Vivino Taps Flexible Devs to Build a Leading App Under Budget

A big dream on a small budget‍

With their huge love of wine and limited funds, founders Heini Zachariassen and Theis Søndergaard realized they couldn’t afford (nor find) the talent they needed in Denmark to create the biggest wine database in the world. They turned to Upwork, initially hiring 2 independent mobile app developers to build a prototype version of the product.

Access specialized talent through a hybrid model

Vivino showed investors the beta and raised their first round of funds. Rather than fill an office with salaried employees, Heini built a hybrid workforce—hiring staff members for key positions, then building teams of flexible talent around them.

Soon after the app launched, it became a popular download worldwide. As Vivino grew, every business function continued relying on flexible talent to access specialized skills, respond faster to customer needs, and scale talent as needed. The company contracts a variety of talent including mobile app developers, QA teams, image recognition specialists, content writers, and translators through Upwork.

Driving continued acceleration and growth

With 38M+ users, Vivino is the world's largest online wine marketplace and most downloaded wine app. While the co founders didn’t anticipate its rapid growth, they were clear about one thing from the beginning: incorporate flexible talent into the business strategy to stretch budgets and remain nimble. They attribute that model to their initial and ongoing success.