How Long Does it take to build an app with StayShure and why - 5x faster

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When people see our maxim for software development, “5x Faster”, they often ask us, are you really 5x faster?

Well, ya. In some ways. Let’s clarify where we’re faster and where we may like to take our time. Here is a glimpse at what an experience building with StayShure looks like.

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As app developers in Canada, we are very polite. So when we kept going over the projected time with our earlier clients, you can be sure we said “sorry” a lot. Yet we soon realized that this came down to a clarification around what we meant by 5x faster. We can build custom software solutions 5x faster on the software development side. But here is the whole process at a glance:

1. Discovery. The discovery phase is usually 2-4 weeks, partly dependent on complexity and how quickly our client is able to do their part of the “homework” if needed. The goal here is clarity and achieving a 100% clear plan of attack from user stories, to database architecture, to user personas, sitemaps, customer journeys, and third-party risk assessments. This planning session is then turned into a summary document that can be given to any developer team, not just ours, and they then have a clear idea of what they need to design and build. Ultimately the goal is to gain a clear understanding of what you want and to flesh out the areas that you might not have thought of from a technical or user perspective. Essentially, we aim to listen to you until we understand you better than you understood yourself.
2. Design. The next step is building our clickable prototype. This wireframed design is the visualizing of the discovery phase and may help us and you as the client to discover if anything was missed or not thought of. The goal in discovery and design is to create clarity based on goals for providing value to the end user, while maintaining flexibility in how we solve those. It may be that the client still misses things at this stage and thinks of them later- that is okay! Apps are never done, they can always evolve to better serve the end-user. This stage usually takes 2-4 weeks as well, depending on the size and complexity of the app.
3. Development. The custom software development stage is where our secret sauce of low-code technology helps us to build 5x faster. This stage can be done in just 3-12 weeks, depending on the size and complexity of the app.
4. Beta. Every app, as well built as one may think it is, does not think of everything. This is where having a beta stage, or 30 days of testing with a few real users, allows us to find those gaps is ideas and missed bugs from scenarios we did not think of. Once this is done, we can then have a mostly polished app and go live.

Lastly, software, by its nature, requires maintenance and support. The internet changes, new situations occur that were not anticipated and uncover hidden bugs, and desired changes are requested. That's what our FCTO starter plan is for. We look after any bugs that arise and, if there aren't many that month, we'll make improvements based on requests or ideas from our monthly strategy call. Most bugs and tweaks are found within the first few months, so we recommend this for at least four months after the project release.

So as you can see, the overall process is not quite so cut-and-dry. There is a sprint for development, but it comes after a pause where we walk and talk and dream together. Then we test it out and rethink, and then we go live. Even after this, no software is every truly done. There’s a reason why Facebook and Uber continue to spend millions of dollars a year on individual functions of their apps and support. That’s where our FCTO plans help you, with the ongoing and continuous development process, we can help you achieve your goals and provide support every step of the way.

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