Client Results

So on this project, like I said, relatively simple, at least in my mind. Yeah, we ended up spending $22,000, and that's to, I would say, beyond a minimum viable product. It's a very useful product. There's still room to develop into V2, V3, but we can take that to market tomorrow. With that $22,000 spend, we are forecasting to save $3,500 a month within our family, our group of companies. There will be some profit to be found as well in just providing this service now and potentially selling it to my peers as well.

I started out looking for a local software development company to build a learning management platform for me. I was using a platform called Kajabi and it was super expensive and I knew that probably for the same price that I was paying per year, I could probably get something built. And so when I approached New Idea Machine, they instantly knew exactly what I needed. They helped to make my idea even better and they were able to actually build it and launch it in just a couple months. And I'm now paying what I used to pay in 1 year to have my own platform that I could actually continue to build on and grow with and it does everything I need. And I think the best thing about building custom is that you're not paying for all the features that the software as a service might have. You're actually just paying for the things you need and then you own it and you can change it and you can customize it and the guys at New Idea Machine were amazing to work with.

The specific results that Ulu has seen is that we are now officially in market with our MVP, where companies can come on, they can onboard onto Ulu, they can put on their fractional or interim position. Candidates can do the same. They can come on as a fractional leader, and then from that we have our matching algorithms that are now pulling the two together, and we have our dating app for business. So that has been very exciting. It's been a long time coming, and then ultimately from that we're going to build on. So it is an end-to-end process. So we have now gotten into market. We are at a place where we are revenue generating, and that's just really exciting for us.

Originally we were told that it'll be this much work and it would cost you this much, and we realized, working with New Idea Machine, that we could start in little chunks and we could just work it out as we went along. Our team doesn't have a background in software development. We knew that we had an idea. We knew that we wanted to build out the technology, but how to get there, that's not where we had any experience. You were the experts in how to do that, and it took a lot of pressure off us. It was a good surprise knowing that we didn't have to work all that out ourselves. We had New Idea Machine to do that for us.

Before committing, I was a little bit worried about what the maintenance would look like. I've been in custom software and I've worked with custom software developers for a while and I know that a lot of things can break when you're building custom, but the team was really able to show me what went into the system, what the third-party APIs were, what the third-party connectors were, and based on that, they gave me reassurance on what might have the potential to break and what wouldn't. And so, they really gave me a lot of confidence to know that I could maintain it and what the cost could potentially be if any of those third-party systems did break. And after we did that analysis, it did make sense for me to keep going forward and build my own learning management system.

My name is Vera Ilnyckyj and my business is called Create Your Best Chapter. My mission is to help women solopreneurs create thriving businesses that are in alignment with their values and that create a positive impact in the world. My business partner and I also run the Fempreneurs Success Collective. This is a community for women solopreneurs to come together in community for encouragement, support, accountability, and as a way to share ideas, and to not feel so alone in their business. One of our dreams is to create an app that allows us to have community and discussion and teachings and resources all in one spot where women can come to and feel like they can be part of a community online virtually. And we are looking to take this community global. So, we approached Rea a few weeks ago to ask her opinion on how an app like this could work, and she was so good about walking us through some different questions because we don't know what we don't know. So asking an expert in the space is really important. And Rea asked us a bunch of questions that made us think through what we actually wanted in this app. She also advised us to try some things that are currently on the market to see what we like and what we don't like and what we actually would want to change in our own app. This is really smart advice instead of just jumping into creating our own app because apps can be expensive and take a lot of time and we really want to make sure that we're going to get the right product for our clients. So, we took Rea's advice. We're going to try a few things that are on the market and then we're also going to have a way just to capture our ideas for how to make improvements and to really create something that's going to be ideal for us down the road. So thank you Rea so much for all of your expertise, your guidance, your really great questions and also for your support for all the entrepreneurs that are in the ecosystem of wanting to create something for their community, for their clients that is technologically based. I think that what you're doing is amazing and we really look forward to working with you in the future.

I chose New Idea Machine over other options because of the trust factor. I'd spoken to a couple other companies, and I did not feel comfortable with the people. I could tell I was being sold. As an entrepreneur myself, I really value the dollar and how far it goes. When we decided to go ahead with New Idea Machine, I was very confident that was not going to be the case. I had some very good conversations, and things were laid out very clearly. And like I say, I was brought to a point of comfort.

Before I found New Idea Machine, I was new in the startup world, trying to figure out what I needed to do, the steps that I needed to take, the right order to take them in. I was learning through exposure within the startup community, and it was clear that everyone was really there to help people get it right, and I had heard that mistakes could be costly, and I didn't want that to be my fate. I was at an online community event, and Rea and I had connected on LinkedIn, but after having the opportunity to hear more about New Idea Machine at a few other events over time, listening to Rea describe why they solve the problem they solve, I could really see that it was a great fit, and I was their ideal customer as a non-tech founder that needed high trust. Basically, they became the benchmark that I judged other software developers against while I was looking for the right developer.

So I chose New Idea Machine honestly because my first conversation with Al was excellent. He understood right away what I was looking for, even though I was not necessarily as articulate as I may have wanted to have been. He did get what I was after. And I really like the context of New Idea Machine: who they work with, the staff that they bring in, how they support our ecosystem. And I think Al's words to the gentleman who's working with us were something to the effect of, "Just make it work." And that's really what we do, just make it work, and that's why I like working with New Idea Machine.

I chose New Idea Machine over other options. We did get into market for looking at a few different organizations, and a few that we had kind of went down the path on just didn't have the same reputation, and there were still some concerns about whether they'd be the right fit for us. We ended up getting a referral and a recommendation, and actually I watched a testimonial video that gave me a lot of confidence in them. And then again, just the patience they had to really hear me out, listen to what I had to say, what my concerns were, and to ultimately alleviate them. And really they were building a relationship on trust, and I guess trust comes with time, but what I found is that they were just very open and honest and aligned to our values. And so I decided to jump in with New Idea Machine, and again, because we had a great referral that helped, and we had some other testimonials.

I would recommend New Idea Machine for software projects because of the transparency. It's so meaningful to have such an open line of communication, completely open terms as far as how billing works. Project billing is so scary from somebody non-technical not knowing what goes into making the sausage. To be able to just get billed by the hour is so simple. You get to see things as it develops, and it just gives so much more confidence. You delivered exactly what you said you would, and the price was bang on.

I chose New Idea Machine because of the transparency, the protection of ownership, and frankly, them just being good listeners that ask great questions. So like I said, the ability to build a high trusting relationship, those are really important characteristics when providing a service like this. Before hiring New Idea Machine I would say funding was the only real hesitation. I didn't know if I could get far enough with the build to really demonstrate the vision, but New Idea Machine walked me through the options, and they offered suggestions without pressure that just made sense from both the build and the business side, and they continued to offer insights throughout the build with no pressure.

I would recommend New Idea Machine to any founder or entrepreneur that's looking to build something for the first time. They're so amazing at really understanding the startup journey. They're so good at working with especially non-technical entrepreneurs and founders that might need a little bit more help or understanding because software is such a big investment and it's really important to have a great relationship with the people building your product. They need to not only understand your business, but they need to understand who you are and where you're coming from so that they can fill in the gaps. And so I think the best thing of all working with a team that's so specialized with entrepreneurs is that they're not going to be scared when you change your mind and they're really good at rolling with the punches. Working with a lot of other software companies, you get a lot of change orders constantly as you change your mind and things adapt. But New Idea Machine really sets up their processes in a way that lets you be flexible and adaptable and figure out things as you're building.

Before committing, I was really worried about whether or not I was going to have the same experiences I had in the past. I was really concerned about managing the project properly, having, quite frankly, an understanding of the costs, and ensuring that we were keeping our project scope on track. And so that was something that we had a lot of conversations with New Idea Machine about, and they really understood exactly what I was looking to do and accomplish, and they have delivered. I'm super happy.