Jump to updates on this 6-Month project:
2022: 3/26/22 (first payment made) | 11/8/22 | 12/6/22 | NO REFUNDS
2023: 1/4/23 | 1/15/23 | 2/3/23 | 4/4/23 | 9/28/23 | 11/20/23
2024:
9/21/2022 - This domain will document my experience with Josh Sanders, Tristan Wiener, Cole Hurley, and "Aaron" of Alpha Bravo Development in Miami, Florida. I've spoken with Josh, Cole and am currently working with Aaron. I don't remember if I ever actually spoke with Tristan. In any event, those whom I've spoken with all seem to be very nice people.
My first payment to them was on March 26th, 2022 (Phase 1: Research and Prototype, 4.5 - 5.5 weeks). My second payment was made on May 24th (Phase 2: Backend Development, 5.5 - 6.5 weeks), and my third payment, so far, was made on July 22nd (Phase 3: Frontend Development, 6.5 - 7.5 weeks). I've paid approximately 80% of the total cost and have only a small amount left for the remaining two phases of Testing/Debugging (2.0 - 2.5 weeks) and Launch (1.5 - 2.0 weeks)...
I'm supposed to be heavily involved during the phase 3 process, which should have begun at the end of July. Today is September 21st and I've yet to have any real involvement.
Aaron took over for Cole on June 14th and mentioned to me on September 1st that he'd be "going on leave" for two weeks (presumably for the following couple of weeks). September 1st was a Thursday so I have to assume the week of September 4-10 and September 11-17 were the two weeks. He said he'd be in touch when he returned. It is now the evening of Wednesday, September 21st and I have yet to hear back.
This IS concerning to me as the Alpha Bravo Development project proposal consisted of 20 weeks on the low end and 24 weeks on the high end. We're at 24 weeks the end of this month.
Hopefully I will have some encouraging news very soon. As mentioned, everyone seems very nice and I would love for this review to be a positive one when all is said and done. [go back to the top of the page]
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November 8, 2022: I was hoping to have a good update by now but, unfortunately, I do not. It seems the project is being worked on "in the back end" - but nothing yet for me to see. Aaron got back from his two-week leave and we spent about two and a half hours on the phone over three separate meetings. We seemed to get a lot acknowledged and I felt pretty good at that point.
I asked for an update today since I hadn't heard anything in a couple of weeks since those meetings, and Aaron has been traveling the past couple of weeks with limited internet access. What surprises me is that Alpha Bravo Development apparently doesn't have more than one person working on my app. One would assume that if a developer is on vacation, there'd be someone else available to continue working on the project.
I wasn't made aware of another two weeks (or more) of traveling and project delays. We're already five weeks over the "high end" of project completion time, and the person working on my app is apparently on another vacation with limited internet access.
I always say, these are nice people and are nice to work with, but I'm getting a bit skeptical about what I spent so much of my money on... Stay tuned... [go back to the top of the page]
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December 6, 2022: I spoke with Josh on November 14th or 15th and was told I'd have something in a week or two. So far, I have not received anything. Still waiting... [go back to the top of the page]
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January 4, 2023: Still nothing but screenshots that I'd seen months ago. My assumption is that something went wrong with whatever developer they hired to complete the project. If my app was being built in-house, there would be some sort of accountability. Only Aaron is answering my messages and he's only reporting what he's being told to report - which is pretty much nothing. [go back to the top of the page]
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January 15, 2023: I've been in contact with Josh a few times over the past week. I do believe ABD earnestly wants to get the app completed, but I still haven't seen any functionality. Josh has mentioned the "APK" he sent me several times, but that APK was screenshots only. The same as early on. No functionality. We're now 9 months into development.
Again, I do believe they want to get this app going - but something is preventing them from showing me any back-end functionality. They've apparently hit some sort of bump in the road. The app doesn't have any features that haven't already been available in other apps for over a decade.
Stay tuned... [go back to the top of the page]
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February 3, 2023: Josh sent me an update this week showing me the functionality they've built thus far. For the cost of a brand new 3-Series BMW and ten months in, it's a bit lacking (to say the least). The following functionality currently exists in the app: User registration, user login, welcome email to new user, account activation via one-time password via email, password recovery, email to change password. At the moment, I have an account creation app. You can create an account and login.
I have asked for a refund on several occasions, but they didn't go along with that. I even offered a partial refund so that they didn't lose any money on whatever it cost to build the login capability - and screenshots - but they didn't go for that either. When asked about the six month time-frame laid out in the contract to build the app, they said it was only an estimate.
So if you're looking to hire Alpha Bravo Development, be sure to get a FIRM completion date - NOT an estimate - and what happens/changes if that completion date is not met. And you absolutely must have an attorney work with you before signing any contract. Otherwise, it seems as if a project can be open-ended an ongoing indefinitely.
I am in contact with my contract attorney and have him standing by. I must admit, however, that I am very curious to see how this plays out if I leave it alone. At one point or another my patience will run out. I know, that sounds ridiculous - as many of you would have run out of patience LONG ago, but along with being very busy with other projects, I do have an unusual amount of patience...
In other news, Aaron seems to be gone. So Aaron, who replaced Cole, is now missing. I've asked where he is, and if he was replaced, by who - but that question was ignored... [go back to the top of the page]
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April 4, 2023: One year later and I still have nothing but an app I can log-in to. That's it. That's the only functionality after tens of thousands of dollars and over a year. I would definitely think twice about using Alpha Bravo Development to build your app if I were you... [go back to the top of the page]
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September 28, 2023: It's been almost six (6) months since my last update here. The app is now approximately twelve (12) months past the agreed upon completion date. As I believe I've mentioned above, they now say the dates in the contract are only estimates. This is why it's important to have a contract attorney look over everything to make sure the completion date isn't open-ended - and that if the completion date isn't met or is off by an unreasonable amount of time, such as in my case, there are refunds or discounts built into the verbiage. You also need that attorney on board in case there's a breach of contract.
I don't have an ETA (estimated time of arrival) for completion. I have not received any offers of a partial refund. I will continue to wait and see what happens. As mentioned before, the people at ABD are always very nice - and they're probably really nice people - but in my personal opinion they should not be running a business. And they certainly should not have told me the app was almost finished a year ago and required a payment that brought me only a few thousand dollars away from the total agreed upon cost. This isn't to say I've lost all hope. Perhaps this story can end well despite being at least a year late. I will continue to update this page as time goes on. [go back to the top of the page]
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November 20, 2023: No builds to test in the past six (6) months. They have somebody occasionally sending me messages telling me about progress (have not heard from them in about three weeks) - but I haven't actually seen any of it. As far as I know, they're not doing anything at all...
EDIT: To be completely transparent, a day or two after I made this most recent update, I received a notice from "Ariel Jacobs" stating, "We are ready to begin submitting the iOS build to Apple for their review.".
I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone because the app is light years away from being ready for launch. Most of the extremely little progress they've made is buggy and needs fixing. I re-sent them three documents describing my vision for the app. Three documents that I had initially sent in March of 2022 - which it seems that nobody who's currently working on the app has read. [go back to the top of the page]
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Alpha Bravo Development can be found here: www.alphabravodevelopment.com
Are you considering hiring Alpha Bravo Development for a project? Feel free to contact me at askme@alphabravodevelopmentreview.com with any questions or concerns you may have about how my project is going...