Focus on your core business ...
let Cerulean handle your software development needs!

Strong team of experienced software developers

Services

Cerulean's provides high quality and low maintenance custom software development services for startups and small and medium businesses. We specialize in Saas, cloud and web applications. Our team's dedication, length and breadth of experience in the industry makes us well-suited to meet your business needs.

Software Development & Maintenance

The average experience of our technical leads is 21 years as of January, 2023. We offer both new product development and enhancements or bug fixes of an existing product. Before we start development we work with our clients to go through a project discovery and planning discussion to better understand your needs and align our resources(you can learn more here). Following this, our developers push code to a source code control tool ( we use GitHub but we can use whatever you prefer). We can also push code to your network through VPN, if you prefer. We allow feedback and code reviews during development to provide opportunity to our customers to catch issues early in the development cycle. We also provide bi-weekly reports which may include demonstrations of the current progress of the application, if applies. While majority of our work is in-house development, we are open to alternative ways of helping our customers succeed.

Some of the core areas of our technical expertise are:

  • Backend Technologies: Java, NodeJS, .NET, etc.
    Java NodeJS .NET
  • Frontend Technologies: JavaScript, TypeScript, React, CSS, HTML, etc.
    JavaScript TypeScript React CSS HTML
  • Databases, Application servers: Apache Web Server, Tomcat, MySQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, etc.
    MySQL database server Microsoft SQL Server Oracle database server Tomcat Web Server Apache Web Server
  • Mobile Development: iOS and Android, Progressive Web applications(PWA), Ionic, Cordova, etc.
    iOS Android PWA(Progressive Web Applications) ionic Apache Cordova
  • Cloud computing: AWS migration, AWS EC2 & AWS RDS setup, Docker, Jenkins, Website maintenance, etc.
    AWS AWS EC2 AWS RDS Docker Jenkins

Project Management

Our project manager can take on the task of running your Agile teams as Project manager or Scrum master. Our project manager will track (using Jira or any other tool you provide access to) your project progress, provide metrics such as Velociy, Burn down, Cycle time, etc. and can advise Agile methodology improvements to your process to deliver your project/product on time. The core experience of our project managers is in Scrum, Kanban and ScrumBan. Our project managers work on a Corp-to-corp contract basis.

Cloud Computing Solutions

We provide services to design and build cloud solutions for businesses. We have AWS certified professionals who can guide you with the right set of AWS services. Whether it is migrating existing applications to AWS EC2 instances or build new applications and deploying them in cloud, we got you covered. With cloud computing, it is very important to be careful from the get-go and choose a trusted software development partner. The costs can rack up pretty quickly if proper cost estimates, tracking and alerts are not in place. Note that we do not have any monetary benefit from recommending AWS or other Cloud providers' services and hence we pick what's best for our clients. Some of the projects we have done recently involved:

  • Migrating traditional client-server business applications to AWS using AWS EC2, Lambda and Eventbridge.
  • Building new containerized applications using Docker and deploying them on AWS EC2.
  • Improving and setting up monitoring, tracking and alerts with AWS tools such as AWS CloudWatch, AWS Cost Explorer and use of other APM tools such as Splunk, SignalFx, and Amplitude

Startups

We have years of experience developing software for companies - big and small, but we love working with startups and enjoy seeing them grow with our help. We are able to provide MVPs, prototypes, POCs for startups and then turn those into production-quality software when the startups are ready to go the next level. In today's world it is very difficult to find a reliable software development company, that's on your side. Most companies with large teams of engineers do not accept projects smaller than a few millions dollars. Well, that's just not us! The last thing we want is an entrepreneur spend thier valuable time working directly with freelancers and contractors, finding themselves managing engineers, and having to learn the technologies, only to suddenly lose that developer and pause on their ambitions until they find the next freelancer. Even if an entrepreneur IS technical, it may not always be the best use of their time, to get bogged down in day-to-day engineering operations. Our experience having run our own startups in the past has taught us valuable lessons that make us best suited to fill that need.

To learn more on the approaches to software development, specifically for startups, please read our article Software Development for Startups.

Our Process

The goal of this process is to set the right expectations with our clients and deliver what was agreed upon. We learnt from our experiences that there is almost always numerous unknowns that come up during software development. However it is this experience that helps limit or eliminate some of these road bumps. During Project discovery phase a major chunk of these unknowns are generally identified and options are provided for better predictability, while factoring in the client's budget. Note that both new development and maintenance contracts will go through the same process. Please review the below phases and ask questions during our free consultation meeting.

  • Project Discovery: In Project Discovery, our client may or may not have requirements fully nailed-down, but is expected to have a good sense of the functionality they are looking for. This is the phase where technology stack will be determined. We work closely with the client in a "brainstorming session" or two to provide our feedback, thoughts, recommendations, etc. It is entirely possible some clients know exactly what they want and just need development services in which case we will quick go on to the next phase.
      Deliverables at the end of this phase
    • Make the technology stack choice.
    • A high-level documentation of the architecture.
  • Project Planning: There is generally a week or two between project discovery and project planning if the requirements were not ready for development. Our client is expected to have that clarity of requirements completed and sit down with our project manager for another round of review for planning. This is where a Pricing plan is determined as well. If both parties agree with expectations of features, expected start date, timelines, cost, a contract is signed.
      Deliverables at the end of this phase
    • A project plan with milestones and estimated release dates.
    • Signed contract between Cerulean and the client.
  • Development & testing: Resources are identified, development will begin in this phase, code is pushed regularly to a source code control tool (we use GitHub) and code reviews are allowed. We perform testing during the development, however the client is welcome to test and report bugs as well. One round of code review is allowed for fixed price contracts, for other pricing plans additional rounds of review-fix-review are allowed.
      Deliverables during this phase
    • A bi-weekly report.
    • Complete code commits(updates) corresponding to the milestone completed.
    • Provide a demo per milestone, if applies.
  • Acceptance: This is the phase where a final demo is provided to the client and the client has anywhere from 7 to 30 days(depends on the size of the project to respond with any further final change requests or bug fixes.
      • Deliverables at the end of this phase
    • Code committed for all originally agreed upon milestones.
    • Provide a final demo.

Pricing

Please see our pricing options which we believe should satisfy most client's needs.

Fixed

Starts at $8500

  • Best suited for a small proof of concept(POC) projects, UI design project.
  • Fixed price product development (maximum increase capped at 15%).
  • Generally short term, 1-3 months.
  • Requires reasonably clear requirements before development starts.
  • Small changes acceptable, but subject to project manager approval.
  • An upfront, paid cost estimation effort required, generally 2-5 hours at $60/hour
  • When the project is complete, the client has 7 days to request for bug fixes.

Gold

$40-$90 per hour*

  • Best suited when moderate requirement changes are expected, but development must get started.
  • Lower hourly rates offered for longer/larger projects
  • Minimum 2 months & 3 full-time engineers, usually 4+ months
  • Small to moderate requirement changes are acceptable.
  • Paid & upfront estimation effort is not required, but recommended.
  • Minimum 30 hrs/week, per engineer.

Platinum

$40-$60 per hour*

  • Best suited for large development projects.
  • Lower hourly rates offered for longer/larger projects
  • Minimum 4 months & 3 full-time engineers, usually 6+ months
  • Any requirement changes are acceptable.
  • Paid & upfront estimation effort is not required, but recommended.
  • Minimum 30 hrs/week, per engineer.
  • *Hourly rate depends on the experience level of engineers available or desired.
  • All plans come with a free consultation as part of Project Discovery phase and is highly recommended.

About Us

We are team of passionate software engineers, architects and project managers who want to help ease the burden of software develoment on small businesses and startups. Our experience shows that companies whose core business is not software development, spend way too much time and money worrying about software development, and they end up building their own teams almost always very detrimental to their core business. While large corporations can handle this, we have seen first-hand that smaller businesses, startups and entrepreneurs struggle to find a trustworty software development partner - this is the gap Cerulean has set out to fill.

Mission

To help startups, entrepreneurs and small businesses focus on their core business by being their trusted partner, delivering high quality and low maintenance software solutions.

Vision

We want to see a world where non-technical businesses have a great software development partner who allows these businesses stay focused on their core business.

Contact Us

We are in Alpharetta GA, about 25 miles north of Atlanta GA and we are proud to be part of the technology hub, known to be the fastest growing in the South eastern United States.

Cerulean Software Solutions LLC