The Ohio State University (OSU) is a leading research university that provides tremendous support to the entrepreneurship community. Their support comes in a variety of forms, such as mentorship opportunities, patenting support, and even grant funding. As a result, many local entrepreneurs seek help from OSU, including 90 startups that have built their businesses using technologies proprietary to OSU.
OSU grants are competitive and are heavily sought after by entrepreneurs. However, these grants come with a number of constraints; one in particular is time. Stewart Davis, the Senior Licensing Officer was tasked to source an app developer for his entrepreneurs. This app developer needs to not only deliver a full application within a two-month window but also launch it on the Apple App Store within that same window.
The Challenge: Crunch Time
- Time is of the essence: From start to finish, typical app development takes between four to six months to complete medium-sized projects. In the case of OSU, both design and app development had to fit within a two-month scope. Otherwise, any entrepreneur applying for an OSU grant would be automatically disqualified for the grant, killing all chances for their startup.
- Compliance: The app development company needed to follow the security protocols of OSU. Without this compliance, every development company had no chance of kicking the project off.
- Application features are tested: The app must be tested before release. Not a problem. But the issue is the original two-month window is now even smaller with this testing requirement.
The Solution: Uplancer
- Continuous deployment: Design and app development occurred nearly simultaneously. Designs were done in small batches and were immediately pushed for development. In addition, by implementing a cloud infrastructure, the work could proceed at a super accelerated pace.
- Leveraging best practices: Through their own best practices, Uplancer quickly realized that they complied with most of OSU’s security protocols. A gap analysis allowed Uplancer to quickly identify and address the few discrepancies in the app. As a result, an insignificant amount of time was spent on compliance, allowing Uplancer to really focus on the app.
- Agile development: The standard of app development. By testing and iterating early in the development cycle, Uplancer released the app with feedback from the OSU team on the Apple App Store without delays. Additionally, the app had all of the required features working upon release.
The Bottom Line / TLDR
With Uplancer as their app development partner, OSU can develop and deploy software nearly twice as fast as other developers. The entrepreneurs launched their app in time and received the full OSU grant. Connect today and see how we can help you launch an app within a nearly impossible time constraint!
