Elize’s Story: A Real-Life Nightmare

At Flint Hills Group, we strive to make sure that the product we put out is top-of-the-line. Period. We provide each of our clients with a team lead who handles the project and communication and makes sure that we are as transparent as possible. If a customer has a question, we answer it. If a customer is not satisfied with a particular part of a project, we tackle it head-on. Our clients hire us for both our end-result, our relationship as we build solutions and our decades of experience along the way.

However, not every company in our industry operates on this high of a level – both with product delivery and ethics. We have both heard about and worked with clients whose nightmare development company promised the moon but only delivered a pebble.

While this is not how we operate – we know that this exists within our industry. This industry is our home, and it is our bread and butter. We stand behind our work, and we stand behind our word. We have taken under our wing customers who have come with us with broken applications and carved-out bank accounts. We help get them back on their feet, fix their problems, and help them realize the dreams they thought they had lost.

This particular nightmare story could have happened to anyone, and it is our wish that when you read what happened to Elize below, you can take the story to heart and avoid working with questionable programming companies and avoid it at all means possible.

Elize’s Broken App and Dreams

Elize had an idea for an app and the capital to get started. All she needed was a company to work with her and help turn her dreams into reality. Unfortunately, that reality turned into a nightmare, as the company that Elize picked to develop her custom software solution has since cost her over $60,000 of over-promising and under-delivering.

“We are in litigation,” says Elize, owner of the company Impressions, a website dating app that lets users leave reviews about people they went on dates with, “all I wanted was to build this idea, but in hindsight, I was naive and ignorant about this whole process.”

It was that naivety that the company took advantage of. Elize trusted this “professional-looking” company to work with her — but instead, they have delivered nothing but a single-page website and a poorly constructed and unfinished app that she can’t even access.

“They took away my permissions,” she remembers, “and right now, I’ve got portions of the code stashed away on a Google doc, and it’s just odds-and-ends.”

We asked Elize if she could pinpoint a moment when she felt like everything went south, and she remembered it was when they started missing deadlines and blowing through scrums.

“I would push back on them as they dropped the ball on specific items. I would question it, so they would lower the price on other projects and would keep offering me a return customer discount. I should have seen the red flags.”

For someone like Elize, young, excited, innovative with an entrepreneurial spirit – she paid everything upfront and was taken advantage of. She did her research, interviewed companies, and thought she was doing her due diligence, but in hindsight, she realized that there was one crucial piece she was missing: mentorship.

“I did the entire process alone. I didn’t have someone backing me up,” Elize recalls, “I wish I had someone who knew the ins and outs of the business, who lived in that world,” and while Elize didn’t have that relationship then, she certainly has it now.

As her app was going belly-up, and she was struggling to get any response from her nightmare development company, she connected with Dave Cunningham, CEO and Founder of Flint Hills Group.

Through happenstance, Dave had a meeting close to Elize’s hometown, and the two could get together to discuss what happened with the development of her app and website and what the next steps should be.

“Dave was able to step in for me in areas I could not,” says Elize, “I’m not very good with confrontation, and this situation was a combination of confrontation and having industry knowledge. Bringing Dave in to help navigate the meetings and the broken code was the piece I was missing.”

While Elize is still in litigation with the company that has mucked up her first app – it has not dampened or stopped her drive and future dreams.

“This isn’t the last time you will hear from me! I have an idea for another app,” Elize says. “But this time, Dave and his team will build it, and I know I won’t have to deal with any of these issues I’m working through today.”

Going through a nightmare situation yourself? Contact us for another opinion and to see what your options may be. To avoid these types of scenarios to begin with, check out our article on how to avoid becoming a nightmare development story.