept and creating alerts once somebody agrees to join the ride.</li>
<li><a href="https://citymapper.com/" rel="nofollow">CityMapper </a>— a great app for using public transport systems across Europe. It allows building routes in new cities using local public fares and enables the users to save the data offline to be available later. This way, tourists can be sure they will not get lost even without having to join local mobile carrier networks, using just public Wi-Fi spots to download city maps and plan their routes.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/maps" rel="nofollow">Google Maps</a> — the most popular map, route, and reviewing app worldwide. “Street view” allows comparing the location with your surroundings, “Explore” helps find the best shop or cafe based on customer reviews and a built-in public transportation mapper helps build the routes in any location.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.uber.com/" rel="nofollow">Uber </a>— we don’t think we need to introduce you to the most popular car-sharing app around. With Uber, you can catch a ride almost anywhere in the EU, and Uber Eats delivers food in all major cities.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.settle-in.com/" rel="nofollow">SettleIn </a>— this neat little platform is the tool of choice for company transfers and relocations. Unlike the majority of booking tools, oriented at single users for long-term (students) or short-term (tourists) room rentals, this app is built for professionals with families. Relocating to a new country or city with a spouse and kids can be a nightmare for any professional, but <a href="/projects/relocation-solution">SettleIn from Spintech</a> solves the challenge. 
The platform is configured to list only the properties rented for families and provides a ton of useful features for HR specialists, allowing them to enable a smooth landing for every new company employee. Due to integration with various calendars and the ability to create customizable alerts for any occasion, SettleIn can become your best friend when planning and executing the relocation.</li>
</ul>
Naturally, this is merely the tip of the iceberg, as there are booking apps in other languages tailored for various purposes. The market is recovering from the pandemic and new opportunities arise daily.
Should you want to benefit from launching such an innovative solution soon — you will need access to a solid booking platform development. Spintech is ready to provide such access, so <a href="/#contact_us">let us know</a> what you need and we will help you turn a project into a real app!

Most useful features and real-life booking software development examples from Spintech.

Booking platform development in 2021

Ukraine is one of the most dynamically growing IT outsourcing and outstaffing hubs in Europe and worldwide. The reasons for this situation are multiple, the most prominent are as follows:
<ul>
<li>Geographical proximity to customers,</li>
<li>Strong technical background of developers,</li>
<li>Favorable taxation for the IT industry,</li>
<li>Good English fluency on average,</li>
<li>Proven history of a successful partnership with world-leading technology providers like Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Boeing, etc.</li>
</ul>
Thus said, if your business is looking for outsourcing or outstaffing IT services — Ukraine might be the best bet. And should you choose to partner with Spintech — you will gain instant access to an immense pool of talents. Keep on reading to find out how we can help reach your business objectives and accomplish your projects.
<h2>Ukraine IT industry market overview</h2>
There are more than 600 higher education institutions in Ukraine. Above 1,4 million learners study there. More than 30,000 graduates from technical HEIs join the workforce every year.
<img src="/uploads/shutterstock_1084540781.jpg">
This results in the rapid growth of the Ukrainian IT industry, which currently employs more than 200,000 specialists. based on the data from DOU, the leading Ukrainian IT-related portal, 35% of all IT specialists in Ukraine are senior-level, 35% are middle-level talents and 30% are aspiring juniors.
These specialists have hundreds of combined man-years of expertise with all currently used programming languages and technologies, from PHP and Java all the way to DevOps, IoT development, and blockchain. Thus said you will surely be able to compose a team for any project in Ukraine.
<h2>Main collaboration models: outsourcing and outstaffing</h2>
However, gathering such a team is not as easy as it might seem, as these specialists are rarely unemployed. Thus, you will have to either headhunt for them or rent ready teams from local agencies like Spintech. There are two main approaches to this process:
<ul>
<li>Outsourcing, where you delegate some business responsibility entirely to our team and we deliver the results according to the contract and/or SLA. In this case, the team management overhead, progress control, and reporting are on our side.</li>
<li>Outstaffing, where our specialists join your teams remotely to fulfill some tasks and your project managers have to assign tasks and oversee their execution.</li>
</ul>
<img src="/uploads/shutterstock_440066134.jpg">
Both models enable our customers to get the desired results on time, but there are some significant differences:
<ul>
<li>Outsourcing is best used when you lack expertise entirely and need to have end-to-end work done. For example, audit of MVP after previous contractors work, optimization, refactoring, and release of a working product. Other scenarios include long-term commitments like DevOps services, QA and testing, server administration, etc.</li>
<li>Outstaffing, on the other hand, is one of the variants of remote employment, when the team that delivers a certain range of services to a client is actually a third-party service provider (an outsourcing agency). This company acts as an employer, and is responsible for payroll, benefits, office amenities, and equipment, while the customer only issues tasks to the specialists</li>
</ul>
<h2>Spintech — a reliable technology partner</h2>
Spintech works with both approaches. We have an experienced team in-house, which can form a backbone for any project, and we have in-depth knowledge of the market, enabling us to hire any required specialists and fulfill team all roles quickly. In some cases, we were able to hire a Team lead within a week and form a team in under a month.
<img src="/uploads/shutterstock_644489425.jpg">
Alternatively, we can outstaff our specialists to remotely work as a part of your in-house team. We have a wide range of talents able to assist with all aspects of software delivery, from design and coding to DevOps release automation and ongoing maintenance.
Most importantly, as these specialists are hired and housed by Spintech, you don’t have to spend time and effort on things like:
<ul>
<li>candidate sourcing and recruitment</li>
<li>worktime control and statistics, remuneration and benefits</li>
<li>HR tasks: days off, paid and unpaid sick leaves monitoring, vacations, etc.</li>
<li>workplace maintenance, furniture, computers, and servers, utility costs</li>
<li>Team building, internal education, holidays, etc.</li>
</ul>
Instead, Spintech adds a certain management fee to your contract costs, but it pays for itself tenfold in the long run, as you are free from managerial overhead.
Should a specialist fall ill, require a vacation, decide to quit our employment, or go on paternity leave, Spintech guarantees rapid replacement with equal or better talent, so your project outcomes don’t suffer.
Spintech continuously analyzes feedback both from our customers and developers to help establish seamless communication. This way you keep the hand on the pulse of the project without dedicating time to micromanagement. Our purpose-built internal HR system helps us track hours worked, manage the payroll, and gather feedback from all parties.
To further reduce operational overhead, we dedicate a manager to every customer. You can communicate with the manager on any issues that arise and solve any questions in a timely and efficient manner.
This way, Spintech provides immense business value by taking care of all the processes under the hood. As our customer, you enjoy streamlined project management and can concentrate on growing your business while we handle the tasks you delegate to us.
<h2>Conclusions: why Spintech?</h2>
Spintech is a reliable technology provider capable of fielding senior-level IT specialists' teams and building them from scratch quickly. Due to mature processes and polished workflows, we can select the most appropriate team composition and technology stack for any project, form a productive team and produce the deliverables on time. Should you need long-term assistance or team augmentation — we can lend a hand with that too.
<a href="/#contact_us">Contact us</a> with any inquiries and we will help you reach your objectives!

Learn why Spintech is a reliable choice for outsourcing and outstaffing in Ukraine.

Why Spintech is a good fit for EU agencies

Switching business to online, or 2021 e-Commerce in a nutshell
The COVID-19 pandemic boosted the growth of the e-Commerce market worldwide significantly. During the months of self-isolation, hundreds of millions of customers worldwide turned to online shopping both for re-stocking their groceries and for purchasing everything from clothing to cars online. Continuous lockdowns, curfews, and other quarantine measures worldwide boost the e-Commerce popularity even further.
Naturally, such a big shift could not go unnoticed by the industry, nor could it be left unaffected by it. Let’s take a closer look at how retail switched to serving customers online in 2020 and what are the e-Commerce trends for 2021.
<h2>What to keep an eye on when switching retail to online?</h2>
There are several reasons why the transition to e-Commerce can be the most important business decision your business can make today:
<ul>
<li>
Remote is the new normal in retail. Hundreds of millions of people will continue to shop online even after the limitations will be lifted. Gaining such customers now allows maximizing their LTW and build a stable revenue stream for your business.
</li>
<li>
Work from home boosts online shopping. As huge strata of the population now work from their homes, they no longer need to live in megapolises and shop there. Many millions have relocated to small towns where brands don’t have a brick-and-mortar presence, so e-Commerce remains the main channel of reaching out to them and offering your goods.
</li>
<li>
Post-COVID recovery means more isolation. Millions of people that fought the coronavirus and won still have some medical conditions that force them to mostly stay at home. They still need the goods you sell, they just want to select them online and get them shipped to their doorstep.
<img src="/uploads/statistic_id271579_revenue-growth-of-selected-internet-and-online-service-company-verticals-2019-2021.png">
Thus, 2021 can be the best time for building an e-Commerce solution for your retail company. Let’s now list the 10 top trends in e-Commerce to help you choose the best features for your needs:
<ol>
<li>Direct-to-customer (DTC) replaces B2b and B2C.</li>
<li>Customer Data Platforms or CDP replace CRMs.</li>
<li>Many companies go fully online and abandon brick-and-mortar for good.</li>
<li>Some outlets now provide live video consultations.</li>
<li>One-click payments via a dedicated link.</li>
<li>AR-technologies for trying on shoewear and clothing.</li>
<li>AI-powered bots for customer service, telemarketing, and cross-sales.</li>
<li>Smart assistants for buying online using voice commands.</li>
<li>Same-day delivery or delivery time slot selection.</li>
<li>Subscription purchases are growing in popularity.</li>
</ol>
Let’s take a closer look at what these trends bring to the table.
<h2>DTC to replace B2B and B2C</h2>
Big brands now have enough data management capabilities to be able to directly engage with every single customer and build highly personalized “market segments of one”. This allows omitting all the interim supply chain actors and delivering the goods directly from the brand to the customer reduces the expenses significantly.
Huge brands like Nike abandon marketplaces like eBay or Amazon and concentrate on selling through their corporate websites to centralize customer data management. This way, they are able to control all the communication channels and increase the efficiency of their marketing.
<h2>CDPs replace CRMs</h2>
As a direct consequence of the previous point, CRMs do not suffice as central customer data management tools anymore. They are being replaced with Customer Data Platforms or CDPs, allowing to aggregate data from a variety of sources across multiple touchpoints throughout the customer journey. This provides valuable insights into the customer’s personal and aggregated shopping behavior, allowing you to adjust marketing activities to maximize their impact.
<img src="/uploads/scheme_12.jpg">
<h2>Online retail abandons brick-and-mortar shops</h2>
You still have to pay the rent for a closed shop and many brands abandon their brick-and-mortar points of presence for good in favor of online sales. It is much easier to send an item of merchandise to a small city using a delivery service than maintain a physical presence there.
<h2>Video consultations to boost conversion rates</h2>
On the other hand, customers prefer trying the things on before purchasing. The fear of buying a thing that will not fit hinders the growth of online retail. Thus, some brands started offering video consultations, turning their closed shops into virtual showrooms.
If a customer wants to see how an item looks in real life, he can use a live video streaming service button in the item description card in the e-Commerce shop. Clicking this button will create a video chat with a store that has this item in stock, so the consultants will try it on in real-time, and answer any questions a customer might have. This helps boost conversion rates up to 30%
<h2>One-click purchases are now a thing</h2>
If you run an ecosystem where a customer registers an account and adds his banking card details once, you can enable 1-click buying to provide a seamless shopping experience. Whenever a customer is in doubt after having a consultation with your representative, such a system allows creating a dedicated purchase link. This link will allow the customer to buy the item with a single click, without having to re-enter the card details and confirm the purchase with the bank.
<h2>AR technologies to augment the purchasing process</h2>
While seeing how an item of shoewear or clothing looks on someone is better than looking at the photos, many people want to try the apparel on before buying it. AR technologies allow doing this, effectively allowing the online shop visitor to try on various items just like he/she would have done in a brick-and-mortar shop.
<img src="/uploads/im-150302.png">
However, implementing such AR features can be quite costly for a small-to-medium business. There is an alternative though, as one can create a QR-code that would launch a 3D model simulation of the item after scanning.
<h2>AI-powered bots to reduce the costs of call-centers</h2>
People are now used to self-service and using smart chatbots to deal with their personal banking and other needs. Implementing this approach in online retail allows cutting the call-center expenses by half or even three times. AI-powered chatbots can perform telemarketing and cross-sales tasks, and should the dialog surpass the bot’s capabilities, it can be transferred to a live person. At the same time, every such situation is used for training the AI algorithm, so it becomes better over time.
<h2>Smart assistants enable buying online using voice commands</h2>
Ordering a slice of pizza using Siri, Cortana, Alexa, or Amazon Echo is old news. However, what if we told you <a href="https://www.ecommercebytes.com/2021/04/29/amazon-grows-sales-44-in-first-quarter-of-2021/" rel="nofollow">Amazon made 41% of sales in 2020 </a>via voice commands? People are lazy and they prefer speaking, not reading and clicking the buttons, so this trend will definitely continue to grow in popularity.
<h2>Same day delivery or time slot selection</h2>
While many people are at home all day long now, they value the ability to order delivery at a convenient time slot very much. As a matter of fact, 48% of leads will abandon the cart if there is no 1-day delivery options or no chance to select a fitting time slot. Below we illustrate the importance of various delivery aspects in ensuring a positive customer experience, based on customer feedback gathered by one of the largest e-commerce marketplaces in the EU.
<img src="/uploads/scheme_1.jpg">
<h2>Subscription purchases are gaining traction</h2>
Months of self-isolation lead to developing a certain pattern of purchases. What started in healthcare and pharmacy as auto-refill of prescribed medications over certain intervals now gains popularity in grocery, toddler care, hygienic consumables for women, and other online retail niches. Being sure you have enough of everything you need provides peace of mind many customers value a lot.
NB! As an honorable mention, we should cover the trend of using Blockchain and NFT for securely purchasing valuable goods like art masterpieces online. While such offers are yet rare, the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies and solutions based on them will definitely create some interesting use cases in combination with the online retail ecosystem.
<h2>Summary</h2>
The e-Commerce industry is on a steady rise. While the anti-COVID vaccination is already underway, the time to fully remove all the quarantine measures is quite far from us yet. This means that people will rely on online retail for much longer to make purchases, and many millions of customers will never ever set foot in a brick-and-mortar store again.
Thus, 2021 is a great time to develop a custom e-Commerce solution, implement some of the most popular trends, and conquer your market segment. To do that you will need a reliable technology partner, sure — and this is where Spintech can come to your aid. We have ample <a href="/domains/e-commerce">e-Commerce software development</a> expertise and can lend it to help make your project a success!
</li>
</ul>

Let’s take a closer look at how retail switched to serving customers online in 2020 and what are the e-Commerce trends for 2021.

Switching business to online, or 2021 e-Commerce in a nutshell

The COVID-19 pandemic limited our access to favorite pastimes and people were forced to search for online entertainment services. The number of users for various online gaming, sports betting, dating and gambling platforms skyrocketed, not to mention the growth of subscriptions to various media streaming platforms and gaming consoles. What is most important — the end of the pandemic is yet far, there still are hundreds of millions of untapped potential customers globally, and these users will be here to stay once the restrictions are lifted. This article highlights the trends in online entertainment services during the pandemic and how Spintech can help your business jump on the hype train and ride the wave.
First, let’s have the numbers speak for themselves:
<ul>
<li>
self-isolation forced people to stay inside for weeks, and many of them decided to subscribe to online video streaming services like Netflix, or the latest addition to the club, Disney+. As a matter of fact, more people subscribed to Disney+ than to Netflix during the same time.
<img src="/uploads/disneyvsnetflix.jpg">
</li>
<li>
Online gaming platforms and consoles also saw the numbers of paid subscriptions rise rapidly. For example, by 2021 <a href="https://twitchtracker.com/statistics" rel="nofollow">Twitch grew to nearly 3 million concurrent viewers</a> at any given moment.
</li>
<li>
PS4 sold more than 114 million units worldwide as of November 2020
<img src="/uploads/playstation_grow.png">
</li>
<li>
<a href="https://www.techrepublic.com/article/playstation-rakes-in-2-6-billion-in-ps5-sales/#:~:text=Despite%20the%20slow%20rollout%20to,buy%20one%20of%20the%20consoles.&#x26;text=For%20the%20gamer%20without%20one%2C%20the%20PS5%20is%20the%20holy%20grail." rel="nofollow">PS5 sold 5.3 million units by March 2021</a> and is forecast to sell over 66 million units by 2024
</li>
<li>
During the quarantine, many people finally found time to play their favorite games on their consoles, not on PCs/smartphones only. According to <a href="https://www.safebettingsites.com/2020/12/09/combined-revenue-for-top-3-console-subscription-services-shot-up-by-142-yoy/" rel="nofollow">research from SafeBettingSites</a>, the three leading subscription gaming services (PlayStation Now, Xbox Game Pass, and EA Play) revenue grew 142% YoY as compared to October 2019. Game publishers are increasingly shifting to this model to ensure a stable recurring revenue stream. With PS5 and Xbox Series X hitting the shelves, gamers are bound to bring in millions to play the best existing and new titles.
</li>
<li>
Steam grew to nearly <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/308330/number-stream-users/" rel="nofollow">25 million active users in 2020</a>. The numbers of new users spiked in the spring, then people relaxed a bit in the summer, but when the second wave of the pandemic came in the autumn, people returned to Steam.
</li>
<li>
Blizzard’s <a href="https://investor.activision.com/static-files/2d66791b-ca74-439a-87e8-7cd443b44c9a" rel="nofollow">Battlenet grew to nearly 400 million</a> users in Q3 2020, outperforming the company’s expectations by far.
</li>
</ul>
Thus, people have invested time and money in eSports and other forms of online entertainment. Where the money goes, the business follows, and several new online entertainment services also grew, from matchmaking and scoring to achievement rating.
 Spintech was also a part of this process. One of our customers was an <a href="/projects/esports">eSports tournament, matchmaking, and rating platform</a> that encountered performance issues when the numbers of active players grew rapidly in 2020. Spintech replaced REST API integrations with GraphQL ones, rewrote legacy PHP code with Golang, and rebuilt a monolith app into a microservice architecture ensuring scalability and great performance under a heavy workload.
 As of today, this eSports platform not only enables the players to compete with their teammates in a fun and friendly atmosphere but also serves as a kind of a trampoline for players aiming to enter the cybersports world. This community includes hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic players aiming to win and join cybersports top leagues, as well as pro-players, streamers, and gaming companies.
 Most importantly, there is no reason to think people will abandon their online entertainment subscriptions when the limitations are lifted, so the businesses can get lifetime customers before the end of the pandemic. The eSports and online entertainment market is thriving right now, while also being quite new and not overpopulated.
 Thus, if you are planning to enter the online entertainment services domain, it contains a ton of new possibilities, requires fewer expenses as compared to other niches, and quickly returns your investments. Spintech is ready to help you build great eSports and online entertainment products, so <a href="/#contact_us">contact us</a> for a free consultation and let’s start working on your next project!

The COVID-19 pandemic limited our access to favorite pastimes and people were forced to search for online entertainment services.

Online entertainment services during the pandemic

The healthcare industry worldwide had to withstand huge stress and overcome multiple challenges in 2020. However, for most healthcare providers, the COVID-19 pandemic became more of an innovation driver than a challenge. The shift to telehealth, the introduction of multiple products and services for self-care and home-care, cooperation between healthcare providers, and innovative startups — all of these are the signs of digital transformation in healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, healthcare providers worldwide have to comply with <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/global-covid-19/essential-health-services.html" rel="nofollow">recommendations on maintaining essential health services</a> developed by CDC and WHO. These include several demands:
<ul>
<li>Performing activities needed to treat the COVID-19 patients and overcome the pandemic</li>
<li>Modifying their service delivery to perform non-pandemic-related healthcare duties</li>
<li>Modifying their clinic space and service access to minimize the risk of contracting COVID-19 by healthy patients.</li>
</ul>
The two latter points include the development of digital solutions to increase the percentage of telemedicine in daily operations, minimize the levels of bureaucracy needed to access the services, and move as many supportive, palliative therapeutic procedures outside of hospitals, as possible.
Healthcare providers used the time of turmoil to mobilize their resources and were mostly able to adequately respond to the challenges they faced. According to a McKinsey report, the <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/telehealth-a-quarter-trillion-dollar-post-covid-19-reality" rel="nofollow">use of telehealth solutions more than quadrupled</a> - from 11% in 2019 to 49% in 2020 Telehealth has emerged as one of the leading healthcare domains. It is already worth more than 250 billion dollars and is forecast to steadily grow in the post-COVID-19 reality.
As for minimizing the levels of bureaucracy needed to access public healthcare services, many hospitals and clinics have already introduced various CRM systems and many countries have launched nationwide eHealth solutions. These tools allow the patients to book their visits over the internet to minimize the time spent waiting in the hospital corridors and the risk of contracting the coronavirus there. Besides, many such CRM and eHealth tools allow for online consultations over video streaming, so the patients can receive the needed care from the safety of their homes.
<img src="/uploads/dth2.jpg"> 
Most importantly, developing such custom telehealth platforms allows healthcare providers to provide personalized customer experiences and meet the unique needs of their patients.
For example, one Spintech customer had to <a href="/projects/healthcare-monitoring-platform">update an existing health state monitoring solution </a>to be able to face the COVID-19 challenges. Various businesses and organizations, as well as individuals, have to regularly conduct COVID-19 tests to monitor and prevent the virus spread across their workforce. Sending all the employees to some clinic means exposing them to extra danger and taking lots of time.
Instead, Spintech developed a solution allowing to deliver the testing kits to the patient’s door (or place testing stations at the employer’s site), gather the ready samples, send them to the laboratory of your choice, get the results directly to the platform via API. The software can then provide the results directly to the HR system of an organization upon request, email, or print them out for an individual and even provide printed or digital COVID-19 traveling certificates. Integration with a variety of payment gateways ensures any company worldwide can use the platform with ease.
<h3>Conclusions: Adapt to healthcare design changes</h3>
It is obvious the healthcare industry is not going back to the pre-COVID models of conduct. Contactless payments, telehealth solutions, digital booking of consultations and visits, self-care tools, and many other innovations are here to stay. However, due to the industry inertia, there still are many healthcare providers who lack the resources or skills to develop an innovative solution. Now, these providers risk being outclassed by more agile and digitally savvy competitors.
If this is what you want to avoid for your organization, Spintech is happy to help. We provide end-to-end product development or augment your internal staff with skilled software developers to help you innovate and stay ahead of the curve in these turmoil times.
With Earth’s population rapidly aging and telehealth solutions rising in popularity, acquiring customers during this crisis can provide life-long patients with high loyalty, who will advocate your services with word of mouth, the best recommendation possible. If you would like to digitally transform and empower your healthcare operations — contact Spintech, we are happy to help!

The healthcare industry worldwide had to withstand huge stress and overcome multiple challenges in 2020

Digital transformation in healthcare during COVID-19 pandemic

The global EdTech market has soared during the pandemic and is expected to reach the evaluation of <a href="https://www.holoniq.com/notes/global-education-technology-market-to-reach-404b-by-2025/" rel="nofollow">above $400 billion</a> by 2025. To say more, EdTech startups secured more than <a href="https://www.holoniq.com/notes/8.3b-global-edtech-venture-capital-after-q3-2020/" rel="nofollow">$8.3 billion investments</a> in 2020 and the numbers continue to grow. China and India have doubled the size of their EdTech initiatives and the westernized countries follow suit, with the US alone investing more than <a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2020-01-15-us-edtech-closes-decade-with-record-1-7-billion-raised-in-2019" rel="nofollow">$1.66 billion in EdTech</a>, which is already higher than the <a href="https://www.edsurge.com/news/2019-02-12-google-s-ai-assistant-fund-invests-in-gradeslam-to-make-online-tutoring-more-equitable" rel="nofollow">$1,2 billion venture investments</a> obtained in 2016-2019.
Thus said, 2021 is a great time to hop on the hype wagon and build an EdTech product, as the demand remains largely unsatisfied. This article will explore the top EdTech market trends in 2021 to help you decide on the course of action.
<h3>The world has changed. The education also has to</h3>
While the main problem before the pandemic was to attract the learners from offline to online, the lockdowns forced all schools, colleges, universities, and corporate education centers to switch the delivery model to online. The situation is not going to change in the foreseeable future, at least until the COVID-19 is officially defeated globally. Therefore, the crucial challenge now is not about how to attract learners — it is how to retain and entertain them, to turn them into life-long education consumers and monetize them.
Besides, the ongoing digitization of various industries will make as much as 50% of skills currently in use utterly obsolete in 10-15 years, which means the corporate sector has to invest heavily in digital education to ensure their personnel remains productive and competitive in the years to come. Thus said, all EdTech branches (schools-universities, self-education MOOCs, and corporate education) have to introduce new and evolve their existing features that maximize the value they deliver to the learners.
<img src="/uploads/edtech-trends-03.jpg" alt="EdTech trends to follow in 2021" title="EdTech trends to follow in 2021">
In short, the most prominent EdTech trends for 2021 are as follows:
<ol>
<li>Global standardization of education, leading in the surge of numbers of product helping prepare to various exams</li>
<li>The growing importance of soft skills, resulting in an increased number of courses and products helping discover and improve each person’s potential</li>
<li>Life-long learning to hone your hard skills and remain competitive</li>
<li>Ad-hoc corporate learning to gain the info needed to solve a particular task in the nick of time</li>
<li>Bite-sized mobile learning enabling people to consume 5-7 minute long knowledge nuggets whenever and wherever they can</li>
<li>Edutainment, to turn tedious learning into an entertaining and interesting adventure using interactive elements</li>
<li>Learning personalization using Big Data analytics to provide customized learning paths based on an individual learner’s background.</li>
</ol>
Let’s now take a closer look at each of them.
<img src="/uploads/edtech-trends-04.jpg" alt="Global standardization of education" title="Global standardization of education">
With smartphones conquering new markets and 5G coverage growing across the globe, more and more people prefer to work remotely. Global lockdowns boosted the growth of the distributed economy when people live in one country while working in another. In its turn, it means that they should sometimes pass the exams and obtain the certifications their curriculum did not prepare them for.
Elearning solves this challenge by providing a common learning environment for people across the globe. However, to be effective, the certifications people get should comply with the regulatory requirements of the countries they intend to work in. This is why more and more <a href="https://www.holoniq.com/edtech-unicorns/" rel="nofollow">EdTech unicorns</a> concentrate on standardizing the education outcomes globally.
<h3>Soft skills education</h3>
Self-management and team management, time management and planning, negotiations and compromises instead of coercion, anger management, and self-expression through art — courses like these are steadily growing in popularity. After all, you can gather superstars with superb hard skills, but you need soft skills to make a team out of them (especially when the team is distributed). Thus, leadership training and all the other soft skill education becomes even more essential than in pre-pandemic times.
<img src="/uploads/edtech-trends-06.jpg" alt="Life-long learning" title="Life-long learning">
While soft skills do matter, it is hard skills that earn people their money, and in the ever-changing business landscape of 2021 a diploma received 5 years ago can mean quite a little. Professionals should invest in continuously honing their skills to remain competitive — and they lack time to monitor all the advances in their niche. Thus, products that track the news of any industry and allow getting the gist of all the updates in an easy-to-consume manner can be in great demand soon. Alternatively, this can help stay on top of developments in your hobby — as people still need to relax to avoid burnout.
<h3>Ad-hoc corporate learning</h3>
With the inability to ask a colleague across the desk for help, keeping the teams productive when working remotely becomes harder. Corporate training has understood the importance of ad-hoc learning long ago — when an employee can access a huge database of knowledge regarding their responsibilities and quickly find exactly the data he/she needs to complete the task. Such solutions become even more important now, just like the example of the <a href="/projects/learning-platform">modern e-Learning platform case study</a> shows.
Spintech helped the customer build a personalized learning platform that enabled the users to achieve a 20% increase in overall productivity, 50% increase in Day 1 productivity, 40% better top-performer onboarding and retention, 2x faster upskilling and reskilling, and 50% reduction of expenses on unused content subscriptions.
<img src="/uploads/edtech-trends-08.jpg" alt="Bite-sized learning" title="Bite-sized learning">
People prefer to consume information in small nuggets, like short videos or texts with interactive quizzes and real-time situation emulations. Such type of knowledge delivery is much more resource-efficient, as compared to long lectures or reading behemoth articles. Many educational institutions and enterprise businesses are looking for products that would allow them to align their expertise delivery methods with the needs of their training consumers.
<h3>Edutainment</h3>
People prefer to play games rather than to study. Information perceived through practical application sticks better than pure theory as serious games have proven time and again. At the same time, various means of learner entertainment (scoreboards, achievement badges, interactive quizzes, group communication channels, etc.) — turn education into an interesting adventure, which provides positive learning outcomes. The edutainment market is predicted to grow with an <a href="https://confianzaresearch.com/industry-analysis/edutainment-market/" rel="nofollow">8.5% CAGR</a> from 2020 to 2027.
<img src="/uploads/edtech-trends-10.jpg" alt="Personalized learning" title="Personalized learning">
Learners are not created equal, as they all have different backgrounds and skill gaps. Thus, one size fits all courses are not too efficient, and leading higher educators use tools like IBM Watson and Microsoft Azure-based products to provide <a href="https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2018/06/educators-tailor-services-individual-students-ai" rel="nofollow">personalized learning</a> that combines the power of Big Data analytics and AI algorithms to tailor custom learning journeys for every student.
<h3>Conclusions</h3>
2021 might not be the year we defeated the pandemic, but it definitely will be the year when we adapted to the situation. The demand for remote education is still largely unfulfilled, so any bold entrepreneur can disrupt the market with an innovative product, as investors are eager to help new EdTech unicorns rise to prominence. Should you be able to implement the features catering to the aforementioned needs and trends — the chance of making it become much better.
In case you need to gain access to EdTech-specific expertise to achieve such goals — Spintech is ready to assist! Contact us and let’s see how we can help you!

The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented surge in EdTech investments. Learn what main EdTech trends to concentrate on in 2021 to remain competitive.

The main trends of the EdTech market in 2021

Ad-hoc recruitment can fill the project roles with suitable candidates — but only a long-term recruitment strategy can ensure the acquisition of A-players who will lead your project and your business to success. Spintech recruitment strategy is an in-depth workflow allowing us to provide the best talents that deliver value for your business.
Our recruitment team works individually with every client. Due to well-refined recruitment processes, we can provide the full cycle of recruitment for outsourcing and outstaffing projects.
<img src="/uploads/recruting-strategy.jpg">
Strong technical expertise helps us quickly define the project requirements, analyze the available pool of candidates, and shorten the time to select the best fit meeting the expected profile. We can achieve this due to established communications between our recruitment and sales teams, which allows aligning our efforts to reach tight time frames.
We always do research and assess the risks regarding the timely search of a perfect fit for every position, based on the technology stack involved, soft skills required and the current job market situation.
A flexible company structure enables the recruiters to receive direct consultations and technical expertise from the CEO and CTO should the need be, allowing us effectively close vacancies for complex recruitment cases, like Team/ Tech Leads and Architects.
<h2>Our priority is a balanced time/candidate quality ratio</h2>
We use all the available channels to reach candidates: from popular job portals to LinkedIn, web services, online event platforms, closed recruiter chats, and active networking.
The company invests in ensuring the maximum time-efficiency of recruitment by adopting all the latest instruments for automating the routine recruitment part and optimizing the time consumed. This provides us with the time margin needed to build the perfect candidate profile, based on the customer and team requests. This makes the sourcing stage rapid yet on-point and progressive.
We select the candidates with utmost attention, as they will be our colleagues in the upcoming years and co-workers on exciting projects. Thus, we assess both the technical skills of every candidate and their personality. It is very important to ensure the team members have matching tempers, common interests, life position, and communication style.
<img src="/uploads/work-day-recruiting.jpg">
Spintech recruitment team is continuously evolving and stays on top of the current situation in the IT market in Ukraine. We attend meetups offline and listen to online webinars, we continuously improve our technical literacy to be able to walk the talk with the candidates.
Our recruiter attended the “Kharkiv IT Research 2019” event last year — a prominent presentation highlighting the results of Kharkiv IT industry research, which showcases the IT industry trends and achievements for the current year, as well as the plans for the upcoming year.
<img src="/uploads/recruiting-quote.jpg">
<h2>Success stories</h2>
<ul>
<li>We signed an offer with a Java Team Lead in a week after opening a vacancy.</li>
<li>A Front-end developer with a counter-offer under his belt decided to work only with us after having an interview.</li>
<li>We found a .NET Architect willing to relocate to Kuala-Lumpur in barely 2 weeks.</li>
<li>A seasoned Java developer with an impressive skill stack wanted to join us very much, but the project team was already complete by that moment. When the time came to expand the team in half a year — we wrote him first and he accepted the offer at once. He quit his then-current job and joined us in 2 weeks.</li>
</ul>
We build long-term relationships with all candidates because recruitment is all about friendship for years. Junior specialists turn to Middle and Senior developers but are always grateful to the recruiter who helped them join their dream team.
<h2>Feedback is essential</h2>
<img src="/uploads/feedback.jpg">
Candidates that fail our rigorous technical testing always get detailed feedback from our knowledge holders. This way, the talents can identify the gaps they need to close — and they often come back to us in the future, when their seniority is much higher. We also gather feedback from the candidates — and they often mention that their technical interview was the impulse they needed to master new skills and become better specialists.
Interviews with our team always bring positive experiences for candidates. Our sincerity, transparency, and trust during interviews help us ask more in-depth questions and candidates can give honest answers. We respect all the diverse personalities and understand that every individual differs based on their job experience. Thus, we ask more detail-oriented questions to QA engineers and more creative questions to designers or front-end developers.
The candidates we select for the client’s approval are so good they do not have to add more skills to their CVs — they are all great fits. We believe that transparent recruitment is the best recruitment.
<h2>Summary</h2>
Wrapping it up, Spintech provides everything you can expect from a trustworthy outsourcing partner:
<ul>
<li>Flexible, lean, cost-efficient recruitment without overcomplicated procedures</li>
<li>Sufficient resources to provide all the needed talents for your projects</li>
<li>Fair and respectful treatment throughout the entire contract engagement</li>
<li>Flat management structure, with easy access to the CEO/CTO or other executives when needed</li>
<li>Transparent pricing with no strings attached</li>
<li>Professional recruitment and HR teams to attract the best talents — and retain them</li>
</ul>
More importantly, Spintech creates a great working environment for your team:
<ul>
<li>Cozy office helping developers to focus on work</li>
<li>Canteen with food and beverages for refreshment</li>
<li>Regular team-building events and knowledge-sharing initiatives</li>
<li>Like-minded colleagues and an environment fostering professional growth</li>
<li>Professional staff and managers working behind the scenes to ensure all operations run smoothly</li>
</ul>
Spintech can become your trusted outsourcing and outstaffing provider and attract and retain top talents that will help your business succeed! Drop us a line, we are ready to assist!

Spintech recruitment strategy is the refined workflow allowing you to gain rapid access to best fit talents for your outsourcing and outstaffing projects.

Spintech recruitment strategy

When the world met the COVID-19 pandemic the companies realized the importance of keeping pace with the times; that is why a lot of workers started to work remotely, management started to care about cybersecurity more. This article sheds light on some modern approaches to data protection that are becoming more and more popular in 2021
<ul>
<li>How do I ensure my employees remain productive and my data stays secure when they work from home during a lockdown?</li>
<li>How to check if my company's cybersecurity posture is more exposed due to external connections?</li>
<li>How to allocate time and resources to reach the best results as a CISO and secure my company in 2021?</li>
</ul>
If you needed to answer these and similar questions when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, then you have even more to think and care about now, when 2021 is coming. During the virtual <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/conferences/na/security-risk-management-us" rel="nofollow">Gartner Cybersecurity Summit 2020</a>, Gartner and other credible sources reported that cybercriminals have not wasted time and new threats are looming on the horizon, which requires modern approaches to cybersecurity issues. How do we protect the data in 2021?
The key here is <a href="https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/security-experts-must-connect-cybersecurity-to-business-outcomes/" rel="nofollow">communicating the importance of the required cybersecurity updates to stakeholders</a> in order to ensure business enablement and minimize risks. Below we list 10 aspects of ensuring your business-critical data is secure in 2021, in no particular order.
<ol>
<li>
Securing work from home connections for your staff
When employees have to access business systems over insecure home networks, man-in-the-middle attacks, malware injections and other kinds of malicious activity become a much greater risk. Providing a compulsory VPN connection for all devices might seem a tough decision, yet it is only the first of the security measures you need to implement. It is also important to monitor if every person on staff complies with these demands — as a single insecure connection might mean a data breach or unauthorized system access.
</li>
<li>
Don’t try to protect everything. Protect the mission-critical
It is not feasible and doable to instate rigorous cybersecurity measures for all aspects of your operations — as there always be backdoors and security loops due to rapidly changing business requirements and resulting updates in security posture. Use threat intelligence, assess, and try to forecast potential attacker activity to safeguard your critical digital assets. Hiring external cybersecurity experts to perform penetration testing can help highlight all the flaws and exploits in your systems and processes.
</li>
<li>
Implement XDR
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platforms, either off-the-shelve or custom-built will help consolidate your cybersecurity products and operations, minimize potential attack area and vectors, facilitate incident response and remediation. It would be best to integrate them when deploying new business systems, but they can be added later to provide lots of value.
<img src="/uploads/articleimage3.png">
</li>
<li>
Instate automated IaaS and PaaS security controls
When your company runs its operations in the highly dynamic cloud environment, manual threat monitoring becomes literally impossible. You need to implement DevSecOps best practices and create a set of automated security controls to be able to respond proactively, not reactively, to potential threats. Effectively creating a uniform cybersecurity policy across your cloud environments helps greatly reduce operational overhead and toil for your team.
</li>
<li>
Streamline cloud access controls with CASB
When you create a cloud access security broker or CASB, you ensure the flexibility of access to your cloud systems for customers, while enabling traffic fidelity monitoring for your team. This control point allows businesses to effectively enforce cloud security policies and actively block suspicious traffic using a built-in proxy to withstand malicious intent.
<img src="/uploads/articleimage2.png">
</li>
<li>
Passwordless authentication
When your employees use the same password everywhere, including for accessing systems vital for your business, the risks of unauthorized access due to password leaks grow tenfold.
Instead of pestering the employees with the need to create strong and unique passwords (someone will still not do it), it’s better to introduce some <a href="https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/embrace-a-passwordless-approach-to-improve-security/" rel="nofollow">passwordless authentication</a> methods to remove the needs for any passwords at all.
</li>
<li>
DMARC
When email becomes crucial to your communication, email spoofing and fake emails can be very detrimental to your business. Implementing domain-based message authentication (DMARC) can help ensure the emails sent within the confines of your organization are genuine and build another layer of trust in your employees and partners.
<img src="/uploads/articleimage.png">
</li>
<li>
Data classification
Your business data comes in many types and forms, but not all are equally important for your business, and not all data types can be handled securely using the same approach. Thus, structuring your data enables selecting the appropriate security measures for each type and building multi-layered protection.
</li>
<li>
Employee competency assessment
There are business roles that demand hard professional skills and soft leadership skills — and these roles should not be filled with slackers. It is hard to find the right candidates, yes — but it is better to spend 3 months and interview 15 applicants than risk losing a business due to lax cybersecurity practices of a person with an important role. Continuously assess the competencies of your employees to secure your business from within.
</li>
<li>
Risk assessment automation
Businesses rarely perform routine risk assessments or perform them in a very basic way. However, this is one of the most essential practices of cybersecurity, as it allows you to dynamically track the existing threats, identify root causes for repetitive incidents, and remediate them before they become serious issues. This can be done as a part of periodic penetration testing or performed by the in-house team on a regular basis.
</li>
</ol>
The actions you will do depend on the level of operational maturity of the business, the resources at your disposal, and the toolset in use. However, following these 10 modern approaches to cybersecurity will help ensure your business is able to protect your data in 2021. Should you have any inquiries about implementing these methods — feel free to ask, we are ready to assist!

With companies forced to work remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we need modern approaches to cybersecurity issues to protect the data in 2021

Modern approaches to cybersecurity issues or how do we protect the data in 2021?

You can face a lot of opinions about the unnecessity of specifications, losing time and money but we have opposite thoughts. A good-written specification can help you with estimations and saving the project budget. But do you really need to pay for specifications? Let’s sort it out.
First, we need to have a look at a definition. The specification is a document that describes product requirements, features, objectives and goals in detail. You go to the future contractor and tell them about the ideas and challenges you face. The contractor specifies the list of your project requirements and necessary steps of their implementation in this document. After that, you need to read it, possibly adjust and sign it. Only after that, the contractor can start the work on your project.
So, how can this document save your money when you actually need to spend money on its drafting? The specification will show you realistic estimates, whether the contractor’s vision meets your idea, and warn you of any further possible expenses. Thus, you’ll see all the details at the early steps and can make the necessary adjustments.
This is not a rare situation when a customer brings the idea, the contractor implements it but the result doesn’t fit the customer’s expectations and the project needs to be remade. You spend lots of money and don’t receive the expected result. The specification can save your money and ensure the product is built in the way you see it.
Thus, you can add some steps, change the tech stack/strategy or rewrite product features at all at very early stages without losing a penny. As a result, you’ll have a detailed description of the product and every step of its creation and implementation, estimations, and all the further expenses. Do you still have a question of whether you need to pay for a well-written specification? ;)

You can face a lot of opinions about the unnecessity of specifications, losing time and money but we have opposite thoughts.

How does specification impact the budget of the project?

The evolving market needs new ideas and approaches. Every growing digital agency should be adaptive and scalable to attract new customers. Modern marketing companies demand specific expertise to deliver high-quality products. Thus said, digital agencies need a reliable technical partner. Collaboration with software houses can bring lots of benefits and below we’ll talk about them.
Today a successful marketing campaign includes a lot of details. You can’t offer a customer only advertising banners as the sole marketing channel. Users’ behavior has changed and the marketing strategies should change too. Digital agencies need to consider end-users’ needs and provide clients with efficient ideas, solutions, and tools. The most-demanded services in digital marketing nowadays are the following:
<ul>
<li>mobile applications;</li>
<li>mobile-optimized websites;</li>
<li>applications for wearables;</li>
<li>analytical tools.</li>
</ul>
Here a marketing agency might face a lack of technical expertise and other challenges. A partnership with a software house can solve this problem. Let’s have a look at the benefits of such collaboration:
<ol>
<li>Delegation. You don’t need to hire an additional team in-house because you already have a reliable partner for technical tasks. Also, you get instant access to ready solutions for most common challenges and don’t need to reinvent the wheel.</li>
<li>Wider expertise. Collaboration with a software company makes the expertise of your agency much wider. Now you can provide not only the marketing strategies, advertising, and content but more complex solutions for your customers.</li>
<li>Competitiveness. By providing a fully-fledged solution you definitely will overtake competitors in your market niche. Clients want to solve problems as fast as possible without looking for two different companies for one issue and you’ll have the ability to do it.</li>
</ol>
Such a partnership is a win-win situation for the digital agency, the software house, and, of course, the client. Digital agency and software house could provide additional services and solve clients’ problems and the client will have a comprehensive solution fast.

The evolving market needs new ideas and approaches. Every growing digital agency should be adaptive and scalable to attract new customers.