Exclusive Interview with Kenneth Metral- CEO, Cosmico Studios

1. Tell us about yourself, how did you start your career in IT Sector?

I’ve been involved in tech from around the age of 10 when my father bought my brother and me our first computer. Since then my life has been fully immersed in technology, first learning how to build computers from the ground up, to then learning how to build websites by the age of 13. Throughout my teenage years I spent as much time as I could learning how everything works from web design, to software development, to digital marketing, everyday consuming as much as I could.

In high school I got involved in every computer class and club possible and took courses to further develop my career in IT before I went on to college. I began college at the age of 17 and graduated at the age of 20 with a Bachelor in Information Technology at Florida International University. I immediately enrolled into the graduate program and received my Masters in Management Information Systems, and shortly after I jumped into my second Masters in Business Administration (MBA), becoming the first student of my university to graduate with 2 Masters at the age of 22.

After graduation, I knew that I wanted to start a real business, even before in my teenage years I ran multiple small startups, one of which included a tiny web design agency, which after 15 years, and re-branding, is now Cosmico Studios. I still consider myself very young at the age of 33, but I’m excited about the future growth of our agency. Is it something I can see myself doing 50 years from now? Absolutely.

2. Tell us in brief about your company, and it's leadership.

Cosmico Studios is a web design and mobile app development agency headquartered in Miami, Florida. We provide our clients with Web, iOS, and Android app development solutions. It was founded by Kenneth Metral back in 2005 when he was just a teenager, and now we have a staff of 50+ developers, designers, and project managers. His leadership and determination are what has led Cosmico Studios to become one of the prominent software agencies today.

3. What is your outlook for 2021?

My outlook on life, no matter what year it is, has always been a positive one. Every year has its ups and downs, none are perfect, but as long as we can wake up to serve our clients one extra day, that’s something to be grateful for.

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

Websites like TopAppFirms will always be necessary when it comes to curating a list of the best development agencies out there. Now in our day-in-age there is too much information and not enough time to sort through it all, having TopAppFirms do the heavy lifting, research, and vouching for businesses makes it easier for the end consumer to find the right development team for them.

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

Cosmico Studios focuses on web design and mobile app development. In the web design world, we specialize mainly on WordPress, WebFlow, Shopify, and Magento. For our app development side, we work with Swift for iOS and Kotlin for Android, along with React Native for cross-platform. Technology is changing daily, we make sure our team is always up-to-date with the latest and greatest by offering them courses so that we can provide the best service to our clients at any given moment.

6. Which services do you think you will add to your offerings in 2021?

Our services of web design and app development will remain the same in 2021, but our core focus will be staying on top of the latest updates and make sure our clients are well taken care of.

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

The one challenge that is most important when outsourcing is to be absolutely sure you know what the client wants, although sometimes it may be challenging and thoughts can be lost, asking the right questions ahead of time and having an open line of communication is the best approach to delivering happiness to the client.

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

Our team is not just comprised of developers and designers, but we also consider ourselves business partners to our clients. Just because the web or mobile apps we build are functional, it doesn’t mean that the user experience and business can't suffer. In every project Cosmico Studios is involved in, we put on our business hats first, and then we research the tech side after, this helps the client have a higher chance of success while running their business.

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

Although this is a cliché used all the time, communication is truly the key to success. Many developers are sometimes hard to reach and could take days to respond back, we are the opposite, we never let a day or even hours pass before we give you a response back to your questions. If the client has something they want to change and our developers have already started working, being able to stop them before they keep going and make adjustments to the code according to the client’s needs will not only save us time and money, but keep the client is satisfied in the end, which ultimately is the only thing that matters in this business.

10. Tell about your some successful projects?

One of the projects that we are most proud of was for a transportation company. They are a small van transportation business that contracted us to build them a platform where they could not only generate more jobs for their drivers, but also allow other van companies to join and take on extra jobs as well. We completed this project this job for them, and immediately they could start seeing the results. It’s projects like these that we strive for every day and are grateful for the opportunity.

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

When it comes to a simple website, we have always pushed the client to use either WordPress or WebFlow, but lately we have been really bullish on WebFlow. We can see the future of websites and having a platform like WebFlow allows web developers to have full control of a website's design and have a great user experience, while being completely hands-off with the server's infrastructure. In e-commerce, we always push the client to use Shopify, having used Shopify for the past 10 years I can honestly say without a doubt that they have revolutionized the way people buy online, and because of that we know our clients will love them too.

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

We have always considered our prices fair compared to our competitors, our prices range from as little as $5,000 - $100,000 depending on the complexity of the project, some are very small while others are incredibly large, but we can guarantee that you won’t be able to find an agency with our expertise for a better price than the one we offer you.

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

We always love to start our discovery process with a video call, sure the easy route would be to communicate back and forth through email, but first impressions are crucial when trying to acquire a new client, especially when they can see your face while they build trust and rapport with you. Once we have a couple of calls with the client, we prepare a very detailed proposal within a week or two and deliver it to the client, always on time. We never try to be pushy and close the sale fast, we let it happen naturally, which has yielded great success. After the client signs the contract, we get started on the project and give them frequent updates when milestones are completed, and ask for their approval every step of the way to avoid backtracking. Once the website or mobile app is completed, we deliver it to the client, deploy it on their servers, and provide them with free technical support for the next 30 days in case any issues arise.

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

When we deploy the project on the client’s server, we provide them with 30 days of free technical support in case there are any bugs or issues we might have overlooked. After everything is functional and bug free, if the client wants to add any additional features, then they contact us and let us know what they would like to do next, and we provide them with a quote for those new services.

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

We have always loved to go Native for the simple fact that the user experience does not get compromised. Building an app using a cross-platform framework can reduce costs and development time, but in the end, if the user does not enjoy using the app, it's not going to work out. If the client has a small budget we would often recommend building the app Native on one device first, either iOS or Android, and build out the version for the other device later on after they launch, this will allow them to save costs and still have a great user experience, further increasing their chances of being successful.