Cyprusays
How Pixel Agency took Cyprusays' off-shore app build from rudderless to launched, set up project structures from scratch, and left the founders running delivery themselves.
Empowering Cyprusays' founders to run their own project.
The client
Cyprusays is an Australian start-up on a quietly important mission: helping the Cypriot diaspora reconnect with the Greek Cypriot language through a mobile app on iOS and Android. The app runs on a freemium model, with a free tier for casual learners and subscription tiers for users who want to go deeper. Their audience spans generations of Cypriot families across Australia and beyond, many of whom feel a piece of their heritage slipping away with each generation.
The problem
Cyprusays had a clear product vision, finished designs, and an off-shore development team ready to start building. What they didn't have was anyone with experience setting up and running a technical project. They were on the cusp of kicking off the build, but with no formal requirements, no roadmap, and no idea where to begin on the management side. Without the right structures in place from day one, the risks were predictable: missed deadlines, scope creep, and a build that drifted from the start.
The approach
Cyprusays brought us in to set the project up properly before development began. We started with discovery, working with the founders to understand the product, the offshore vendor relationship, and the constraints they were working within. The designs were already done, but no one had defined what success looked like, what was in scope, or how the build would actually be run.
The first thing we did was create a formal project requirements document with clear success criteria, so the founders, the offshore vendor, and our team were all working from the same definition of success. From there, we built out the rest of the operating structure the team could carry forward themselves once we stepped back.
The solution
With the requirements and success criteria locked in, we put the rest of the operating layer in place: roadmap, timelines, deadlines, review processes, decision logs, and a sensible delivery cadence. Beyond pure project management, we reviewed designs and flagged UX issues with significant downstream implications, advised on technical decisions that reshaped screen flows for the better, worked through user data storage and PII obligations, and guided the team through app store optimisation and launch positioning.
We ran the project hands-on through roughly the first half of delivery, then handed the day-to-day to the founders, training them to manage the cadence themselves. We came back for the final stretch to support handover and launch.
The results
There aren't growth metrics to share, because the value here was different. Cyprusays moved from a project drifting without direction to a confident in-house team capable of running their own delivery:
Successful app launch on iOS and Android
on time + on budget
Empowered founders
now running the project end to end themselves, with confidence and clarity
Subscriber base is growing
+ the business is tracking well
Habits to keep delivering
The team came away with the documentation, processes, and operating habits to keep delivering without external help
For a founder-led start-up, the ability to own delivery end to end is the result that matters most.