An Interview with David Galownia, Slingshot President and CEO: ‘We Aim at Building Industry-Changing Products for Ground-Breaking Companies’

“Our goal is to create a lasting relationship so that we can guide you confidently into your future.”

Slingshot is a software and app development company specializing in taking your vision from idea to launch. The company’s unique 4-step process puts an empathetic focus on the user, allowing its strategists, designers, and developers to personalize the app specifically for your business.

Slingshot was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Louisville, KY.

David Galownia, Slingshot President and CEO, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

Q. Explain your services in brief.

Since 2005, Slingshot has been working with everyday heroes; from small companies to Fortune 50 organizations.

Mobile App Development – We understand the challenges of building a mobile app. You’ll need your app to work on multiple devices, follow new policies released by iOS and android, and be approved by the app store deployment process.

We have extensive experience developing native apps for android and iOS as well as using cross-platform technologies like Xamarin to speed up the development process and decrease maintenance costs.

UX Design – We place tremendous value on design; apps with a focus on design are more successful. Our in-house designers can create elegant solutions that incorporate the latest UI and UX trends.

Enterprise Software Development – Whether you need to automate a workflow, integrate systems, develop an API, rewrite a legacy app, or create something new, we’re capable of developing software that meets your goals.

Web App Development – A powerful web app can be incredibly impactful for an organization. We use technologies like .Net core, Angular, and Vue.JS to create an easily accessible solution. Your employees will be able to seamlessly work from anywhere.

AWS Cloud Development – As an official AWS Select-tier partner, we understand this day and age. Businesses can utilize the power of the cloud to shorten the application lifecycle, drive better performance, build with scale, and lower cost.

Q. What are the factors that determine success in software and app development?

For us, whether or not you talk to the users who will use your software, in the end, is the number one factor in determining whether or not the software you build will be a success. You would think that’s obvious but most often when a new product or software application is built someone has an idea, they talk to other stakeholders and leadership, get approval, and start in on the build. They do eventually get the software in the hands of the users but not until it’s all the way built. In our experience most oftentimes that software may do some things well but may also completely miss the mark or have to undergo extensive and expensive changes before it can be considered successful. At Slingshot, we flip the process and talk to the end-users before we even start a design. Then after we have designs completed we test those designs with the users, iterating several times. Finally, we write code, but by this time, we are already on version five or six of the software and the risk of an initial flop is greatly reduced.

Q. Tell us about the flexibility of your testing tools to access resources exactly as per needs.

Regarding hardware flexibility these days it’s important to build cloud-first, meaning how you architect the solution should be done in a way that utilizes the power of cloud services such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. When done properly your application will scale seamlessly and hardware allocation is never an issue.

Q. With the ease of using any software, there often comes the cost to pay of losing some vital customization features. How flexible is your customization service?

I would disagree here. If a feature is inherently difficult to use, chances are it’s not vital or it shouldn’t be part of the product and by eliminating complexity your product will be better off. Good usability and design is as much about cutting features as it is about adding them. At Slingshot, beyond having a talented team of UX designers in house, we also extensively test the design of an app before we write a single line of code. That means real users of your product see it several times and see several revisions before we commit to building something. In this way, we can clear up or altogether eliminate complex or unnecessary features.

Q. How have emerging technologies contributed to the success of your business?

For us, emerging technologies are something that can make what we build better. It’s a tool to have in the toolbox but does not change the fundamentals of our business which is to concentrate on the problem that needs solving most efficiently and effectively possible. Because of the advancement of emerging tech, sometimes the best way to solve the problem is to utilize such tools.

Q. As time goes on, website/app developers not only deal with changing technology but with changing website designs. How do you stay updated about new designs?

This would be more so the responsibility of the UX designers. Because they are designers by

nature they’re going to crave new and better ways of doing things. Design is about creativity and constant creativity means there is always something new. I think to keep up on design is quite simple, you need to hire designers who are passionate about their work and crave learning.

Q. Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

We’ve just unveiled our latest expansion: Slingshot Ventures. Slingshot Ventures is the innovation and startup arm of Slingshot. This new department will focus on co-founding B2B tech companies with industry experts. Slingshot Ventures will help aspiring entrepreneurs by developing the initial tech product, including help with product strategy, research, design, and development. We’ll additionally offer support on developing go-to-market strategy and sales.

Q. What are your trajectories for the next five years?

In five years, we’d like to have 4-5 Slingshot Venture companies up and running as well as have grown our team in a controlled fashion that maintains our ability to deliver at an exceptionally high level. We never want to be a 200 person tech shop, but rather a smaller shop that delivers better than anyone in the industry. To that end, we hope to continually evolve our services and push ourselves to be better every day.

David Galownia: The Leader at the Helm of SlingShot

David Galownia, President, serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Slingshot. He excels at propelling the company towards its goals and oversees the strategic direction of the company. David has been described as intense, driven, caring, and passionate both at work and play. At work, he enjoys watching his team explore, imagine, and reinvent to do the best. At play, he drives karts at insanely high speeds and scares his wife half to death.

“Whether you’re a Fortune 50 company wanting to streamline your process or a small organization needing to create a mobile app, our daredevils would be happy to help.”