A few years back, whenever a business wanted to get in-depth insights from their target audience or industry, they waited weeks for a comprehensive market research report. In today’s fast-changing environment, this kind of report would come too late to make any meaningful business decisions – they’d already be outdated.

Artemest is an Italian e-commerce site featuring a collection of curated home décor, jewellery, and lifestyle art created by top Italian artists. The company aims at keeping centuries-old techniques alive. Their mission is to preserve the heritage of the best Italian artisans, who, in many cases, would have shut their business down but for Artemest. Marco Deseri, Chief Digital Officer at Artemest, shared how they help creators survive in the globalised world, where everything is controlled by big corporate brands.

Case.one is a digital product which streamlines project management for legal practitioners. It’s a single platform that provides everything attorneys need to do their job. Case.one is built on technology more advanced than the competitors’ solutions, for instance, it uses machine learning, among other state-of-the-art technologies. The company is getting ready to introduce new products to the market as well, all building upon the same idea: simplifying attorneys’ work and bringing their operational costs down.

Berlin boasts some of the most fertile ground for European startups, with top talent, large events and fantastic infrastructure. But rising market saturation means that it’s not easy for a growing business to survive there. We talked to several experts from Berlin’s top accelerators about their recipe for startup success. Here’s the first batch of the know-how we gathered.

Slack has become one of the most important tools in the armoury of many companies. Its capabilities reach far beyond the everyday chat between co-workers, and it’s time we took advantage of them. atStats is a mobile app for Slack users that will visualise their social relations with other users and help them monitor their online social behaviour.

Progressive Web Apps have recently gained in popularity as they offer numerous benefits both in terms of user experience and business-wise. Many enterprises of all sizes and industries have successfully implemented PWAs, which triggered significant improvements in their businesses. They’ve seen their bounce rates decrease, conversion rates shoot up and page speed improve. Should you follow their lead?

What separates a regular web app from a progressive web app might be the difference between the life or death of your business. If you have mobile users, you need to understand the value PWA can bring to your business. Basically, I want to help you understand why PWAs are awesome.

Are Progressive Web Apps (or PWA for short) the future of web development? Their main selling point is a smooth performance on any device and the technology based on the idea of treating the web browser as an operating system. Should you get excited? Is this technology for you? Let’s find out.

Samuel F. Poirier is a young entrepreneur who founded his first company when he was 14. At the age of 21, he co-founded Retinad, a world leader in the development of VR analytics that raised more than $2.5M in funding. A few months ago, he altered the course and started a company in a totally different area - the cruise sector. His goal is to revolutionise the old-fashioned industry with top-notch technology and make booking cruises an effortless experience.

Great news on Friday morning! Netguru was awarded in the prestigious Fast 50 Central Europe competition that recognises and profiles the fastest growing public or private technology companies in Central Europe. It’s already the third time (we received it in 2015 and 2014 as well) we were ranked in the list among other disrupting companies that are changing the lives with technology.

Building an application that handles millions of users and performs thousands of concurrent operations can be expensive both to develop and maintain. Elixir, a new trending backend technology, promises to cut costs significantly by providing exceptional performance. The Netguru team have recently dug beneath the surface of Elixir to verify whether it delivers on its promises.

Hello and welcome to another Ruby Brief. I’ve found some more interesting stuff for you today. With a pretty wide selection of topics, I hope everyone will find something for him/herself!

An accelerator programme might be just what your startup needs. It will give you that extra boost to start gaining traction. You’ll be able to meet and learn from experts, as well as interact with a large community of startup enthusiasts. It sounds very promising, but how do you choose the right accelerator from among so many? This guide to Berlin’s accelerator programmes will help you pick the best one for your business.

Networking and learning are key to becoming a successful startup founder. And what a better way to network and learn than to attend events? If you’re a startup founder in Berlin, these are some of the events that will help you extend your network, find mentors and partners, learn, stay inspired and move forward with your business.

The success of your project lies in the hands of your software development company. Their efficient cooperation will help deliver the product on time and within budget. It’s also important what you yourself do – if you don’t communicate efficiently with your team or fail to understand the specifics of working with Node.js teams, many things can go unexpectedly wrong.

Every time you want to create an application, you have to ask yourself what kind of OS APIs it needs to utilise and how to do that. Defining a problem-solution fit from the very beginning helps in delivering a top-notch product. Having known what needs to be done, you can decide which tech stack meets your requirements and what are the limitations of chosen technology. Even in programming, there is no rose without a thorn, so you need to be aware what will bud and what can prick.

Node.js can be used efficiently in many kinds of applications. We will present six most popular solutions, including IoT applications, applications built around microservice architecture, real-time chats, real-time collaboration tools, streaming apps, and Single Page Applications (SPAs).

You developed your shiny web application with Node.js, but the work doesn’t stop there. App maintenance can be just as complicated as the coding process. Problems and malfunctions can lead to discouraging clients from using your app. However, if you handle all the issues properly, there is nothing to worry about.

What are the main characteristics of a good payment processor? It’s simple to implement, easy to test, fast, secure, and covers a wide range of payment options. Stripe might not have the widest reach in terms of the number of countries, but with all the other characteristics it stands out against the competition. It also offers an excellent omni-channel payment experience with a smooth user onboarding. PayPal still holds 75 percent of the market, but with Stripe’s growing popularity, it’s worth considering the latter. It might not be as well-known as PayPal, but outstrips it in many respects.

Currently, more and more applications have dynamic content. Users expect apps to be engaging, responsive and fast. If you want to live up to these expectations you will need a proven technology on the backend with interactive framework on the frontend. Otherwise, users might get discouraged from using your app and move to a competitor. Having tested many combinations we’ve found a great solution for quick development of dynamic applications. What’s our secret?