Open for business!

We are a 3 person design and development shop specializing in web applications. Our primary focus at the moment is in pushing the limits of web technologies like HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript to bleed the lines of native and web apps on the iPhone and iPad. We can rapidly develop native quality iPhone apps which can be distributed and sold in the app store in a fraction of the time and cost.

We also do full service consulting and have a development team for hire.

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Here is our sales pitch, if you would like to hire us.

Work with pros

We have been making websites, web applications, and mobile apps since the beginning of the modern internet. We are old enough to know what kind of website to make, but young enough to not put Flash™ on it.

Normalized pricing

The value of our time and effort doesn't depend on size of your budget. We offer straightforward pricing and provide some general idea of time and cost in our For Hire area.

Modern technology

We have always stayed current on the newest technologies and latest design methodologies while striving to design with timeless minimalistic style. This site, for example was built using the Twitter Bootstrap toolkit.

The Crunch was born when the 3 of us reached that decisive point in our lives where we had to decide if we were going to be in control of our destiny. We decided that we wanted to start another business that allowed us to build the things we wanted to.

To fund our passion and keep us innovative, we decided to partition part of our workload for outside projects on a contract basis. We have dreamed up, designed, prototyped, and implemented a lot of websites, web apps, iPhone apps, and other various software and media products over the years. Depending on what stage you are in your process, you might need us to help you visualize a concept or make it real.

Ed @edfilo

Ed Filowat studied computer engineering and photonic metamaterials at Penn State University and joined Liberated Syndication in 2007. As lead UI architect he designed and developed the industry leading libsyn3 publishing interface, mobile app platform, and various internal and external administrative and operations systems for Wizzard Media. Ed has contributed to several open source efforts including the creation of Crows - a realtime event coverage and communication system that allows people, groups, or organizations to easily create a web presence for coverage of live events.

Matt @hoopes

Matt Hoopes received his BS in Computer Engineering from the University of PIttsburgh, and Masters of Computer Science from John Hopkins. Matt was a co-founder of Liberated Syndication and served as chief architect responsible for the majority of the code which ran the podcast publishing platform which supports over a billion downloads a year and tens of millions of users monthly. Prior to libsyn, Matt served his country as a network security specialist inside the intelligence community of the Department of Defense.

Dave @davechekan

Dave Chekan has founded several web companies over the last decade and as an undergrad studying Computer Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh was a member of the NCIIA (National Collegate Inventors and Innovators Association) exhibiting an invention at the Smithsonian American History Museum. Prior to starting Liberated Syndication, Dave developed several music related web applications for 20th Century Fox, Pearl Drums, and many major label recording artists. Inspired by the events of 9/11, Dave served his country as a research analyst for the Department of Defense working in the intelligence community.

Buzzwords Technology platforms we use…

Obviously HTML5 and CSS3 are hot right now, and we love the way they come through in desktop, mobile, and tablet browsers.
jQuery (and jQuery mobile), Sencha, SproutCore, and backbone.js are our go to javaScript platforms.
Python, PHP, MYSQL dominate as our backend stack.
And if we want to go native, we like to wrap everything up in a nice PhoneGap package to make apps that can be distributed through the iTunes App Store, Android Marketplace, and more.

Apps would be boring if they didn't access online data, here's some of our favorite APIs
Twitter API, all Google APIs, SimpleGEO API, Facebook API

When you are making the decision to contract out work it's often a difficult and overwhelming experience. "Are these guys any good?", "Can we afford to do this?", "What do I even ask for?", "What happens after they are done?". These are all typical questions- we know because we have asked them ourselves when we worked for other companies and hired some help. Not every job or client is the same, but our process and commitment to doing our best work every time is the same. We don't check to see how deep your pockets are before quoting a rate and we don't ascend into ivory towers to work in a vacuum. Hire us to help you make a better product and we'll collaborate closely along the way.

Our approach is to price our time at a fixed $50.00 / hr and work with our clients to ensure they have a full understanding of what to expect before and during the engagement period. You will receive a detailed report every day while we are under contract outlining how much work we estimate is remaining allowing you the ability to steer the process as you see fit. The amount of time spent is agreed upon in advance and work can be halted or modified at any point. If you have ever worked in an agile development process like SCRUM, think of it as a daily burndown report.

Here are the services we provide and a guideline for how long they typically will take.

Idea Management

It's the most crucial part of any new product, game, service, or company- honing your idea. We can help you visualize and refine your concept by meeting with you and your team, brainstorming, and really talking about what's pie in the sky and what's achievable within your budget. This can happen on-site or in a coffee shop. The process continues with an iterative series of mockups, prototypes, and continued conversation and meetings. We'll stop when you are satisfied and ready to move on to the next stage

A typical Idea Management engagement may last 2 weeks, consist of (6) 1-hour meetings, and total about 40 hours or $2000. The deliverable product is a series of mockups (usually a PDF document) and a standardized requirements document. These assets are what we would use if we were developing the product, but they are yours to take and use to raise capital, hand off to a dev team, or shop around with whomever you wish.

Building a Product

You may have been told you need n x 10 people to build a website, an app, or a company. You don't. We have found that you need 3, and that's not a cute marketing pitch. Our expertise are in functional web and application design, client side programming and server side programming. Those are the key elements to a well made, useful application. Not all apps and no service-based companies fit into this model, but we have found many do. We can augment your existing team as well as develop end to end. If it's something we don't feel that we are capable of doing, we will tell you up front and help you figure out who needs to be helping you achieve your goals.

The deliverables and time frame for these engagements vary widely from application to application, but we use the same process of allocating time in advance, daily reporting, and giving clients steering power. Here is a little demo app called dodoboard Ed whipped up in about 40hrs to give you an idea of what's possible.

Follow-on Support and The Handover

We are ideally interested in helping you launch the initial version of your application and empowering you to run with it from there. We'll always be here for additional work as needed, however in most situations we do not host web applications or regularly maintain them in anyway. As part of the handover process, we will assist in setting up any backend that is needed and suggest a few options for leasing server space.

It's best to first reach out to us via email. Give us an overview of what you would like us to help with and provide a phone number and good time to talk. We'll do our best to give you a call or email the next business day. The initial consultation is always free and can be done on site, at a good meeting spot like a coffee shop, or if need be over the phone. We do not have an office.

Please send as much information about your company, idea, plans, etc to work@thecrunchlab.com