How we helped PukPuk deliver a great product and bring it out there

The Problem

Occasional job market doesn’t belong to the most developed ones in Poland. Simultaneously, more and more young adults want to become independent from their parents, among other things by offering different kinds of services. Those services include mowing gardens, basement cleaning, dog walking etc. After conducting thorough market research PukPuk founders concluded that an app letting users offer and use such services, will perfectly fill in the gap in the market. What’s important to notice is that the founders perfectly understood the needs of young adults, due to the fact that they were young adults themselves at the start of the project.

Tech used

The main tech stack used throughout the project consisted of React Native, TypeScript and Golang. Through the projects we worked on, we found React Native to be the most effective way of launching dynamic mobile applications. 

Beginning of the process

Given that the Parlour Development team consists of young people, communication with PukPuk went very smoothly. Between the first contact and signing a legal contract, not more than 3 weeks have passed. Being a startup ourselves, we perfectly understood the conditions under which PukPuk wanted to work. Without going into much detail, our offer was tailored for the capabilities of PukPuk. Part of our process were the weekly meetings between our teams, during which we thoroughly discussed the progress made. We assigned the project a manager who was responsible for answering all the questions. 

Design

The first thing Parlour Development did for PukPuk was designing a modern-looking, eye-catching design language. After extensive talks, we came up with a color scheme consisting of shades of orange and violet. They are meant to evoke a feeling of safety while being cathy due to their vividness. The next element of the design process was creating a unique logotype. After a few early iterations, our team came up with the logo displayed below.

It is important to note that PukPuk translates directly into “KnockKnock”. While designing the logo we really wanted to capture the rhythmicality of the name. We also used the orange that is seen prominently in the whole app in order to evoke warmness and trust.

Next came the three main screens which roughly translate into: order, map and earn. 

The main screen present in the app was the one with a map, on which users could zoom in and see services needed in their local community. We went with a slight variance on the default Google Map look. Notice the different shades of pinpoints.

The earn screen was designed in a way, which made dynamic displaying of offers easily readable. When there are many offers close to the users, he can scroll through the offers and filter the ones displayed. Filters include: category, price and proximity. 

The order screen was always meant to mirror the earn screen. During their research, the PukPuk team found out that a lot of people who would want to use some of the services, would also be willing to offer other services themselves. That way we encapsulated the feeling of being both the provider and the customer.

Front-end development

As we did with many other projects before, we worked by a system in which we went through numerous iterations in order to receive dynamic feedback from the customer. The whole front-end development of the project took no longer than 2 months. It is important to note that we developed the back-end simultaneously, so that we could deliver the application as fast as possible.

We started the development by creating a rough version of the three screens detailed above.

Nailing the ‘add offer’ functionality early on was an important goal for us, as it is the most important element of the application. Then, we went on to code the different filtering functions that can be while browsing the offers. 

The main (and only serious) problem we encountered during the development was finding the way to dynamically display pinpoints accurately on the map. After having dug into the depths of Google Maps API code, we managed to overcome this.  

Back-end dev 

Given that the PukPuk team wanted to lower the costs as highly as possible, without sacrificing functionality, we decided to go with Amazon Web Services. It is the solution with which we have the most experience and perfectly understand the hierarchy of importance of the features. We have also employed automatic horizontal scaling solutions, when  experiencing user spikes (for example after PukPuk launched their social media campaign).

What we delivered

Parlour Development delivered the whole PukPuk app, coding it from scratch. We also managed to smoothly put the app on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Parlour was also responsible for the PukPuk Website, however it is important to note that  PukPuk redesigned their landing page since then.  

Conclusion

After having worked with us, the PukPuk team went on to win numerous awards across Poland while presenting their app. Right now, they are going through successful rounds of funding and starting social media campaigns. Both teams think of our collaboration as a successful one and look forward to working with each other in the future.