
Cross-platform mobile app development
How the Wise team delivered a product with a strong competitive advantage and helped the startup company scale.
Our client, a Blue Collar Lists startup company, approached us with the idea to broaden their existing iOS app’s functionality, launch the cross-platform app, and create a landing page for further marketing promotion.
The Wise team selected the most efficient ways to implement the requested features and helped the Blue Collar Lists app become a unique source of information for all US blue-collar workers it is today.
Mobile app: React Native & Expo
API: Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL database, AWS services
Admin: Ruby on Rails, Bootstrap & jQuery
Landing page: WordPress, AWS
The client had already a basic cross-platform app developed by the external team and planned to extend the existing codebase.
Our collaboration with the client started with extensive technical research that helped us evaluate and define the most effective methods for the required features' implementation.
To address the challenge with the app capabilities that require using native modules and to maintain consistency of the iOS and Android app versions, we conducted profound research and testing on how push-notifications and in-app purchases work before using any React Native libraries.
Together with the client, we discussed user stories and communicated a lot to understand the business logic behind the mobile app. Afterward, we worked on wireframes and sample prototypes to present our implementation concepts and make sure our vision was in line with the Blue Collar Lists team.
We agreed upon the required resources, allocated a dedicated team for the project, as well as agreed upon the deadlines of the new releases so that our client could plan promotional campaigns with their marketing team.
The WE team established a close communication loop with the client to ensure that everyone stays on the same page. The team had weekly sync meetings and ad hoc discussions with the client, as well as communicated instantly via Slack.
During the implementation step, the Wise team empowered the app with the following new features.
With the new functionality, contractors could send forms to their future clients directly from the app. This allowed them to collect information on the project like requirements, schemes, photos, files, reference web links, and notes in one place.
The Wise team integrated the mobile application with the 3rd party API service with the data on properties located in the USA. As a result, app users got access to the information on 140 million properties all over the USA and could access data like assessed value, year built, living space, zoning, and more.
With Google Maps API integrated, the Blue Collar Lists app users could check directions, see the distance to the properties they are bidding on directly via the app interface.
Notifications for the Android and iOS apps were set up with the native modules. It allowed users to receive alerts when they got responses for the Project Setup Forms from their prospects.
To deliver updates to app users instantly and not roll out new app versions on the App Store and Play Market each time there were new features deployed, our engineers conducted proper setup for the Expo over-the-air updates technology. It started to support all the previous builds previously submitted to the AppStore, as well as all versions within all application environments.
The Wise team also was in charge of the Blue Collar Lists website migration to Amazon Web Services and configured analytics tools to help the startup company make data-driven business decisions.
Together with the client, we defined the key metrics on app users and their activity the Blue Collar Lists team could retrieve and then interpret, analyzing both iOS and Android apps performance.
So the Wise team created an interactive dashboard to help our client access the defined data in a convenient format and accumulate it in one place.
With the Firebase connected to all environments and the necessary events configured, the client could collect data on the app users and how they interact with the product.
The website was previously built with WordPress and hosted on GoDaddy. Because the landing pages were loading too slowly, especially on mobile devices, we suggested improving the website loading speed and migrated it to Amazon Web Services.
After migrating servers to AWS from GoDaddy, page speed increased by 50%, with a PageSpeed score rating of 89%.
President / Co-Founder Blue Collar Lists, LLC
After nearly 2 years of entrusting Wise Engineering with our software development, I am happy to say our expectations have been exceeded. We have always found their knowledgeable team to be proactively responsive on all fronts, whether it's a deadline to be met, or a project made more efficient. Wise's team has always been there for us, and we hope to continue our partnership for years to come.
The Blue Collar App app is now available on the App Store and Play Market and has a business website with the key information on the product. While the core work for the product has been already done, the Wise Engineering team continues to provide tech support for the company, as well as develop new parts of the mobile app and tune up the existing ones.