Interview with Alex Schedrov, CEO, Director of Business Development and Digital Strategist - Five Jars

Five Jars was founded in 2017 by a group of technology enthusiasts, digital experts, and dreamers with years of experience in other Drupal companies to deliver high-quality web solutions. The desire to be not just another web development agency but to provide clients with an exceptional boutique service has united these Drupal professionals. The main people core of the Five Jars is obsessed with honing processes, striving for perfect results even in small things and full ownership of the projects they work on. We gathered together only top talents to produce quality products and be as successful as our clients. Our enthusiasm, passion, and focus drive our efforts to meet our clients’ needs. We’re proud of our client partnerships, and we love what we do.

What is your role in the management and development of Five Jars?

I am CEO, Director of Business Development, and Digital Strategist. I have a background as a Web Developer, Tech Lead and Architect. I have great experience in delivering digital and web applications to the world's most prominent mid to enterprise organizations, such as Stanford University, Teach For America, The National WWII Museum, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, DocuSign, National Audubon Society, Jane Goodall Institute, and YMCAs.

Most of our clients are nonprofit organizations and through our work, we are part of the impact of their missions. People can leave healthier life, have an access to educational resources, and have streamlined access to information.

 

Beyond that, we introduce some innovations to the industries we are working on, such as Digital Signage for YMCAs, integrations with voice assistants, and many more impactful products that other vendors do not include in their services.

How do you schedule the development phases of the web design and development projects to promise the timeline to your clients?

Five Jars have tried different approaches to communicating with customers over the past few years and empirically came up with a combination of factors that work best for us. We’re transparent: we organize our work using Agile & Scrum and provide  clients with regular status reports. Our team also uses collaborative tools for communication and tasks.

Since its founding, Five Jars’ developers have been core developers of the Drupal community, which makes us the ultimate experts in our field. The advantage for you, however, is that you avoid any lock-in, long-term licensing agreements which will

cost you a fortune over the years. To underline that, we do not lock you any way into an ongoing collaboration with Five Jars as all our custom code follows best practices and is well documented. This allows you to choose your after-sales service provider
independently from our development services. Why do we do that? Frankly, we are sure that our expertise and agile project management will convince you to stay with us long after the initial project is completed.

Everything starts with a team. Here at Five Jars, we are convinced that the right team and corporate environment are key to our clients’ success. Our teams are interdisciplinary organized and consist of developers, marketing experts, design gurus and many other professionals leading in their very own field of expertise. It is this combination that allows us to deliver solutions that not only offer state-of-the-art custom code but also integrate marketing, strategy and UX/UI from the very beginning. Our interdisciplinary teams provide you with out-of-the-box, all-inclusive and future-proof solutions made to make you thrive.

How do you scheme your pricing model? How do you fix your budget?

We at Five Jars allow in our practice as Fixed Price well as T&M. The Fix Price model revolves around careful planning and the definition of milestones in sequential order before the actual development starts. It is best suited for projects with a clear execution plan, an abundance of project documentation and a carefully defined roadmap.   

The T&M method does not throw a client into unpredictability as it might seem. Although there is no fixed final amount in the agreement Five Jars still provides a client with an estimate of the hours of work required to complete the project. Detailed terms of cooperation and penalties in case of violation will be specified in the contract. Our team values T&M for the flexibility and transparency of the payment method.  

The selection of the correct pricing is directly related to the selection of the development methodology and must be consistent with the requirements and objectives of the project, as well as the overall costs incurred by the developer.  

How helpful are the web design and development made by Five Jars for your clients in enhancing their business?

Five Jars creates an environment where all companies, independent of their size, can access and profit from technological innovation.  

 
We prefer to let your deeds and statistics speak for themselves. For example, our collaboration with George Washington's Mount Vernon brought them 2 million new subscribers and the percentage of people that purchase tickets online has jumped
from around 15% to 45%–50%. Several innovative solutions, including new features for the Amazon Alexa voice assistant, are the result of our long-term collaboration with YMCA. During the digital transformation of The Council for Exceptional Children
(CEC) brand, we had to merge over 70 micro-sites into one more comprehensive master site, after which the number of new users increased by 15%. Success is not always quantifiable, some may say. While that may be true, we believe that all our
proposed solutions are tangible, effective and measurable. We promise to create a meaningful impact through every project.

Empathic – we look at each problem through the eyes of the customer and try to create solutions that help clients reach their goals. Results-driven – we produce solutions that give real, measurable results. Transparent – when working with us, you know exactly where your money goes. We organize our work using Agile & Scrum and provide regular status calls/reports for customers. Responsive – we’re on 24/7. If anything happens, one of our representatives will be available to help you solve the

issue or answer the inquiry.

The Five Jars team grew out of specialized conferences of the Drupal community, so we continue to be active participants in events such as DrupalCon and DrupalCamp.

Moreover, if any employee from a developer to a manager wants to expand his skills, we are ready to pay for his training, as well as sponsor the relevant communities. Five Jars’ developers are core contributors to the Drupal and JavaScript community as we believe that collaborating with other developers not only creates the most favorable environment but also fosters the technology stack itself to become as efficient as possible. We are convinced that collaborating publicly allows us to demonstrate and showcase our expertise while also testing our solutions through an open community. While not every project is born to become a publicly available repository, we are proud to give back to the Drupal and JavaScript community.

What are your thoughts about progressive web app and Internet of Things (IoT)?

We believe, and our clients confirm that everything starts from web development, but it is only the core of the digital ecosystem. Our partnerships start with building a web product but evolving and incorporating IoT and progressive web applications.
 
IoT allows creating a multi-dimensional user experience that does not end when you close the browser window, while progressive web applications change web solutions we build by allowing work offline and serve as standalone apps.

What do you think will be the future of web design and development technology?

Proprietary software providers still dominate the market, but open-source software plays an equally important role. Business use of open source software is soaring. Moreover, companies are learning to tap into the open-source community for talent and to up-skill themselves. Open-source software will continue to be popular in the future, with the innovation cycle only reinforcing its status. As open core firms and the community fuel innovation, open-source software is likely to play a foundational role in many layers of the enterprise software stack. As for CMS, they will become more and more native to the user.

Your quick feedback on the services of TopDevelopers.co:

We at Five Jars are completely satisfied with our interaction with TopDevelopers.co. Our customers are happy to share their feedback on the site.