Unlock Your App's Potential on Salesforce AppExchange with Premier PDO Expertise
Let’s Transform Your Vision into an AppExchange app with our expert PDO services for ISVs, OEM Partners, and Entrepreneurs.
Who are PDOs?
Product Development Outsourcers (PDOs) is a badge allocated to existing Salesforce Consulting Partners who specialize in building commercial AppExchange apps and other valuable services like training, supporting, marketing, or selling your app. They have proven expertise & experience assisting entrepreneurs in taking their ideas live on AppExchange.
PDOs serve as an extension of an ISV’s team, providing expert guidance and execution throughout the entire app development lifecycle.
We’re 2023 WITDreamin Demo Jam winners 🥳
Demo Jams are competitive, game show-style events where 4-6 AppExchange partners showcase their apps through quick, engaging 3-minute demos to a live audience who vote for their favorite. AppExchange and Salesforce MVPs host these events, and themes vary monthly. Held live at events and online, they provide a fun platform for partners to highlight their solutions and gain audience attention.
Team Concretio presented their AppExchange app, “Salesforce Tool Suite,” which won the Demo Jam hosted at WITDreamin 2023 by a significant margin.
Please check the excitement and pics from the event below 👇
Key Aspects of PDO Services
-
![ISV App Vision, Conceptualization and Strategy]()
Conceptualization and Strategy
PDOs help businesses refine their app ideas, aligning them with market needs and Salesforce platform capabilities. They provide strategic planning services, including market research, competitive analysis, and positioning strategies to ensure the app concept is viable and poised for success.
-
![AppExchange App - Design and Development]()
Design and Development
Leveraging deep expertise in Salesforce technologies, PDOs assist in designing intuitive and engaging user experiences (UX) and interfaces (UI). They also handle the technical development of the app, ensuring it is scalable, maintainable, and fully utilizes the Salesforce platform's capabilities.
Our Process
-
Understand the problem
Talk to business stakeholders, Identify business challenges, pain points, and value created from the expected app/solution.
Feasibility Analysis
Review what is already on AppExchange and other Salesforce clouds, and review possible competition and conflicts with Salesforce clouds to strategize better.
-
Present ideas & options, and discuss/debate them with key business stakeholders to shortlist for MVP(Minimum Viable Product).
MVP is critical to building confidence, especially for self-funded ISV partners. At Concretio, we don’t want ISVs to burn funds for a large v1. We prefer to taste water soon and see what some early prospects and alpha/beta customers like/dislike about the app.
-
Process all the information captured in the above steps, and come up with a comprehensive design/solution document.
-
Present, Debate & Discuss
Present the design, debate/discuss, revise architecture documents and get a client signoff.
-
Iterative Development
Our team never works in isolation and comes with surprises on delivery. We love to iteratively prototype, give demos, take feedback, and repeat.
We also believe in inviting prospects and early customers for demos or sharing early builds(packages) so that we get to see how they react and navigate the UX.
With the packaging system of AppExchange, it’s easy to cut out builds for QA to test and report issues. We make the most out of GIT and App development best practices to ensure good velocity in the project.
-
We help customers with all the required formalities & documentation of the Salesforce security review process. Along with development best practices, we use Salesforce’s recommended tooling to identify security gaps ahead of time and during development cycles only.
Along with security review submission, we work with early customers to share a build, gather more feedback, and possibly upgrade the app to production as soon as possible.
-
Our tech and marketing team suggest best practices and helps you with creating an appealing listing for Appexchange, including creating amazing screenshots with good-quality data, recording videos with professional voiceovers, and planning other marketing items.
-
Support:
We work here to set up a support plan for possible bug fixes and planned minor app enhancements. The team helps customers with inquires, issues, demos, installations etc.
Enhancements & future roadmap:
This includes budgeting the capacity and velocity to deliver planned features beyond v1, for v2, v3 and so on.
Educate yourself on AppExchange.
The blog posts below are written in close collaboration with our Salesforce architects. We sincerely hope you will gain some useful knowledge about Salesforce ISV and the AppExchange program from our research.
“Concretio has done an outstanding job in helping us build the Companies House app on the AppExchange. The quality of their deliverables is exceptional, and their team is diligent and hardworking. Would highly recommend them again.”
— Anup Jadhav (Salesforce MVP)
Why us?
-
10+ Years
Above a decade of experience in delivering Salesforce projects across various clouds for our worldwide clientele.
-
150+
Delivered 150+ Salesforce projects for our worldwide clientele. For brands like Souq.com (Amazon UAE), and Automobili Pininfarina(Germany, Unit of Mahindra & Mahindra Auto Group).
-
30+ Integrations
Integrated Salesforce in and out with 30+ SAAS, PAAS and other thriving APIs. This includes many permutations, and combinations of SOAP, REST, XML, JSON and OAuth etc.
-
15+ Sessions
Our team and founders are pretty active in the Salesforce community; they delivered sessions in various Salesforce meetups, Dreamforce, Dreamin and other events.
-
180+ Certifications
Apart from solid hands-on experience, our team values Salesforce certification. We are approx 90% Salesforce certified across the company.
-
Original Research
Our team has enjoyed documenting our findings and blogging about Salesforce solutions, tips, and tricks since 2009.
-
Open Source
We published multiple solutions on Github.com for the SF Community. Those solutions have been well-adapted and appreciated in official Salesforce blogs and various books.
-
Cost + Quality
Though we are offshore, our advantage is not limited to COST; we take pride in delivering top-quality work, communication and overall delivery experience at a competitive rate.
Our Featured AppExchange Apps
-
![Marketing Cloud Connector]()
Marketing Cloud Connector
Custom add-on for Salesforce Marketing Cloud Journey-Builder. It allows sending SMS using Heymarket.com, texting templates, rich media/images and much more. It is hosted on AWS and built using NodeJS.
Live on AppExchange since July’2021
-
![Accounting Seed]()
Accounting Seed
Accounting Seed is a top-rated, native Salesforce general ledger, project accounting & inventory management application. Accounting Seed works with high-growth, small to midsize companies globally, with particular strength in US and UK accounting.
FAQs
-
A: AppExchange is an enterprise marketplace of pre-built Salesforce apps and components that allow businesses to extend the functionality of their Salesforce platform.
-
A: No, you don't need to be a Salesforce partner to develop an AppExchange app. However, if you plan to distribute your app on AppExchange, you must become a Salesforce ISV partner.
-
A: To submit an app to AppExchange, you must meet the technical requirements set by Salesforce, such as passing the security review, ensuring your app is compatible with the latest Salesforce release, and following best practices for UI and UX. You also need to provide a detailed app description, screenshots, and demo videos.
-
A: The time required to develop an AppExchange app varies depending on the app's complexity, the development team's experience and resources, and the amount of time devoted to the project. Typically, the development process can take several weeks to several months.
-
A: The approval process can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, depending on the complexity of your app and the number of apps in the review queue.
Submitting an app for review near Dreamforce takes a long time for approval, as there are a lot of vendors looking to launch and showcase their apps at/during Dreamforce.
-
A: Developing an AppExchange app requires a range of skills, including knowledge of Salesforce development, experience with Apex and Visualforce, proficiency in programming languages such as Java and JavaScript, and familiarity with Salesforce's security and governance model.
-
The revenue that you share with Salesforce depends on the payment type. If the customer pays with a bank transfer, the revenue share is 15%. If the customer pays with a credit card, the revenue share is 15%, plus a $0.30 per transaction fee charged by our payment partner, Stripe. Regardless of the payment type, there's no minimum revenue share. We also don't charge setup fees, monthly service charges, or card storage fees.
-
A: Salesforce provides several marketing opportunities to promote your app on AppExchange, such as featuring it on the homepage or in the AppExchange newsletter. You can also use your marketing channels, such as social media and email campaigns, to promote your app.
-
A: You can support your app through various channels, such as email, phone, or a dedicated support portal. You should also ensure that you have clear and detailed documentation of your app's features and functionality and a FAQ section for common issues.
-
A: To update your app on AppExchange, you must submit a new version, which will go through the same review process as the original version. You should also notify your existing customers of the latest version and provide instructions on how to upgrade.
Salesforce conducts periodic re-reviews of solutions listed on AppExchange. If your app shows significant change, they contact you to arrange a review of the new version.
-
A: AppExchange app development is the process of creating and publishing custom applications that Salesforce users can use to extend the functionality of their Salesforce instance. These applications are distributed as installable “packages”.
-
A: Developing an AppExchange app can provide several benefits, including increased visibility for your business, the ability to reach new customers, and the potential to generate additional revenue through app sales.
-
A: Some best practices for AppExchange app development include following Salesforce's security and governance guidelines, designing the app with scalability and performance, writing clear and concise code, and testing the app thoroughly.
-
AppExchange apps are more complex than a single org customisation/implementation.
The same app must cater to numerous orgs with varying data volumes, licenses, features, etc. Most importantly, many metadata items are locked(no edits/changes/deletion allowed) in an App after its release on AppExchange. It’s very tricky to revisit architecture mistakes once an app is published.
Thus, for long-term peace of mind and reputation with customers, working with a team with proven experience in architecting solutions for AppExchange is best.
