Top app development companies interview: Clover Studio

Sinisa Brcina is the COO of Clover Studio. The mobile app development company was founded in 2008 by Ken Yasue, Isana Ishitani and Kazuma Kondo and is located in Zagreb, Croatia. The company employs 15 IT professionals and developers.

Before Sinisa started at Clover Studio, he studied five years at one of the best IT colleges in Croatia, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, also known as FER. In his last year of college he gathered a team of four students and won the first place at a well known student contest ASC (App Start Contest) with our Android application Scan&Shop. The main purpose of the app was decreasing the shopping time and lines at the cash machines in grocery stores.

At that time Sinisa started to have a big interest in mobile applications so he got a job in Clover Studio as an Android developer. After a month or two, he saw that Clover was a company with a very good atmosphere and an excellent place to build his career. After 2 years, Sinisa was promoted to the Project Management team. Currently as COO, Sinisa is more focused in all business operations important for company growth. It’s a very responsible position, but he feels comfortable there and he says that it’s the place where he belongs.

Let’s see what Sinisa Brcina has to say about Clover Studio and the mobile app development world.

What does your mobile app development company do?

Clover Studio is a software development company, we are working mostly on mobile apps, but we are working also on web apps. Since we have full stack developers, we are able to provide everything to the client, from design and management, over back-end to front-end, Android and iOS apps.

Our focus is mainly on messenger platforms, VR, AR, sharing economy and location based apps.

What clients have you worked for?

We have clients from all over the world, from Japan to US. I can highlight some of them like Kawasaki, Namco, Mitsubishi, Dentsu, Zeality, OneTime, NeoLife, Orca and many more.

If you had to choose one category, what kind of app do you think is Clover Studio’s specialty?

If I have to choose it, I would say our main specialty is definitely messaging apps. We have over 5 years experience in chat apps and we also built a communication platform in house that large companies are using for their needs. Other than that, we are focusing ourselves on VR and AR technologies.

What is the average budget of the mobile apps you develop?

I would say the average budget is from $30k to $60k, but we have some examples with budgets lower than $10k and also some examples with budgets over $200k.

Do you develop all mobile apps in-house or do you outsource some parts of the process?

All projects in Clover Studio are made in house. I would say the Pros of in house development are: good communication, high flexibility and getting quick updates all the time. The biggest advantage of outsourcing is that someone can do part of the project or the whole project for a lower price and that’s the main reason why some companies are often outsourcing their projects. But they need to be very careful in their decision of who they hire since some Cons of outsourcing could definitely be communication and quality of the product.

We will keep working everything in house because quality is our key for satisfying current clients and getting new projects.

Which would you say are the best mobile apps that your company has developed and why?

I have already mentioned that we developed our own communication platform named Spika for Business. It’s a solution made for big corporations to enable a quality and secure communication for their employees. They are able to manage chats and users in an admin panel, for example they can divide users into different departments in order to keep communication just inside that department. Users are able to exchange text messages, images, videos, sounds, locations, contacts or any other files. We are selling the source code of Spika which is secured by the license and if someone needs to add some changes we are happy to help.

From all other projects I would highlight few:

• Zeality - 360º videos content providing app
• Aluma - location based social safety app
• NeoLife - eCommerce platform for health foods and drinks

Do you prefer to build mobile apps with native, hybrid or web languages?

We prefer to build native mobile apps because of their high flexibility of implementing different features. In other words, you are able to use a wide range of mobile functionality which you aren’t allowed in other cases.

Let’s focus on iOS and Android mobile app development. Which are the Pros and Cons of each platform?

Even though I’m an Android user, I will try to give my objective answer.

Which one will evolve more within the next 5 years?

I would say both Android and iOS are improving constantly, but Android is growing faster. For example, three years ago the difference between Android and iOS was much bigger, Android was far away from iOS in regards of quality, but currently I think Android is one small step in front of iOS. That’s why I am saying Android will evolve more.

Which device is the best in the market right now?

If you are looking for iOS, iPhone 7 is the best currently, and with Android OS I would go with Google Pixel XL.

And which device do you feel more comfortable developing an app for?

Unfortunately I can’t give you the answer since we are developing for both Android and iOS with the same quality. Usually we develop all projects for both platforms.

Why is AppFutura useful to you?

We are still a new company in AppFutura, so we are in the process of setting up our profile with reviews, projects, works and so on. I have to say that I think AppFutura will be a very useful tool for our company, I like how it works and connects clients with developing companies. I will definitely be able to say something more in a month or two.

At the end, I really have to give all the compliments to AppFutura support team, they are always available and willing to help.

Go to AppFutura's Clover Studio developer profile to get more information about them.

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