About This Discussion:

When it comes to application development, the industry can be a bit saturated. Between a plethora of overseas developers and a large community of developers in the US, it can be hard to determine where to go and who to trust with your company’s ideas and needs.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Cratebind, a company putting a different spin to the mundane world of app development, by approaching it as a partnership vs. a vendor/customer relationship.

This incredible company, first conceived by enterprising siblings, Jon Harlan and Brittany Harlan-Graft and their respective spouses, Connie and Jordan, has a great story about finding ways to pivot and provide the greatest impact for their clients through their own product development journey. Cratebind's diverse expertise between strategy consulting and technical expertise help guide clients to stay above the emerging technology trends (and when to say no on technology for the sake of technology).

Relationships are critically important to Cratebind and it shows with the John, Connie and Brittany’s camaraderie and great rapport!

We hope you enjoy this chat with Cratebind!

Here's Our Official Breakdown:

5:20 - The history of Cratebind and what makes them so unique

6:00 - Their first venture wasn’t about app development, but it lead them down a new path

7:20 - How their technical talent developed

9:20 - When it comes to apps, what makes Cratebind different?

11:10 - Why avoiding using a development team from overseas might be in your best interest when building an application

13:04 - How they built their technical expertise to build their first company, and then leveraged that into a new business

14:47 - How they turned the obstacles from their first business into doing something amazing with their second business

16:03 - What was the foundation for building such an incredible business with family

17:15 - How perseverance and overcoming challenges have made them so successful, and how they developed their leadership roles

19:15 - How priorities are determined and set (and how they keep the family side in tact)

20:21 - How has app development shifted, and what trends are on the horizon

23:52 - Setting expectations - how does a company like Cratebind set the correct expectations when helping companies

25:30 - The sweet spot of community

28:34 - What are some cool things companies are now able to do because of the acceleration of app development

33:07 - How have the skill sets changed in app development in trying to keep up with emerging technology

35:17 - How does one keep up with the larger marketplace of apps, and how to stand out and be different

36:11 - What startup applications have done something amazing to stand out

39:10 - What does it truly mean to be an app development shop, is it just simply about building games

41:27 - How does a company determine whether or not they truly need an application (and another thing that makes Cratebind unique)

42:37 - How has Cratebind addressed when determining the right relationship

46:02 - Want to connect with Cratebind, visit cratebind.com to see more about what they do.