Raging app for digital gift cards.

One of the ways KORSIT differentiates itself is its extensive loyalty program, Dundle World. Customers save Dundle coins that they can spend in this online world with gaming-like features. Ricardo: “The developers could go all out on that. It had to look great and you had to be able to swipe from island to island with lots of animations and transitions. It was cool to see how Dundle World was created in the app and how much more life there is now compared to the version on the website because of the animations and interaction.” In terms of the front end, the floating islands made it nice and challenging. Duco: “In the background it’s not so bad, there it’s mainly a matter of retrieving some data and showing data. Although there was also a challenge there, namely speed. Because this is a product with changing stock and prices, you can’t store anything locally. So you have to keep retrieving the latest information at lightning speed.”

An important condition was that the app be available in the Google Playstore and the Appstore. Team Rockstars therefore introduced the relatively new framework Flutter to KORSIT’s developers. “With Flutter you can build apps for different platforms with one code base,” said Duco Fronik, mobile developer at Team Rockstars. “Flutter has built a layer on top of the platform-specific APIs of Android and iOS, among others, so you can write code for all platforms at once. So: only build once, test once, fix bugs once. That saves a lot of time, allowing you to go to market very quickly. Moreover, Flutter offers all components to completely customize the UI. That makes the framework eminently suitable for a branded experience: you can determine pixel by pixel what the app will look like and are much less bound to standard components than when you develop specifically for iOS or Android. As a result, the final product feels unique.”

Firebase and Supabase (both Backend as a Service, including for push notifications and user authentication) run in the background. Sentry and Google Analytics are used for debugging and analysis. Within Flutter, BLoC (Business Logic Components) has been used as a state management solution combined with clean architecture to maintain rapid development. For organizing all activities and managing the backlog, Jira from Atlassian is used.

Team Rockstars began as an external team, to deliver a Minimum Viable Product after a few months. That was so successful that the collaboration intensified. Ricardo: “We had never worked with an external team before, so I was worried beforehand. Would it click? But it was immediately clear: This works. Our cultures fit together perfectly. That made it a very cool process.” The collaboration was also a treat for the Rockstars. Duco: “KORSIT is just a really nice company. I always go for a game of pool when I’m there and on Fridays there’s a drink. The vibe at KORSIT is just as cool as it is with us. That makes it doubly fun to work for Team Rockstars.”

Ricardo is particularly appreciative of how quickly the Rockstars were operational. “That is really distinctive. It allowed us to reap the benefits of the cooperation very quickly. After every brainstorming session, new features were ready before I knew it.” Keeping that fast pace is not a given. Duco: “When you just start a project, there is still relatively little code. But that is becoming more and more. The ratio of code reading versus code writing is ten to one. So the more code there is, the more you have to read. You don’t avoid working a little slower as a result, but we still go very fast. That’s only possible if you organize the code well, don’t write more than necessary, and follow clean code principles. Then the code base does grow, but you can still make changes and add new features quickly.”

Meanwhile, the app is running as a thriving sales channel. “Without really running a campaign, after just a few months we are already at just under 30,000 downloads from 12 countries,” Ricardo says. “Our main goal was to get repeat customers to buy through the app, and we’re seeing that happen very quickly now. Those numbers are definitely going to continue to grow. And if you look at the revenue compared to the website, the difference is very big. We really have an additional tool in our hands to engage customers. And the app looks great. Thanks to the Rockstars’ input on looks, functionalities and transitions, the app feels very light. Those transitions came in very nicely and everything works lightning fast.”

Final phase of the app project is the transfer to KORSIT’s developers. Ricardo: “It was not only about developing the app, but also about transferring knowledge so that our developers can continue with it.” Even after this, however, the parting is not final. “Because of this good experience, we found out that we want more Rockstars for content, backend and project management. And really not just because the market is scarce. The cooperation went so smoothly and we can use their expertise so well that we want to expand the collaboration. Soon, another new Rockstar will start.”