MindK

When Elon Musk founded SpaceX with a dream to colonize Mars, few believed that in ten years the company would disrupt the whole industry. His approach to building rockets is called iterative development (and it can help you make better software).

Instead of developing a huge (and expensive) spaceship that could take humans to the Red Planet, he chose to build a smaller rocket and iterate on the design.

Falcon 1 became the company’s Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Its first launch ended in a disaster – the rocket blew up over the launch site on Omelek Island.

Following two more failures, Falcon 1 finally became the first privately-built rocket to deliver payload into the orbit.
The lessons learned from early failures were used to develop Falcon 9, which in turn became a part of Falcon Heavy. Its maiden launch was a tremendous success with two side boosters landing simultaneously at Kennedy Space Center and Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster flying off into the orbit.

All of this would’ve been impossible without iterative development.

We have invested plenty of time researching and deciding which tools to include in our DevOps tool package. Our decisions are based on almost ten years of experience in the IT industry and we are ready to share the list of best devops tools with you.

Here in MindK, DevOps is a part and parcel of every project developed.

DevOps (‘development’ and ‘operations’) represents a culture that you can adopt for continuous improvement, aimed to unite the efforts of both developers and operations towards a common business goal.

For every client project in MindK, we work with plenty of third-party applications, manage a lot of servers, and collaborate within internal and client teams, so we are forced to find a way that makes the whole software development process seamless and efficient.

With that in mind, we begin to test and try different tools that could help us establish a DevOps culture.

Starbucks knows when I go to work. Their app can access my location and purchase history. So when I pass by the nearest coffee shop, it sends me an offer I can’t resist – a cup of Java Chip Frappuccino (600 calories) at 25% off. And while I’m sipping this unholy goodness, here’s how similar strategy can help your business.

The company is using an approach known as geo-push to make highly targeted offers.

It consists of two components:
• A location-based app that tracks users via GPS or cell tower signal; and
• Geo-fences, virtual boundaries around Starbucks coffee shops. Crossing them triggers a specific action in the app, such as sending a promotional notification.

By combining GPS data and users’ purchase history, you can anticipate user desires and power-up your business.

We live in a period of profound economic and political anxiety. Following a decade of slow growth, the UK faces the uncertainty of Brexit. AI, Blockchain, IoT, Big Data, and Cloud are changing the way companies do their businesses. To confront these issues heads on, we visited Outsourcing Summit and Expo (OSX) 2018.

Organized by Westrade Group, it is one of the biggest events dedicated to information technology, business, and outsourcing.

Technology is changing the way businesses interact with the world, and MindK, as a custom software developer, has continued to have a front seat in this constant business transformation.

From the complex projects we took on, to the professional growth we invested in, we are grateful we can look back on our achievements in 2018 from a position of strength.

While we’re closing out this successful year, we’re looking forward to even more growth and transformation in 2019.

From looking up directions on Google Maps to hailing a taxi via Uber, geolocation apps have become a backbone for many thriving businesses. But can you develop an app that would enjoy similar success?

Foursquare has built a loyal audience of 60 million users by letting them check into restaurants. Uber reached a market worth of $72 billion by connecting passengers and taxi drivers. Starbucks has increased sales by adding local notifications to its app. With more and more mobile app users every year, these companies will continue to grow their profit.

In this article, I’ll share the insights we’ve gained when developing a location-based app, Juvo. It’s a native iOS and Android app for local communities of Norway.

Software and web development has provided us with solutions in almost every sphere of our lives. It would seem that everything has already been invented. But this is definitely not true.

We are going to provide you with a step-by-step guide that will help you generate an idea to enter the software market in 2019! Helping businesses build software products for over 9 years, we know where the hardest part is. Well, as you are reading this article, you also know it!

The hardest part is to start.Since every tech startup begins with a bright software idea, it turns out to be a foundational step towards your future success. That is why we have prepared this guide. All steps are actionable and can be executed here and now.By the end of the article, you will have enough knowledge to generate software ideas or improve the ones you already have.

Most business ideas sound good and look fresh in our heads, while a good many of them die after falling into customer hands. Since entering the market with a new product is almost walking the edge, market validation under real-life conditions is crucial before launching.

Although risk has become a synonym to entrepreneurship, accepting the risk to spend time, money and energy creating a product that people don’t need is a path to failure.

In this article, we will overview the best practices for validating business ideas without spending a fortune and as a result, building a better solution.

Front-end development can be confusing with new JavaScript libraries sprouting like mushrooms after a summer rain. Each time you start a new project, you face a tough choice: stick with your battle-tested stack or experiment with cutting-edge tech?

To make things easier, our R&D team prepared a detailed comparison between Vue and React, the 3rd and 4th most starred repositories on Github as of December 2018. So make yourself comfortable and read the whole guide or jump straight to the part you’re most interested in.

Any starting business is unprofitable at the initial stage. To earn money, it needs to gain a certain scale and acquire customers. When developing a software product, the main thing from the very beginning is not to lose focus, recognize and admit mistakes in time, and not be afraid to make difficult decisions.

Almost all software today is developed using the Agile methodology which presupposes dividing the project into sprints. It allows to reduce risks and respond to required changes quickly.

Building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) helps entrepreneurs deliver an idea to early adopters and get valuable feedback to assist development and avoid uninformed decisions.

While most modern companies think of utilizing cloud computing for their business, it remains an umbrella term for several cloud services, which covers a lot of online territories. As you start taking advantage of the cloud for your business, it is vital to really figure out the difference between SaaS and other cloud services.

People tend to use the terms SaaS vs Cloud services as interchangeable notions and this is wrong. The first thing you need to remember is that Cloud and SaaS are not equivalent.

Hundreds of web applications are created each month. The question is no longer whether a company needs a web application or not, but what is the price for building an application to fit company’s budget and meet business needs.

If you look up the Internet for how much a web application costs you won’t find a clear answer. Everybody wishes it could be that simple – to receive a split-second estimate and time-frames – but it’s not.

Previously, we’ve discussed the benefits of automated testing. Now it’s time to bring them to life with a solid test automation strategy. Today you’ll learn how to start, which tests to automate, how to choose the perfect tools and avoid the common pitfalls while running and maintaining your automation scripts.

One of the most common mistakes with automation testing is going for the immediate benefits and forgetting about the bigger picture. As the result, many teams abandon their automation efforts after a sprint or two and go back to manual testing.

A company trying to make its mark in the UK market must be ready to face a number of challenges. While corporations in big business hubs like London have drained the local talent and boosted competition, small companies gain opportunities developing remote working competence.

The UK is considered to be one of the leading business locations in the world with its capital London, which is despite Brexit remains Europe’s number one tech-hub for investment.

According to The Guardian the United Kingdom is third in the world for the number of created startups.

But it occupies only the 13th position for the number of startups that became established medium-sized companies.

Quite a large gap, isn’t it?

Today we are going to outline the

Top Mistakes To Avoid When Outsourcing Web Development

Top London Tech Business Events of Autumn 2018

Oleg Nesterov
Founder, CEO and lead strategist. Passionate about web and mobile development, product management and superb client service.