Meet icapps, a Belgium digital product agency and a Sulu Silver Partner

Sander Hofman, icapps team lead and backend lead, has avidly followed Sulu’s progress as a CMS from their very first version. “They just kept growing and growing,” says Sander. After initial contact, icapps has repeatedly used Sulu in their many projects. A big reason is because, quite simply, their developers like it. Because Sulu is built on top of Symfony, “developers can work in a way that they know and they aren't obstructed by some CMS code or binaries. Using Sulu is a no-brainer. It’s always a positive development experience.” says Sander.

icapps and Sulu’s most important values also align neatly. When it comes to technology, both companies want to use, and be, the best-of-the-best. icapps really appreciates how much time Sulu has invested in expanding the Sulu CMS ecosystem with new, exciting, helpful features. “You can see that they really care about being technologically innovative,” says Sander.

Both organizations are also very people-focused. “Our customers are our central focus, and it’s always important that we move with and adapt to the client,” says Kris. That’s one reason they work so well with Sulu. “In their communication, in how they help with issues, I see this as a shared value with Sulu,” says Sander. “Alexander Schranz always answers our questions within a few seconds, and he somehow merges pull requests at the same time.” 

Like many other digital agencies, icapps has their fair share of competition to deal with in a crowded marketplace. Something that sets them apart is their ability to deliver quality products quickly, which is where Sulu has proved its worth. “Sulu is a really helpful addition to our stack that helps us speed up our delivery pipeline,” says Kris.

icapps isn’t like every other digital agency. With 15 years in business, they’re experienced. And they have a reputation for keeping their customers happy, which is why 75% of their client base is long-term. To what does icapps owe their particular brand of success?

A clear vision. icapps is guided by their vision, which is to enrich the daily lives of people with technology. “Our goal is for the technological products and services that we build to have a real impact,” says Kris.

The best people. icapps takes its time looking for the top developers, designers, and communicators to bring to their team. “I'm convinced that we have an incredible group in our company, and this is an extreme asset of ours. It’s really the people that make the difference,” says Kris.

Interesting projects. Once you’ve got top people on your team, you’ve got to keep them. icapps specifically looks for challenging, complex projects, which breeds additional experience and expertise in their already top-notch team. “It's really part of our DNA to handle difficult things,” says Kris. “We want to keep our people motivated by giving them interesting puzzles to solve.”

Though their partnership is still relatively new, Sulu has already provided icapps with a great deal of value. “The day-to-day support is the biggest plus that we see in the partnership today. We’re really happy with that,” says Kris. This support comes in different forms.

Direct communication. “Sulu is really eager to help,” says Sander. When icapps had some issues setting up the reverse proxy cache on a big project with a firm deadline, Sulu stepped in. Their help was instrumental in pushing the project over the finish line — on schedule. “Sulu is one of the main reasons we delivered the project on time. Both our internal team and our client were very pleased that we had this direct line to Sulu,” says Sander.

Technical consulting and expertise. Sulu’s technical know-how has come in handy repeatedly. “The expertise is sometimes mind-blowing. I have the impression that everybody in Sulu knows every line of code in the CMS by heart,” says Sander. “It's really nice to collaborate and to use their technical expertise to help us build cool projects.” When it’s time for more formal technical consulting, icapps can discuss potential features to be added to the CMS, or ways to implement custom features for their clients.

Project reviews. Sometimes, when you’re been working on something for so long, you get too close to view it objectively. Like having an editor read your piece before you turn it in, Sulu’s project reviews can provide a final holistic once-over. “It’s nice to have this option as a sort of preview. Sulu might give us some pointers or improvements, which we can then implement before the release,” says Sander.

A way to give back. icapps knows they’re standing on the shoulders of giants — the open source community, the Symfony framework, even the Sulu CMS. “Everyday, we are using these communities to build very valuable products for our customers and we don't want to take it for granted. The Sulu partnership is important to use because we really want to contribute back to the open source community. We're very grateful for the work that they're doing,” says Jeroen.

As a Partner, icapps is looking forward to making use of Sulu’s expertise, project reviews, and technical consultations in the months to come.

Find out more about how you could become a Partner.