How Speech IQ went from Idea to Launch in 8 weeks

The Overview

Speech IQ is a mobile application powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, designed to help users improve their communication and presentation skills. It allows individuals to record their speeches directly on their mobile devices. Speech IQ then utilizes its advanced machine learning algorithm to analyze these recordings and provides personalized feedback on the quality of their speech, making it a valuable tool for anyone looking to refine their speaking abilities.

The Challenge

The founder, Ravin Chatrapathi, aimed to bring his vision to life and validate his idea at an upcoming major conference. To do so, he sought assistance by posting his project on various freelance platforms. However, he struggled to find the right talent capable of turning his vision into reality, given the app's need for a diverse skill set including mobile application development, as well as expertise in machine learning. With the conference date quickly approaching, Ravin turned to a local startup group and connected with Minutly, an on-demand platform with a team-based approach.

The Solution

Week 1: Translate idea into product features

The Minutly service delivery team quickly understood the founder's needs and urgency, facilitating a connection with a certified SCRUM master. This expert guided the founder in breaking down his vision into smaller, agile product features. Given the tight schedule, this strategy enabled the client to prioritize the essential features required for the minimum viable product for the launch.

Furthermore, this process shed light on the complexity of the app's development, highlighting the need for a diverse technical team. The required expertise spanned across mobile application development, speech-to-text conversion, natural language processing, video recording, machine learning, and analytics.

With the detailed product backlog in hand, the client posted a project on the Minutly with the project features requesting for a proposal from the teams.

Week 2: Hiring product team

The product delivery teams on the platform reviewed the product features, and responded with detailed plans and proposals, providing estimates for each feature. This approach gave the client a clear upfront understanding of the deliverables, along with time and cost estimates. Additionally, Minutly facilitated virtual meetings between the client and the delivery teams ensuring both parties had a proper understanding of each other’s expectations and requirements.

Week 3: Solution Development

The team dedicated their first week in comparing different technical stacks and solution architectures for the application. They ultimately decided on React Native, a hybrid mobile application development tool, and Google NLP as the optimal fit for their needs. Following this decision, the team presented the technical architecture that would support the application.

Week 4-6: Development & Testing

The team dedicated the next three weeks in building the features. Given the time constraints, they adopted a weekly agile sprint, releasing new features every week. This approach offered the client to review the work product regularly and provide feedback. Any changes were implemented in the subsequent sprints. Once again, Minutly service delivery team facilitated the weekly demos, ensuring the product development is progressing well and resolving any communication gaps.

Week 7 & 8: App store deployment & Demo

Over the next two weeks, the team concentrated their efforts on launching the app on the Google Play Store, while continuing to refine the product. The team’s prior experience with deploying apps in the Play Store proved invaluable, enabling them to efficiently navigate technical and compliance requirements, and avoid delays. Thanks to their expertise and diligent work, the app was ready in-time for the demo.

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