Cloud Construct is familiar with all of the stages of “startup mode.”  Is the startup just an idea?   Are you almost live, but stuck?   Are you live and making ends meet, but need to take it to the next level?  From what we’ve seen, we can tell you that tunnel vision is real and in either case – and everywhere in between – a third party perspective with a proven track record of designing, building, creating and supporting startups is highly valuable.   At Cloud Construct we are able to engage at any point of “startup mode” and help bring innovative ideas to life and to the next level.  How do we do it?  With a proven, flexible process that we’ve found gets results in a step-by-step approach that works with budgets and deadlines.

Roadmap/User Experience

Many of our clients come to us with an idea and want to know “what’s next?”  Working with 15+ startups over the last 10 years, we have found the best way to start is to outline the initial launch scope by aligning target user goals and business objectives within a client’s timeline and budget. Once defined we propose a technical architecture and timeline to meet these goals.

The main areas of focus for this effort include:

1. Define Goals and Functional Requirements
2. What is the vision, details and implications of those details?
3. Conduct a Technology Evaluation
4. What technology could work for this solution, what's the best fit?
5. Develop and Deliver a Roadmap for your idea
6. Compare possible scope, business goals and technical implications against timelines, budgets or other factors to define your first launch scope. It's rarely an MVP, even if we use that term, so Phase 1 Launch is more accurate
7. Are you going to show this roadmap to investors? If so, we sometimes go into the UX and brand vision to show directionally what the solution could look like.

We’ve found that these initial steps are a crucial part of the startup process.  The roadmap helps to mitigate risks and to ensure the best product is built in the best possible way for the future.  Many times, our clients will need to stop here and speak/meet with potential investors before taking next steps.  If there is a budget and timeline already in mind, we can build a roadmap within those parameters to deliver the very best product possible.  From there, we move onto the experience design and development phases.

Experience Design

Execution of a roadmap plan begins with upfront research and requirements clarification necessary to design your application or website.  Our experience design team will carefully and thoughtfully consider business goals, user needs and brand concerns and bring them all together in a user experience that serves all of the above and advances your business.  Whether we are working with an in-house design team on your existing prototype, or fully building your brand and product from the ground up, we align user requirements and business objectives into user experience and experience design and create compelling digital interfaces.  During the Experience Design phase, the focus is on services like:

• User research and persona development
• Deep-dive working sessions with stakeholders to fully develop functionality
• User flow development and experience definition and design
• Design of user-centered interfaces using best practices and innovative ideas, for all devices and screen sizes and within practical technology considerations
• Creating your visual brand—logo design, color palette, typography, imagery, animations, interactions and branded layouts and elements
• Telling your business story to customers or users in a way that resonates and motivates engagement
• Focused design around messaging, functionality, actions and business and user goals
• Documentation of brand guidelines and design systems that support consistency across all platforms and future growth

Our Experience Design and User Experience team provides a seamless combination of look, feel, usability and functionality.   Cloud Construct can solely own the delivery of this work or work side by side with you/your engineer(s).  We have a flexible engagement model that assures you’re not wasting hours on resources that aren’t needed.  

Experience Development

Cloud Construct has vast experience specializing in cloud-first architecture, primarily with Microsoft’s public cloud offering Azure as well as Amazon’s AWS to utilize IaaS, PaaS and SaaS offerings which reduce development time/time to market by utilizing proven technologies such as Web App Services, Azure AD, SQL Azure, and Cosmos DB to name a few.

From a turn-key CMS using Orchard Core to full blown Single Page Applications using Angular and TypeScript we can utilize many different technologies to deliver the best experience to your users whether on desktop, mobile, IOT, VR, or any other platform.

Support

OK, we’ve launched successfully; now who will be there to support this?  Who will maintain this awesome new product?  Can the experts that brought your idea to life be present when meeting with investors?  Cloud provides services for all the above.  We can help present demos to investors and attend roadshows and conferences with our clients.  From designing booths to helping our clients pitch their products, we will help you get the interest and investment you need to scale.   And, to be sure your product stays on point, we typically enter into annual or multi-year retainer agreements with clients to provide ongoing engineering support.  Lastly, once you’re ready to be on your own, Cloud Construct can conduct interviews with your candidates to be sure you hire the right talent.

Case Studies

Click the links below to read up on some of the work we have done with bringing great ideas to life!

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