Web and mobile app development
A custom app that does the job off-the-shelf software cannot, and stays affordable to run.
We scope, design and build web and mobile apps - booking systems, customer portals, internal tools - around what your users need to do first, test them on real devices, and hand you the code, the accounts and the documentation.
Available on its own, or as part of The Product Build.
In practice
What this actually is
This is building custom software for something off-the-shelf tools cannot do - a booking system, a customer portal, an internal tool, a mobile app. It is worth doing when the problem is specific enough that a subscription product would mean changing how you work to suit it.
What we do
- Discovery
- The user, the workflow and the commercial case, settled before anything is built.
- Product design
- Screens and journeys designed around the task somebody is trying to finish.
- Web applications
- Software that runs in a browser, with logins, roles and permissions.
- Mobile applications
- iOS and Android, where the job genuinely needs a phone rather than a website.
- Customer portals
- A place your clients sign in to see their own information.
- Internal systems
- The tool that replaces a spreadsheet three people are editing at once.
- Integrations
- Connecting to the systems you already run, so nothing is entered twice.
- Support and iteration
- The ongoing work software needs after launch, priced before you commit.
Technology with a reason to exist
A solution shaped around the real problem.
A clearer route from the business problem to a working product, with the user, the workflow and the commercial objective settled before the technology takes over the conversation.
Start a conversationThe problem is never the download
Every app project is planned around the launch. The store listing, the announcement, the install number in the first week. That number is achievable and it is close to meaningless, because the industry-wide pattern is brutally consistent: the overwhelming majority of people who install an app have stopped using it within a month, on both platforms, in almost every category.
They do not leave because the app was badly made. They leave because the first session did not deliver anything worth returning for. An app competes with a home screen full of things that already earn their place, and it gets roughly one attempt to prove it belongs there. Everything a user does not reach in that first session may as well not have been built.
So the first question is always whether you need a native app at all. A great deal of what businesses ask for is better served by a web app that opens instantly, is found in search, updates without a store review, and can still sit on a home screen. Native earns its cost when you genuinely need the hardware, work offline, or live somewhere a store listing is how you are found. That is a real decision with a right answer, and it is worth taking seriously before anybody writes code.
<6%
Of installed users are still there on day thirty, across both major platforms. The launch number is not the number that matters.
2x
The platforms you maintain forever the moment you go native on both. The build is quoted once; the upkeep arrives every year.
1
The number of sessions you get to prove the thing is worth keeping. Everything a user does not reach in it was built for nobody.
The discipline
Four questions, in order, before an app is worth building
The first two are commercial and are usually skipped because they are uncomfortable. The last two are the build. A project that starts at stage three is how businesses end up maintaining software nobody opens.
Needed
An app is genuinely the answer
- What it does that a website cannot
- Hardware, offline or notifications
- How people would find it
- What it replaces
This holds it up
Reached
The first session pays off
- The one thing it must do immediately
- Everything removed from the path to it
- No sign-up before value
- Something worth coming back for
This holds it up
Built
It works on real devices
- One codebase where possible
- Tested on mid-range Android
- Sensible about data and battery
- Offline where it matters
They see this
Kept
It survives after launch
- Store submissions and updates
- Crash and error reporting
- What people do in the first week
- A route to the next version
They see this
Stage one is the only stage where we might talk you out of the project. We would rather do that than build something you pay to maintain for three years and quietly stop mentioning.
Measurement
How you will know it is working
Installs are the vanity number in mobile app development South Africa. These are the ones that say whether the thing worked.
What we report on
- How many new users reach the first useful moment, and how long it takes them
- Day-one, day-seven and day-thirty retention, tracked from launch
- Crash-free session rate on real devices
- The task the app exists for - bookings taken, orders placed, hours saved
- Cost of maintenance against what the app returns, reviewed annually
Before you ask
The questions that come up first
Do I need a native app or would a web app do?
Most of the time a web app does, and it is cheaper to build and far cheaper to keep than mobile app development South Africa businesses are usually quoted for. Native earns its cost when you need the camera or sensors, must work offline, rely on push notifications as a core mechanic, or genuinely get discovered through the app stores. We give you that answer in the first conversation, and we give it honestly even when it is the smaller job.
What does it cost to keep running?
There is always an ongoing cost and we quote it before you commit. Both mobile operating systems release annually and eventually stop accepting older builds, so an unmaintained app degrades whether or not you change anything. A web app has a materially lower floor here, which is part of why we recommend it as often as we do.
Who owns the code?
You do. It sits in a repository in your name, on your accounts, with the credentials documented and handed over. If you take the project elsewhere you take everything with you.
Can you take over an app somebody else built?
Usually, and the first thing we do is read it and tell you plainly what state it is in. Sometimes the honest answer is that maintaining it will cost more than replacing it, and we would rather say that at the start than discover it at your expense in month four.