About Kleidon
Kleidon & Associates is in its 34th year of providing marketing communications, public relations and custom publishing to individuals and businesses. The company’s work in the shelter industry, the tourism industry, and professional services, among other fields, has led to regular Addy awards and other awards for excellence in design. They are design, writing and marketing specialists who care about your brand. Learn more about who they are.
Services
Mobile App Development
Web Development
Mobile App Design
App Marketing
Kleidon Reviews
Write a ReviewCustom-built platform that became the backbone of our entire operation
Rafael Almeida / CTO - Horizonte Digital Ltda
Verified
Aug 16, 2025
Aug 16, 2025
Project summary: Claims fraud detection had been rule-based for years and we were losing ground to more sophisticated patterns — we needed a machine learning model built on our own historical data.
Project governance was one of the things that impressed me most. We had a dedicated project manager who ran tight fortnightly sprints with clear acceptance criteria, a shared backlog that gave us full visibility at all times, and a change request process that was fair and transparent. Nothing slipped through the cracks, no bill shock at the end, and the final delivery matched the original scope document almost perfectly. In my experience that kind of discipline is genuinely uncommon.
PROS
Engineering quality that our internal team can maintain without calling the vendor, thorough documentation, proactive risk identification throughout the project
CONS
Time zone difference required some adjustment to our internal communication habits but the team managed the overlap window efficiently and it never affected momentum
Project TypeSoftware Development
IndustryInsurance
Project Cost$150,000 to $499,999
DurationJun 2025 – Apr 2026
Questions & Answers
Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
I lead technology at Horizonte Digital Ltda, a mid-sized organisation in the Insurance sector headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil. My remit as CTO covers everything from infrastructure to product development. We had reached a point where our internal engineering capacity was not sufficient to execute our roadmap without an experienced external partner.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
Our Insurance regulatory environment had changed and the compliance timeline was non-negotiable. We needed to rebuild specific components of our system to meet the new requirements and our internal team was already fully committed to the core product roadmap. Bringing in a specialist Software Development partner was the only realistic path.
What services did the company provide for your project?
The core engagement was Software Development but expanded to include technical consultancy during the discovery phase, which helped us refine the requirements significantly before development began. They also took responsibility for coordinating with our third-party data providers, which removed a significant coordination burden from our internal team.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
Price was a factor but not the deciding one. They were mid-range in our evaluation. What tipped it was the combination of their technical depth in Software Development, the seniority of the team they proposed to assign to our account, and the clarity of their project governance model. We had been burned by an agency that overpromised before and we needed to see evidence of process maturity.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
Extremely well. They asked detailed questions, challenged vague requirements until they were specific, and proposed sensible defaults for decisions we had not yet made rather than just leaving them open. By the time development started there was no ambiguity in the backlog, which is a rare starting position.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Communication was handled primarily asynchronously given the time zone difference between São Paulo, Brazil and the team's base, but it was managed so well that the gap rarely felt like a constraint. Written updates were clear and timely, escalations were handled promptly, and we never had to chase for a status update. The cadence was exactly right — enough to feel informed, not so much that it created overhead.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
On time and within the agreed budget. They had given us a range estimate at the start, which I had been sceptical of, and they landed within the lower half of that range. Their estimation accuracy came from having broken the work down in genuine detail during discovery rather than giving a rough number and hoping. It showed in every sprint.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
Hard to isolate precisely because several factors changed simultaneously, but the data we can attribute directly to the new Software Development platform shows a meaningful improvement in the metrics that matter to our Insurance business. Our account managers report that the new capability is coming up positively in client conversations, which was one of the strategic objectives we started with.
What did you like most about working with this company?
The quality of the written communication. This matters more than most clients articulate. Clear, concise, technically accurate updates that our non-technical stakeholders could read and understand. Proposals and change requests that made the decision obvious rather than obscuring it in jargon. That communication quality reduced our internal coordination overhead significantly.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Absolutely. I would recommend them with a specific note that the quality of the discovery process is where the value starts. Clients who invest properly in that phase will get the most out of the engagement. We made that investment and the returns are evident in the quality of what was delivered.
Polished iOS and Android delivery that hit every milestone without drama
Maryam Al-Zahrani / Head of Innovation - Al-Salam Digital Solutions
Verified
Jun 08, 2023
Jun 08, 2023
Project summary: Clinical trial data management was scattered across sites and formats and we needed a unified platform that could satisfy both our data science team and our regulatory affairs function.
Project governance was one of the things that impressed me most. We had a dedicated project manager who ran tight fortnightly sprints with clear acceptance criteria, a shared backlog that gave us full visibility at all times, and a change request process that was fair and transparent. Nothing slipped through the cracks, no bill shock at the end, and the final delivery matched the original scope document almost perfectly. In my experience that kind of discipline is genuinely uncommon.
PROS
Senior engineers on our account throughout the entire project rather than a bait-and-switch to juniors after contract signing, transparent reporting, realistic estimates that proved accurate
CONS
Honestly nothing worth documenting — we went in with high expectations and they were met on every measure
Project TypeMobile App Development
IndustryPharmaceuticals & Biotechnology
Project CostLess than $10,000
DurationFeb 2025 – Mar 2026
Questions & Answers
Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
Al-Salam Digital Solutions is a Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology business based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. As Head of Innovation I am responsible for all technology investment decisions, vendor selection, and ensuring our digital capabilities match our growth ambitions. We operate in a competitive market where the quality of our software directly affects our ability to win and retain clients.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
We had a product concept validated by market research but no clear path to build it within our budget and timeline constraints. Our Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology competitors were moving quickly and we could not afford to spend eighteen months finding out a generalist agency could not execute the Mobile App Development work our product required.
What services did the company provide for your project?
The core engagement was Mobile App Development but expanded to include technical consultancy during the discovery phase, which helped us refine the requirements significantly before development began. They also took responsibility for coordinating with our third-party data providers, which removed a significant coordination burden from our internal team.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
Price was a factor but not the deciding one. They were mid-range in our evaluation. What tipped it was the combination of their technical depth in Mobile App Development, the seniority of the team they proposed to assign to our account, and the clarity of their project governance model. We had been burned by an agency that overpromised before and we needed to see evidence of process maturity.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
The requirements understanding was solid from early on, aided by the fact that they had prior experience in the Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology sector and did not need us to explain domain context that a less experienced team would have required. That background knowledge shortened the discovery phase meaningfully and reduced the volume of clarification questions during sprints.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Communication was handled primarily asynchronously given the time zone difference between Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and the team's base, but it was managed so well that the gap rarely felt like a constraint. Written updates were clear and timely, escalations were handled promptly, and we never had to chase for a status update. The cadence was exactly right — enough to feel informed, not so much that it created overhead.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
On time and within the agreed budget. They had given us a range estimate at the start, which I had been sceptical of, and they landed within the lower half of that range. Their estimation accuracy came from having broken the work down in genuine detail during discovery rather than giving a rough number and hoping. It showed in every sprint.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
The ROI case we presented to our board assumed a payback period of eighteen months. Based on current trajectory we will hit that in under a year. The efficiency gains in our Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology operations have been more significant than the model projected, partly because the quality of the data coming out of the new system is enabling decisions we could not make before.
What did you like most about working with this company?
The post-launch behaviour. Some agencies disappear the moment the final invoice is paid. This team maintained the same level of responsiveness during the hypercare period as during development, handed over thorough documentation without being asked twice, and checked in proactively a month after go-live to review performance metrics with us. That last part was entirely unprompted.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Yes, without qualification. I have already made two direct referrals to peers in the Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology sector who were facing similar Mobile App Development challenges. In both cases I gave the recommendation specifically because I was confident the experience would match what I described — which is a level of confidence I do not extend lightly.
Execution that matched the sales pitch — which is rarer than it should be
Rohan Malhotra / Co-Founder & CTO - Crescendo Tech Pvt Ltd
Verified
Feb 22, 2023
Feb 22, 2023
Project summary: We had a clear product vision but lacked the engineering capacity internally to execute it within the window our market opportunity required.
Our industry has specific compliance requirements that many generalist agencies struggle with. This team came with working knowledge of the relevant frameworks, asked pointed questions about our obligations, and built controls into the architecture rather than bolting them on at the end. Our compliance team reviewed the delivered system and had only minor observations, which is genuinely unusual for a first-pass review. That domain awareness saved us significant remediation cost.
PROS
Architectural decisions that will serve us for years rather than just solving the immediate problem, knowledge transfer that left our team genuinely capable, no scope creep at all
CONS
The initial project brief document they required was more detailed than we were used to providing, but in hindsight that rigour was part of why the project ran so smoothly
Project TypeLow-Code / No-Code Development
IndustryEvents & Event Management
Project Cost$50,000 to $149,999
DurationFeb 2025 – Jun 2025
Questions & Answers
Please describe your company, your role, and the industry you operate in.
I lead technology at Crescendo Tech Pvt Ltd, a mid-sized organisation in the Events & Event Management sector headquartered in Bangalore, India. My remit as Co-Founder & CTO covers everything from infrastructure to product development. We had reached a point where our internal engineering capacity was not sufficient to execute our roadmap without an experienced external partner.
What specific problem or business challenge led you to hire this company?
Growth into new markets had exposed serious limitations in our platform. What had worked for our original user base in Bangalore, India was not going to scale internationally, and the Low-Code / No-Code Development requirements for those new markets were meaningfully different. We needed a partner who had solved that kind of problem before.
What services did the company provide for your project?
Primarily Low-Code / No-Code Development, though the scope naturally touched adjacent areas. They handled architecture design, implementation, integration with our existing systems, performance testing under realistic load, and knowledge transfer to our internal team. The breadth of what they covered without requiring us to bring in additional vendors was one of the reasons the project ran efficiently.
Why did you choose this company over other providers you considered?
Price was a factor but not the deciding one. They were mid-range in our evaluation. What tipped it was the combination of their technical depth in Low-Code / No-Code Development, the seniority of the team they proposed to assign to our account, and the clarity of their project governance model. We had been burned by an agency that overpromised before and we needed to see evidence of process maturity.
How clearly did the company understand your requirements and business goals?
Extremely well. They asked detailed questions, challenged vague requirements until they were specific, and proposed sensible defaults for decisions we had not yet made rather than just leaving them open. By the time development started there was no ambiguity in the backlog, which is a rare starting position.
How was your overall experience with their communication and project management?
Outstanding. I have worked with agencies that communicate beautifully during the sales process and go quiet during delivery. This was the opposite — structured, consistent, and genuinely informative throughout. Problems were surfaced early with proposed solutions rather than just problem statements, which made the inevitable mid-project decisions much easier to make.
Did the company deliver the project on time and within your expected budget?
On time and within the agreed budget. They had given us a range estimate at the start, which I had been sceptical of, and they landed within the lower half of that range. Their estimation accuracy came from having broken the work down in genuine detail during discovery rather than giving a rough number and hoping. It showed in every sprint.
What tangible results or business impact have you seen since the project was completed?
Quantitatively: user engagement metrics are up significantly since launch, our support ticket volume has dropped, and we have received unsolicited positive feedback from clients who noticed the improvement. Qualitatively: our internal team is proud of the product we now have, which affects morale and retention in ways that do not show up on a dashboard but matter enormously.
What did you like most about working with this company?
The continuity of the team. The engineers who scoped the work were the engineers who built it. That sounds like it should be standard practice but in my experience it often is not. The institutional knowledge that comes from that continuity pays dividends at every stage, particularly when you are dealing with a complex Events & Event Management domain where context takes time to build.
Would you recommend this company to others, and would you work with them again?
Absolutely. I would recommend them with a specific note that the quality of the discovery process is where the value starts. Clients who invest properly in that phase will get the most out of the engagement. We made that investment and the returns are evident in the quality of what was delivered.
Company Info
Founded
1975
Employees
10 - 49
Hourly Rate
$100 - $149
Client Rating
5.0/5 (3 reviews)