Development of a Social Online Platform
The client planned to launch a fundamentally new service within their ecosystem — a platform for creating wish lists where users could collectively fund the purchase of desired products.
The goal was to increase user engagement, create a new monetization channel, and grow the average order value.
Our company acted as a full-cycle technical partner: from strategy and MVP (Minimum Viable Product) development to building, training, and transferring a fully operational in-house product team along with established development processes.
Task
Business Objectives
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Enter a new market with minimal risks and budget.
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Validate the hypothesis that collective wish list creation and funding would be востребованы by the existing user base.
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Create an additional revenue stream through voluntary contributions (donations) and increased Gross Merchandise Value (GMV).
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Improve user loyalty and retention through social engagement mechanics.
Development Objectives
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Build a stable, scalable, and secure mobile application covering the full cycle: from adding a wish to product delivery.
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Ensure seamless integration with the platform’s backend systems (payments, catalog, logistics).
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Build and train a development team from scratch, capable of independently supporting and evolving the product after project handover.
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Deliver within strict budget and timeline constraints, considering payroll limitations.
Solution
Strategy
A cross-platform MVP was developed using Flutter.
This choice was driven by faster development, a single codebase, and lower maintenance costs — enabling rapid market entry and hypothesis validation.
Hypothesis
Users are willing to publicly share wish lists, and their friends/followers are willing to participate in collective gift purchases.
The key validation metric was the conversion rate from created wish lists to successfully funded purchases.
Core MVP Features
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Creation and management of wish lists with products from the online platform.
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Secure donation mechanism for specific products.
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Fund redistribution between wishes.
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Order placement and delivery (home delivery or parcel locker) after successful fundraising.
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Viewing and interacting with friends’ wish lists.
Timeline & Phases
Total project duration: 7 months
Phase 1 — 3 weeks
Requirements clarification, architecture design, team formation.
Phase 2 — 4 months
Core app development, integration with payment systems and product catalog.
Parallel training of the client’s internal team.
Phase 3 — 1 month
250+ test scenarios executed, including functional testing, system integration testing, and usability validation.
~120 defects identified and resolved, with all critical issues fixed before launch.
Phase 4 — 1.5 months
Pilot launch with a focus group, feedback collection, final refinements.
Full transfer of codebase, documentation, and processes to the client’s internal team.
Result
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Fully functional application
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Stable, trained development team operating within payroll constraints
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Established development processes
The client later leveraged the solution and expertise to expand into new international markets.
Business Impact
1. Reduced Operational Risks and Costs
The client received a ready-to-use, market-validated product without the need to build internal expertise from scratch.
2. Faster Time-to-Market
The MVP was launched twice as fast compared to assembling and onboarding an in-house team independently.
3. Payroll Cost Optimization
Careful team selection and structured training, followed by continuous skill growth, enabled approximately 30–40% annual savings compared to hiring ready-made middle-level developers on the market.
4. Model Scalability
The MVP’s success was confirmed when the client’s internal team independently created a replica of the application to enter a new market, using the transferred expertise and established processes. This is direct proof of successful knowledge transfer and solution scalability.
The application began generating profit within the first months after launch, creating a new revenue stream for the platform.
Challenges
Balancing speed and quality within the MVP scope.
It was essential to strictly adhere to MVP boundaries, eliminating non-core functionality, while designing an architecture that would support future scaling by the client’s trained internal team.
Technologies
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Java
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Flutter
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Dart
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Firebase
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GitLab
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Jira
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Figma