Exclusive Interview with Alexei Falco – CEO, Celadon on ” Top App Firms”

In this exclusive interview, He shared his experiences in IT and several more things. Let’s check his success story and thoughts.

1. Tell Us about yourself how you start your career in the IT Sector?

My name is Alexei and I am the CEO and founder of Celadon. While working as a product manager with several IT products, I used the outsourcing development companies services quite often.

But the thing is, I didn’t come with at least one that would meet all my expectations in terms of quality as well as creativity, they were not result-oriented. So, the idea of creating such a company on my own started to come to my mind.

2. Tell us in brief about your company and the leadership.

Celadon is a software development agency, and when the company was created we decided to focus on providing solutions for the complex tasks and make it our motto in a way - to provide solutions, not excuses.

We have huge experience in creating mobile and web systems applications for projects of all kinds of size. On the side, we have a department that is focused on AI, machine learning, and computer vision development.

We are proud to have an excellent in-house team of professionals. The processes in the company are well-established, so along with corporate values, we all share it helps the company to keep the quality of the services on a substantially high level and improve it constantly.

3. What is your outlook for 2021?

2020 was tough, it’s true. But now we see the thaw coming, and we do mean it. The companies started to launch new projects, they “unfreeze” the budgets.

The market is active again. Because of the challenges, the companies faced the previous year they started to understand the real power and the benefits of digitalization. As a result, investment in this area increased.

4. How do you assess the role of research agencies like TopappFirms in bridging the gap between clients and service providers?

You know, agencies like Top app Firms have been of much help in increasing our visibility among potential clients.

We are really glad that they are aside and make us more visible to potential clients and customers. When new companies appear every day the trust becomes a matter of huge value for anyone.

TopappFirms service does improve the faith in Celadon, making it more visible for the customers, sharing the same values as we do. We value honesty, the passion to make great projects, ease in communication and of course dynamics.

5. Any particular technology or industry you would be targeting? How do you plan to prepare your workforce for the upcoming technology upgrade?

We specialize in Web and Mobile apps, Business Intelligence and SaaS systems. Focused on a set of carefully selected technologies we constantly improve the professional depth of our skillset and the effectiveness of our work.

We focus on industries to always keep track of new trends and best practices. Logistics, business intelligence, education, sports, and entertainment are our custom domains. We consider the project successful only if the client is happy with the result of our work.

6. What all services do you think you would add to your offerings in 2021?

We do our deed and don’t put adding new services first. New services are coming naturally from the requests of our regular customers. It’s not like a part of some strategic planning.

However, we follow the new technologies and prefer to develop in-depth, if you know what I mean. We develop the skills, improve the knowledge of the technologies we already use or are about to implement. Our goal is to improve the quality of the services, not to increase their number.

7. What are the challenges you see in the outsourcing industry and how much you’re prepared to face those challenges?

2020 showed: digitalization is needed, it really is. Yes, in recent years it became more and more clear for everyone, but today we see that it is a critical necessity.

The budgets were cut in 2020, it’s true, but even the beginning of 2021 showed that people are now ready to bring their ideas to life. The good news is the market will develop in this paradigm further.

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

We consider the project successful only if the client is happy with the result of our work. I strongly believe, no, I do consider that understanding the needs of the client and negotiations during working on the collaboration model is the key to success.

But the thing is, the win-win strategy should be worked on from the very beginning, so the risks related to the conflict of interests will be decreased to zero. It helps to ensure that both parties see the success of the project as the first and most important priority.

By the way, most of our clients have more than one project with us and return back in case they need another project to be launched.

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

It’s about speed, flexibility, and responsibility. For the project, it is always better when a few parties are involved, and the fewer, the better.

Communication is another critical point. I personally think that transparency and good velocity is impossible to reach if the work is outsourced and any third parties and teams are involved.

10. Tell me about your some successful project?

We have a lot of reviews on the web, so there it’s easy to find the projects we have been working on and have met the expectation of the customers.

We will be happy to provide any references of the clients we have been working before so one can contact them and get reliable information

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

It’s not that we choose or recommend some web platform. First and foremost, we look at the goals the client has, then consider the budget of the projects and according to the data we have in front of us we pick the most appropriate options, so they can be advised to the client.

12. What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2021 after COVID 19?

The amount of work required and the number of professionals to be involved are the matters which determine the cost most. The more work is required from every team member, including design, engineering and QA, the higher will be the total cost.

The amount of work comes from the number of platforms, scalability, the complexity of an app and of course the number of integrations with other software and services.

Maintainability is also the thing that matters. The system should be easy to maintain and expand in the future if such a need appears. In terms of cost-efficiency, it is always better to spend some additional time and money to work on flexible architecture and proper documentation. In the long run, such an approach provides a lot of benefits for the client.

13. Please describe the operational structure of your company- from the moment a client walks in, to the product deployment.

The first step of app development is requirements analysis and estimation. Once the client submits the requirements we analyze them and prepare a work scope breakdown with an estimation, advice on team composition and technology stack.

The next step is technical and visual design. We will create user-stories, UX wireframes, scheme of the project structure and get to UI design.

Once everyone has a clear vision of how the software will work and look, the development begins. QA engineers work in parallel with the coding and make sure that it goes according to the requirements in terms of functionality, compatibility and performance.

And finally, the release is. Depending on the project goals and according to agile development methodology, we will release the functional system versions approved by you to production.

14. After service is a necessary part of development. How do you provide customer support to your client?

When the app is ready we offer the client to continue working with us in the form of app maintenance. So whenever it is needed, the team is available, so all the potential issues are solved in time.

If the client does not have a maintenance agreement, it’s always possible to contact us and proceed with a change request. But in this case, we can’t guarantee urgent availability.

15. Android or iOS, Native or Hybrid — which platform is best to use to build your app? What are your recommendations?

I would recommend discussing the project directly with the agency you will be working with. The decisions of this kind depend, first of all, on the functionality of the app, the budget and the goals having been set.

If the client wants to use only one platform, the target audience and the project goals should be considered first.

At Celadon, we focus on React Native technology, which allows us to develop native apps for both platforms at once. In this case, the losses in cost are much smaller in comparison to a single-platform development.