LinkedIn as a mobile development outsourcing guide
Vera Reshetina became the first person through whom I believed in the effectiveness of business social networks for business development and personal brand promotion (as Tom Peters writes). Therefore, I decided to talk in more detail with one of the co-owners of a fast-growing software company from Belarus, which successfully combines this function with the upbringing of a two-year-old son. 
Vera, tell us in a few words about the company.
Our company, CactusSoft, was founded in 2006 in Minsk. The field of activity is customized development of mobile applications for the iPhone, Android, J2ME, Symbian, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile platforms.
Customers are European, American and Russian companies.
What is the feature of developing mobile applications?
First of all, these projects are connected with innovations, the majority of our clients are startups, who have attracted investments in the development of fundamentally new mobile services.
This market is growing dynamically. Product requirements must be flexible, so we are working on an Agile methodology. There are few developers for mobile platforms, but we manage to attract them with interesting projects: by working with us, our employees gain a diverse experience.
In which countries are mobile technologies most popular?
From my experience, I can say that among our customers, the most orders come from Scandinavia. Although mobile technologies have gained the greatest popularity in Japan and South Korea, we do not work in these markets.
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Since July, we began to receive many requests for the development of applications for the iPhone. Mostly customers - American companies. Although, of course, the United States is a few years behind Europe (and especially Japan) in terms of the development of mobile technologies.
What explains the popularity of mobile technology in Japan?
Here, small flats and a long way to work played a role, so the Japanese have been using smartphones for a long time just like Americans - computers. In Japan, Quick Response Codes — matrix two-dimensional pictures — are especially common. They can take a picture of the camera phone and get information about the product. The technology of QR codes is mainly used in advertising and trade.
And in Europe?
While in the 90s the dot-com revolution was gaining momentum in the States, mobile technologies evolved in Europe: GMS, SMS, GRPS, WAP. In Scandinavia, the pace of development of mobile technologies was set by Nokia and Ericsson. Interesting mobile content services appear in BeNiLuks (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg).
Tell us about specific projects that have been performed recently? Why are they not in the portfolio on the site?
Since we have signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with all our customers, we cannot publish a description of our projects in public access. However, I can say that over the past year we have carried out projects in the following areas:
You are actively using LinkedIn social network to build business contacts - does it really work?
Social networks, especially LinkedIn, is a key tool for communication and promotion of our services. We have a lot of customers through contacts, tied through this social network.
In fact, it’s funny that people for a long time couldn’t come to a simple thought: they make decisions, buy and sell not companies, but people. That is why networking, building personal relationships in business is so important. A man's brand is almost more important than a company brand. What experience do key company employees have? Do you have mutual friends? Who recommends these people? Answers to all these questions help make a decision.
Please share with readers your promotion strategies on LinkedIn.
Vera, tell us in a few words about the company.
Our company, CactusSoft, was founded in 2006 in Minsk. The field of activity is customized development of mobile applications for the iPhone, Android, J2ME, Symbian, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile platforms.
Customers are European, American and Russian companies.
What is the feature of developing mobile applications?
First of all, these projects are connected with innovations, the majority of our clients are startups, who have attracted investments in the development of fundamentally new mobile services.
This market is growing dynamically. Product requirements must be flexible, so we are working on an Agile methodology. There are few developers for mobile platforms, but we manage to attract them with interesting projects: by working with us, our employees gain a diverse experience.
In which countries are mobile technologies most popular?
From my experience, I can say that among our customers, the most orders come from Scandinavia. Although mobile technologies have gained the greatest popularity in Japan and South Korea, we do not work in these markets.
')
Since July, we began to receive many requests for the development of applications for the iPhone. Mostly customers - American companies. Although, of course, the United States is a few years behind Europe (and especially Japan) in terms of the development of mobile technologies.
What explains the popularity of mobile technology in Japan?
Here, small flats and a long way to work played a role, so the Japanese have been using smartphones for a long time just like Americans - computers. In Japan, Quick Response Codes — matrix two-dimensional pictures — are especially common. They can take a picture of the camera phone and get information about the product. The technology of QR codes is mainly used in advertising and trade.
And in Europe?
While in the 90s the dot-com revolution was gaining momentum in the States, mobile technologies evolved in Europe: GMS, SMS, GRPS, WAP. In Scandinavia, the pace of development of mobile technologies was set by Nokia and Ericsson. Interesting mobile content services appear in BeNiLuks (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg).
Tell us about specific projects that have been performed recently? Why are they not in the portfolio on the site?
Since we have signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with all our customers, we cannot publish a description of our projects in public access. However, I can say that over the past year we have carried out projects in the following areas:
- mobile based services
- mobile social networks, microblogging
- two-dimensional barcode recognition applications
- streaming video in mobile devices (videostream applications)
- mobile games
You are actively using LinkedIn social network to build business contacts - does it really work?
Social networks, especially LinkedIn, is a key tool for communication and promotion of our services. We have a lot of customers through contacts, tied through this social network.
In fact, it’s funny that people for a long time couldn’t come to a simple thought: they make decisions, buy and sell not companies, but people. That is why networking, building personal relationships in business is so important. A man's brand is almost more important than a company brand. What experience do key company employees have? Do you have mutual friends? Who recommends these people? Answers to all these questions help make a decision.
Please share with readers your promotion strategies on LinkedIn.
- For a start, I recommend creating a detailed profile (containing keywords from your area of ​​activity) and regularly updating it.
- Periodically update the “What you are working on now” field - this will attract the attention of your contacts.
- Subscribe to the RSS feeds of questions of those sections that are related to your business, and regularly answer these questions. Sometimes, right in questions, people are asked to advise their service provider - a quick, successful answer to this question can be the beginning of a profitable partnership.
- Join groups according to your business interests. Create interesting groups for your target audience.
- Collect recommendations from your clients and co-workers. The system rankings the results of the search query, including relying on the number of your recommendations.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/40197/
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