Reflection.app

Goal

Originally a web-only experience, Reflection.app supports thousands of active users. However, the team soon discovered that their most loyal users wanted a dedicated mobile app, not just a mobile web interface. So with only two full-time developers, the team needed to quickly publish and maintain an elegant and scalable app on iOS, Android, and web on a limited budget.

Why Flutter?

Reflection.app initially launched as a web-only Javascript app because the team was told it would be easier and faster to launch a prototype on the web than on mobile. While that MVP was in development, a colleague encouraged them to check out Flutter.

The promise of a true multi-platform single codebase piqued their interest, and they joined a Discord chat group where they met a Flutter expert who helped them understand how Flutter could work for Reflection.app. After hiring him as their lead mobile developer, they retrained their existing developer in Flutter within a few months.

Their solution

The Flutter framework gave Reflection.app the scaffolding they needed and enough plug-and-play widgets to bring an MVP to life in weeks. As the team experimented with the new platform, they learned to lean on the Flutter community. When they hit a roadblock building their web and Mac apps, they reached out to the Flutter team on Twitter, where an expert gave them helpful suggestions that allowed them to work around some of their challenges.

“What we have built would never have been possible without Flutter. Flutter's single code base made it possible for us to build our cross-platform application with a remarkably small team, and deploy it in record time.”

- David Radparvar, co-founder, Reflection.app

Results

Instead of splitting their developer resources between platforms, Reflection.app was able to focus their efforts on a single codebase, doubling their development and deployment speed. Flutter's single codebase made it possible for them to build a cross-platform application with a remarkably small team and deploy it in record time.

Soon after launching the dedicated mobile apps with Flutter, mobile engagement outpaced web by 2x, while the number of monthly journal entries increased by 5x.

Since then, Reflection.app has been recognized by Apple and was accepted into Apple's “Foundations Accelerator,” a program for promising new apps.

Next, the team is exploring ways to use Google ML to provide richer sentiment analysis and personalized insights into their quickly growing user base.