Year 2020 in GoodRequest

60+ long-term projects and 10+ new partners

We’re truly thankful, that with this write up of 2020, we can say that our "business-partner family" has grown. In 2020, we continued in dozens of projects, that we’ve been working on together with our partners for several years. However, at sametime, we started working on many new and interesting challenges.

So who did we crossed paths with in 2020 ? We started working on projects Bratislava – Capital of the Slovakia, an app for football fans of Slovak Football Association, Tiptravel information system, the app for BENU pharmacy, Gopass, ShopVox, Payout and many others. The end of the year also brought us an extension of cooperation with our long-term partner ZSE and new cooperation with KIA Motors Slovakia. HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who believed in us :)

When we choose from projects focused on developement of mobile apps, we have released apps such as BENU Pharmacy and NAY elektrodom. Just before Christmas we released Gopass. In the last week of the 2020, we released our first TV app for Fitshaker. At the same time we’ve worked on the app such as Tatra Banka, Tipos Extraliga, Kimbino, Fingera, Slovak Football Association or Bistro.sk.

New projects have also been added for our Web team, where we design and develop information systems and web solutions. The challenges were new projects such as a comprehensive system for TipTravel, but also those on which we have been working for a long time. We can mention the Izotopcentrum, where we create an information system for the hospital, which helps to save lives. Next Annotation platform for Tatra banka, the largest online fitness center in Slovakia - Fitshaker, ticket reservation system for the Aréna Theater, or a globally awarded system for waste registration - ELWIS.

Interesting projects also included UX / UI Design. We have been covering a comprehensive design solution based on the ShopVox product for several months now. The overall design solution concerned SFZ mobile applications, and web solutions for the Humanet attendance and personnel project, a comprehensive solution for renting NorthGate warehouse space, an online fitness kit for woman Fitshaker and several novelties prepared for citizens of Bratislava.

In autumn, we also completed our GoodRequest site, which has undergone a total redesign. The entire design and development have been done in-house.

Meaningful and award-worthy projects

During the year, projects which are our pride and joy, have received an award five times. At the beginning of the year, it was 4ka award from the Android code to two applications that we been developing long term. Bistro.sk earned gold in the Shopping and Sales category. It improved from the second place, it won in 2018. Bronze belonged to the new category Finance and Business app iKros.

Mobile application Tatra banka has defended its title of the application offering the best mobile banking.

The ELWIS information system and our partner JRK Slovensko are a great example of meaningful projects being noticed at home and abroad. Sooner or later, they will receive significant recognition for their contributions. At home, it is the Via Bona award, and on a European scale, the award for the municipality of Košeca in the Digitization category in the The Innovation in Politics Awards 2020 competition.

For a great part of 7 years, we have the honor to cooperate on many interesting projects with great clients. The year 2020 could be summarized as follows: 25 mobile applications, 17 UX / UI projects and 31 web solutions. We are looking forward to seeing all the hours of work, meetings and creations in one place, so therefore, as is good practice, this year we have prepared a summary in the form of showreel and the following lines. :)

Team and team-buildings in 2020: Online and even offline

The year 2020 will be entered in the GoodRequest chronicle as the one in which the home office ceased to be a benefit. The one when birthday parties, sitting on the terrace, common lunches or traditional rafting have ceased to be a matter of course. It was the first time we didn't meet at a Christmas party in person, but online. At the same time, it was the time when we tuned many processes, implemented useful tools, gave a chance to online team-building and made sure that we can deliver 100% performance even in 100% remote mode.

However, we will not lie. We are sorry that our regular and special events got "tailed". However, we did not give up and played with the cards we've received. During the year we found plenty of opportunities to grow, have fun and the time when the situation allowed us to spend it together.

13 people joined the team last year. We start the 2021 with a 55-member team.

We still managed to start January with Hackathon. We regularly open a year with this event. The topic was automation and a member of each team - programmers, designers and managers - found theirs in it. In addition to ideas, impressions and a photo report, we also shared our Checklist and best practices in our traditional blog article: How to organize a hackathon.

The team activities were divided into those that we managed to do offline in the summer and those that were completed online. The Android team enjoyed the livestream conference mDev camp 2020 together, the five-member mix team joined the Hackathon organized by Tatra banka and the Web team again completed the OWASP TOP 10 Security Training from Citadelo.

During the summer, we have met in the office at the BBQ, which was the only event during the year, where we met in large numbers with our significant others and children. :) With the last summer rays, we hiked to Chata pod Suchým in hiking boots and cycling shoes. There we said goodbye to the summer and (which we didn't know then) to each other before returning to the home office.

If you ever look for inspiration for offline team activities we recommend an online quiz or game. From our own experience, we can recommend Among us. You will work on communication, cohesion and certainly creativity. :)

Online and in person we were connected by "Kindness" projects, which have been a part of us for the third year. We regularly look for opportunities where we can help, offer support, or at least say good job. The year 2020 was really rich in these situations. The goal of these activities in GoodRequest is not only to help financially or non-financially, but also to inspire and show opportunities to members of our team or to the people who follow us. We can always do more together. The proof may be support of the production of protective shields for paramedics at FRI, or common sport initiative of the IT region, where "went around the world" and were able to buy a car for OZ Náruč. We are aware that what we give will return to us. Maybe at a different time and in a different form, but it will definitely return. :) You can read more about our activities in a summary in Tomáš Linkedin post.

Where did we meet, see and hear?

We started the new year with the only live event in 2020. In January, as part of the Friends of Figma Slovakia initiative, we organized a Figma meetup for beginners and advanced users. Our experienced designers focused on both groups. The next design event took place online in the fall. But thanks to this form, we were able to meet on the Czech-Slovak-Dubai-Pakistan axis. :) If you are interested in Design kick-off: Are you solving the right problem?, see the available record.

During the following months, we mostly heard ourselves . Especially on talks, lectures and podcasts. Our CEO Tomáš Lodňan talked about several topics in four podcasts. We also add individual episodes and themes here so that you can choose and listen to what interests you.

• Podnicast s Peťom Chodelkom - „Ľudia sú to najdôležitejšie, čo máme."
• Podnicast s Peťom Chodelkom - Digitálne štúdio v čase korona krízy
• Na Rovinu o Podnikaní - Appka a či webka? odpovie Tomáš Lodňan
• Debríf - O vzdelávaní v GoodRequest

As a bonus, we also add one interview with Tomáš for zero2hero: Understanding the user is a key factor in a successful project.

In the summer, we became the main partner of Google Developer Student Clubs - University of Žilina. The group consists of skilled students of the Faculty of Management and Informatics. Our Lead Android developer Jozef Kňažko is actively involved in talks, especially concerning the world of mobile applications. Records of both events realized so far are available online. The first was on Security in Mobile Applications and the second on Jetpack Compose.

We plan to continue these events in the new year. If you don't want to miss them, subscribe to our Newsletter. We will inform you about them together with many other tips from the tech world.

Finally, we would like to thank everyone who made our 2020 as we could describe it in this article. Unique, successful and in a way adventurous. Thank you and looking forward to 2021!