Interview with Ronak Patel, CEO - Sunflower Lab

Give us a quick overview on Sunflower Lab. When and how did you begin this journey and what were your motives to be successful in app development?
We created Sunflower Lab in New Jersey, where my friend and I began developing on the Apple platform during many late-night coding sessions.  I had been in the IT industry for over a decade, and saw the potential of emerging technology, and wanted to create a company that embodied that value.  That’s why we invest heavily in training, as well as the use of emerging technologies.  Not because it’s a new shiny object, but we truly believe in the positive impact new technologies will create in this world.

What is your role in the management and development of Sunflower Lab?
I oversee new projects, work with clients during the initial phases of defining project roadmap, and oversee our marketing.

Tell us about your biggest achievement in the industry
Our biggest achievement was helping a non-profit organization to build a mobile application for children who had speech delays.  That project really embodied our belief that technology can make the world better for living, and when that project was completed, we felt like we had worked a bit in the betterment of the world.

How do you schedule the development phases of the apps to promise the timeline to your clients?
Our development process starts with a session aimed at understanding the project in full, and after that we are able to give a detailed map of the development process. This ensures that each project is accurately assessed, and development is on time.  Complete understanding of the project is essential to outlining our development phases.

How do you help your clients in choosing the right yet profitable platform for app development?
Understanding their target audience, their short and long-term goals, project size, project purpose, and expectations for the final product help us to determine which platform is best suitable for their needs, and, if it has been done so, will it maximize their profits.

Which would you suggest for a successful and profitable business progression, Native or hybrid apps? How do you define the factors that influenced you to make this choice?
The answer is project-specific, but typically we develop Hybrid apps.  However, if there are requirements that native development would satisfy, such as a video editing, hardware integration, process which demand higher performance, or offline capabilities, we will develop in native.

How do you scheme your pricing model? How do you fix your budget?
We’ll either use a product backlog to organize a pricing structure based on features created, or we’ll charge once in every two weeks for resources and material used during the particular schedule.  

How helpful are the mobile apps developed by your team, for enhancing your clients’ business?
The simple answer is immensely helpful.  If the client is creating an internal application, they’ve already seen redundancies in their operation, and we just help them optimize their process with our technical expertise.  Those are the easy projects.  When we build a SaaS application, the answer is a little more complicated.  We’ve seen applications we’ve built be valued at 50 million dollars.

What according to you are the best practices to attain client satisfaction?
The best practices are understanding and honesty.  Having a clear understanding of your client and their project, and being able to talk to them forthrightly, lays the groundwork for client satisfaction.  In doing so, you become much more of a partner to them, working towards a shared goal.

How do you update your business system to be in pace with the technological advancements?
While you’ll never likely be fully up-to-date with the technology in your business system, being aware of new systems in the market and how those systems could be best utilized in your organization are the best ways to update your business system.

What are your thoughts about AR, VR and Internet of Things (IoT)?
Augmented/Virtual Realities and the Internet of Things are quickly becoming the mainstreams, and holding technical expertise to utilize these tools will be essential in the coming years. They will change the ways we interact with technology, in business and in everyday life.

What do you think will be the future of Mobile technology?
Augmented/Virtual Reality applications, face recognition, Natural language processing and artificial intelligence applications are the future in mobile applications. IOT Mobile applications are becoming the mainstream and having big impact in IOT adoption.