4 Custom Software Examples That Turned into Successful Businesses

Digital innovations these days has become a necessary tool for every business that seeks further growth. In order for a business to thrive, it needs a unique and competitive software  solution, which solves quite specific user problems (i.e. occupies its own niche), and is perfectly tailored to business needs. All this is quite realistic when it comes to custom solutions and in this article, we will tell you about 4 cases of MassMedia Group company. Each of these cases is an excellent example of how custom software helped its owners to come, or at least to start stepping confidently towards success.

MyScore AS 

A fintech startup from Norway for easy review of financial information. 

MyScore provides users with information about the financial assets of Norwegian companies by generating simple reports in PDF format. These reports are generated once a day and are as up-to-date as possible. 

"The main goal for the project is creating something simple and easy to use for any type of B2B and B2C companies "

Syed S. Hussain, owner of MyScore AS

One of the distinctive features of custom software in general and MyScore, in particular, is user-friendly design. This is especially important in high-tech projects with a lot of data because adapting the numbers to a convenient and minimalistic design is a really difficult task. 

The main features of the project are:

• Generation of a report in PDF format with a list of all the necessary financial information about Norwegian companies;
• Daily updates of this report;
• Ability to integrate MyScore AS badge, which could be added to other companies' sites, and which will show the company's rating;
• Ability to send notifications to email and user profile in the system;
• User profile with a list of purchases: reports, badges, notifications. In both mobile and desktop versions. 

The result is a powerful custom system capable of providing users with up-to-date and reliable information about the financial situation of Norwegian companies. The system can not only generate financial reports but also store them in users' personal profiles. MyScore AS also allows customers to manage saved reports. This software is already profitable for its owners and is actively developing, and new functionality is added to the solution as needed, which is the hallmark of custom solutions.

MyMyCars

Now let's talk about big platforms. MyMyCars is a Ukrainian online service for selling and buying new and used cars. The service has useful functionality, valuable both for people who want to buy/sell a car and for businesses such as dealers and traders. The features for businesses include more functions than for regular users, such as providing business information, management capabilities, and other useful tools.

The service was originally designed to eliminate the monopoly in the market. At the start of its development in the Ukrainian automotive retail there was essentially a monopoly of one particular service. At the same time, the attitude towards clients at this site left much to be desired, many useful functions were absent, and the platform itself was full of paid features, although services in other countries had been offering them to users without any fees for a long time. The owner of MyMyCars platform set a goal to improve this situation by creating a service that puts the user, their needs, and convenience at the forefront. What has come out of this?

Characteristic features of the service are:

• A rotation system.

The function of the system is to encourage users to fill out the information about the offers. In this case, their offers have a higher ranking and are more likely to be reflected in searches.

• A recommendation system

Usually, sites everywhere recommend the product you have recently searched for. The peculiarity of this system is that it provides not the same product from another seller, but cars of other brands, similar in a number of characteristics. 

• Ability to order a car for a test drive

Users have the opportunity to sign up for a test drive. After filling out the form the application opens the personal cabinet of the user who published the ad for approval.

• Sales leader display function

Users are shown a list of the best-selling cars both among new and used cars on the homepage of the site. Cars are sorted according to body type (sedan, hatchback, etc.)

• Advanced search for technically inexperienced users

A special function of vehicle selection for technically inexperienced users, allowing you to select the car according to such characteristics as color, body type, number of seats, the purpose of use (city, truck), etc.

• Interaction and correction of information from state databases 

Sometimes when information is loaded from the state database, it can be false because the database has outdated information or there are no required categories. The platform implements automatic correction of such information when browsing the website. 

And the set of curious features is not limited to that, but a complete list would take too much space. And after all, nothing says so much about the coolness of software as indicators of success. And there is a lot to show. If before the appearance of MayMayCars the market was essentially monopolized, now there is a new strong player and users do not make themselves wait. The number of users on the site, along with ads and appreciative feedback from them, is growing daily. Currently, the number of registered users has exceeded 50,000 and the number of car ads has exceeded 25,000. Further comprehensive development of the project and the addition of new functionality is planned.

Aristocrat Kids

A remarkable case of combining aesthetics and technology. Aristocrat Kids is a company from Riga, Latvia, that creates exclusive children's clothing. Their wide target market includes Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the USA, and others. In 2016, the company seriously thought about developing its own e-commerce platform to increase the number of customers and it was the right decision to make (but let’s save it for later).

The main goal the developers had was to immerse the user of the online store in the fairy tale that Aristocrat Kids creates with their clothes. Accordingly, a very large emphasis was placed on the design, however, everything had to work with the generally accepted rules of UI/UX. The online store had to be functional, but the reputation of the brand and its inherent charm came first. That's why only nude shades and a minimum of universal solutions were used in the design. In the end, the design does not distract the user from the product, focusing all his attention on the collection.

If we talk about the technical part, the following features were implemented in the platform: 

• A full-featured menu that allows the store operator/manager to create the necessary menu items or product categories with a multi-level hierarchy, as well as to make edits to existing items and categories.
• Multifunctional order processing module which allows store managers to sort orders by a selected criterion and in chronological order, track order and payment status in real-time, and view a customer's profile with the entire history of his orders.
• Notification module when a new order comes in, which allows you to reduce response time and improve customer service.
• The "Product Slider" module offers products from the "YOU MAY ALSO LIKE" category. The block automatically selects products based on the user's browsing and ordering history, as well as products added to the wishlist. This block is displayed on the main page and on product cards. 
• Recently the Stripe payment system has been implemented in the platform - an international system for secure online payments by credit cards, working in many countries around the world. 

Availability of high-quality custom solution, constantly maintained and updated, allowed the owners to achieve their goals and even exceed them. 

• In the regions of Central Asia, Britain, the USA, and Russia, which are the main Aristocrat Kids’ markets, brand recognition grew by 41%. The figures also rose in European countries by 16%.
• Thanks to the creation of the site the growth of customers increased by 55% and continues to grow, which is 12% higher than expected results.
• The site fully paid off and began to bring profit in just 2.5 months after the launch.

Defero

And another Norwegian fintech startup. Defero is a secure service for generating and analyzing financial activity reports of both individuals and companies. Defero enables periodic monitoring, statistical and objective assessment of one's financial performance, as well as viewing its dynamics over a certain period. Finding the existing solutions insufficient to create a project based on them, the owners decided to develop their own. This is not surprising, because the functionality of the application is quite rich. In particular, the software includes:

• The ability to obtain a report of financial activity.
• Monthly report updates based on statistical and objective assessment with the help of special algorithms.
• The possibility for the user, after registering in the system, to see his own Score, as well as the average Score in his place of residence and in Norway as a whole.
• The possibility to see the dynamics of his Score during a selected period, as well as to see statistics of his income and expenses
• Secure two-step registration: the user confirms his/her identity through authorization in the BankID system, and then adds a phone number and password to the system.
• The possibility for the user to accumulate Defero Points (DP) and use them to get different offers from the site's partners.
• The system of user levels, depending on different actions that they do on the site (for example, fill in all the fields, invite friends, follow the listed links)

The results were not long in coming. The app started earning recognition almost from the very beginning of its existence.

- In just 2 months after its launch in early May 2019, the growth was 1135% or +6.05K users.

- The number of active users as of July 2019 was 1.6K, up to 90.69% in June alone

- The number of referrals who participate in the affiliate program was 197. The growth in 2 months after launch was 1925%. 

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Working with existing software means that you have many concerns with your software vendor. However, with custom software , productivity increases because your software depends on your decisions , not someone else's. The examples in this article only confirm this. Each of the software owners listed in it was "cramped" within the existing framework and decided to create something new. You've seen the results with your own eyes, and they're very impressive if you keep in mind that we're talking about projects that started from scratch. So, what are you waiting for! Go ahead and create your own!