You’re a lean startup with a promising vision. But how do you transform your ideas into a real business? The key to succeeding is removing the guesswork and relying on real feedback from real customers.

Iterative is Better.

In the “old days” of software development, companies would spend months developing a comprehensive requirements document that included every detail for every feature in a comprehensive product. Once the requirements were thoroughly defined, the product would be designed, then handed off to the engineering team for development and testing. Many months after the idea was articulated, a product might be delivered and finally arrive in the customer’s hands. The time required to get initial feedback from customers was very long. And once that feedback was received, it would be many more months before a new, improved version could be released. For a startup, time wasted translates into wasted cash and risk of failure.

We are an agile development shop and we embrace the Customer Development and Lean Startup principles. For a startup, that means that we like:

• User Feedback – Your product is only right if it satisfies your customer’s needs. Putting the product in front of users and getting feedback is the best way to ensure those needs are being met.
• Client Collaboration – Your priorities are our priorities. We work with you to gain customer feedback early and often and help to redefine your product to respond to that feedback.
• Working Software – We use a rapid, iterative process, so we develop and release in fast short bursts. That means that you can gain user feedback fast to accelerate your customer discovery and validation.
• Responding to Change – That’s right, we expect the unexpected to happen, so we enjoy a good change in the plan. Why? Because that’s the way startups work. You learn more about your product when customers use it. We’d rather change the plan to meet your needs then build something obsolete.

So what do we build?

We build applications across a range of use cases, including community and social networks, e-commerce and shopping carts, mobile apps, embedded software. We do huge, tiny and everything in between. We’ve built hardware-embedded software and large, global data monitoring and reporting systems. Thinking about building something that’s not listed here? We can probably do that, too.

Although we enjoy many programming languages, we specialize in Ruby, Ruby frameworks, such as Rails, and JavaScript. We have gravitated towards these tools because of their ability to enhance rapid iterative development.

What’s our process?

Code Benders begins each project with a short discovery phase. We map out your highest priority features. Next, we work with you to prioritize those features in to a schedule of short iterations. Once complete, you’ll have a clear set of design priorities and a development plan to guide you.

With this road map in place, we begin the iterative development process. We employ test driven development to ensure quality and stability. And we develop releasable  product to you every week or two and build upon that product with your priorities and feedback guiding the process. You tell us when it is just right!

Want to learn more?

Send us a note here or give us a call at 541.241.8105.