February 25, 2020

Speech IQ is an AI and machine learning application, that aids people to self-improve on their communication and presentation skills through practice and machine generated automated feedback. The founder, who is a Toastmaster, was interested to share his passion for public speaking with others. To do this, he created a mobile app to test it with prospective customers during a large conference.

The Challenge

As a first step, the founder posted his application requirements in a few popular freelance platforms to find suitable candidates to develop his app. His project received multiple proposals with varying budget and schedule estimates. After looking at the proposals, he was unsure whether the freelancers properly understood the requirements properly. As the conference date was closing in, the founder took to Facebook to find a better option. It was there that he got in touch with FreelancingTeams. 

Week 1: Turning an idea into product features

Given the complexity of the application, FreelancingTeams worked with the founder in breaking down the big idea into smaller product features. This exercise helped to narrow down the scope of work and prioritize the features required for the launch. With the new found details, the founder posted a project with prioritized product features, and requested proposals.

Week 2: Proposals and team selection

The market ready teams within the FreelancingTeams platform quickly reviewed the features and identified the tasks required to complete the product. The teams used the in-built task management tool to compile the tasks and shared the budget and time estimates. The founder reviewed the proposals and selected one of the teams to move forward with his project.

Week 3: Solution developments

With the project in hand, the team performed the technical and solutions design for the project. At this time, it became more clear that to successfully develop the app, a diversified technical expertise including mobile application, speech to text conversion, natural language processing (NLP), video recording, machine learning (ML) and analytics are needed. The team found a gap in the skillset, and quickly brought in additional members to help with the ML part.  The team compared multiple NLP solutions and suggested the best fit solution.

Week 4-6: Application development, testing and feedback

The team started the development work in small weekly sprints. The founder used the in-built project management tool to prioritize the weekly work, track progress, and sign-off. The team completed the feature work and performed a weekly demo. This gave the founder the time and ability to review the changes, and provide feedback immediately. The changes were later incorporated in subsequent versions.

Week 7: Deployment and ready for demo

As the conference was one week away, the team wrapped up the product and started the deployment of the app into the app store. The team worked closely with the founder in getting the necessary play store account setup and deployed the app on time ahead of the big launch.

Week 8: Launch and customer feedback

The founder successfully launched the first app during the conference and collected feedback. The team continued to help with changes before successfully closing the project. 

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK:

I used FreelancingTeams for building an MVP. Overall, enjoyed the service. It was great to see their unique approach in handling customers. Their focus on basing the cost on the features is unique and better than other platforms. The team that worked on my MVP was dedicated and always followed up with new updates ensuring both parties were on the same page. Lastly, the guidance they showed from a technology standpoint showed that the team at freelancingteams.com is not about making something in a hasty manner, but focus on quality work. Overall fantastic job!