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My Waffle: bringing a startup idea to market
An advanced personal data organiser built-in iOS app
My Waffle, a revolutionary iOS mobile app, rises to the challenge by offering a solution to help users easily discover and manage all their personal data related to health, banking or hobbies, such as cooking recipes, favourite books or medical records in a neatly organised way. With the power of AI technology, My Waffle empowers users to unleash their productivity and sort out over 130 data categories of their life aspects. It recognises the time-consuming nature of organising personal information and steps in to alleviate the burden. The app has already been successfully launched on the Apple Store and is gathering the first users of its Alpha version.
From strategy and PoC to a successful Apple Store rollout
The journey of bringing My Waffle startup idea to market required a good approach to change management and openness to constant iterations. During the cooperation, our client has come through four weeks of Product Bootcamp, a session of usability tests, and many product concept iterations.
To jump on this transformative journey to develop My Waffle’s mobile app, Miquido has created an interdisciplinary team of product strategists, a project manager, UX researchers and designers and a dedicated team of mobile and backend developers. Dive into this case study that describes My Waffle’s quest to define the project’s scope, validate the launch budget, explore technology solutions, and build a prototype, all while seeking continuous user feedback.
4 weeks
for building the idea from scratch
130 types
of data available for each user
Native-like performance
Challenges
Product-market fit and competive advantage
Undoubtedly, there are plenty of productivity-boosting and data organising apps on the market, including Notion, Evernote or Google Drive. Hence it became crucial for My Waffle to stand out and offer a unique value proposition to attract and retain users. However, in the early stages of the project, the project team faced several challenges that posed significant obstacles to the app validation and development process. Firstly, the project team faced the lack of previous market research, which hindered the process of gathering valuable insights into the target audience, their preferences, and the market demand. Consequently, tailoring the app to meet specific user requirements was challenging without a specific group of recipients. Furthermore, at first, the idea didn’t clearly demonstrate the value the app would bring to potential users. This lack of clarity made it difficult to determine how the app would differentiate itself from existing solutions and appeal to users. That’s why Miquido and the client decided to firstly validate the product idea and then assess its feasibility.
Multisource data integration
From the implementation requirements, My Waffle’s app posed a considerable technical challenge. The requirement to synchronise vast amounts of data and manage it at the application level rather than through a web-based platform like competitors added complexity to the development process. Moreover, the application was supposed to integrate with many different external services. Thus, the development team faced the challenge of choosing the framework that supports all SDKs for requested services and is flexible enough for future development of the mobile and web app’s versions.
Solutions
Product-dedicated four-week workshops
By starting with product-dedicated workshops, My Waffle laid the foundation for a solution deeply rooted in user needs, backed by a robust business model, and ready to create a meaningful impact in the market. Hence, Miquido’s team started with a Miquido Product Bootcamp: a four-week process combining business strategy and design methods that adopt a sprint-like timescale to create rapid collaboration and decision-making. Its goal was to rapidly validate or disprove product ideas as early as possible without any development costs.
Building PoC with the right features prioritisation
In the process of building a PoC for My Waffle, Miquido’s team began by creating wireframes – visual representations of the app’s layout and structure, which served as a blueprint for development. These wireframes helped the team visualise the user interface (UI) and plan the user experience (UX) design. To ensure a great UI/UX, the team conducted rigorous user testing sessions, gathering feedback from diverse users. This valuable feedback guided iterative improvements and refinements to the app’s interface, making it more intuitive, user-friendly, and visually appealing.
React Native for app development
As a result of the discovery phase and validation, our client decided to start out with the iOS version of the app. Armed with the scope and budget, Miquido’s development team engaged in in-depth discussions to identify the most suitable technology solutions. The team explored Flutter and React Native options, evaluating their scalability, performance, and alignment with the project’s long-term vision. The final decision was made in favour of React Native, as part of its code could be shared and used with other JS technology, and by that time, it was more mature.
Graph database powered by many sources
The organised in-app knowledge was represented in the form of a graph database (Neo4J) powered by many sources: own catalogues, open graph databases (WikiMedia), and third-party catalogues. Based on this information collection, users were given suggestions to build their own knowledge base. Additionally, the development team leveraged the power of AI to enhance the app’s features, like suggesting data hierarchy and linking them accordingly.
Based on the data collected from user and market research, the project team, together with an architect, experienced in structuring the information, decided to start creating and a prototype, which included the following app’s features:
- Sign in & sign up (user profile creation)
- Ability to collect data in the following topics: Movies, Activities, Sport & Activities, Finances, Files
- Import the personal contacts to share data with them
- Templates selection to collect data for each category
- Managing data with other users
- Adjusting data to the table view, canban view and card view
- Chat with other users
- Subscription details
Project’s process
The necessity of pivoting after the first user testing
The initial feedback from users, conducted after the 4 weeks of Product Bootcamp, served as a critical milestone in the app’s development process and couldn’t have been belittled. It provided valuable insights into user preferences, pain points, and areas for improvement. The My Waffle’s usability test results showed that users want to collect data in specific categories. However, they are unwilling to share data because they attach great importance to security. Additionally, at first, users didn’t understand the purpose of the application because of the enigmatic onboarding and the complicated concept. Embracing these insights and being open to pivoting right after the Product Bootcamp allowed our team to refine and enhance the app’s features, functionality, and overall user experience.
Choosing between Native vs Cross-platform
Before committing to the development process, our technical teams needed to look into the client’s requirements and gather the essential drivers to make the final decision about the development tools, frameworks and databases. The first subject of validation was choosing between native and cross-platform app development. There were several tech aspects to consider, including evaluating the importance of the offline mode, fast development of the new features for mobile and web app versions, the necessity for many integrations, with most of them on the Rest API level and quite complex business logic. After choosing the cross-platform development approach, our team needed to supervise the client in choosing the right framework: Flutter or React Native.
Services & tech stack
UX research
User testing
Mobile UI design
Branding & Key visual
Mobile
React Native
Typescript
WatermelonDB
Backend
Node.js
Typescript
Neo4J
AWS
Terraform
Product Bootcamp
app vision & idea validation
tech stack propositions
user flows & wireframes
Results
A well-tailored mobile app’s UX and features
My Waffle understood the importance of validating its hypotheses before diving headfirst into the app development process. Together with the dedicated team at Miquido, they swiftly built a basic prototype encompassing core functionalities and unleashed it upon a select group of users. On the one hand, limiting the details of the first phase of the app, and on the other, providing crucial features for quick personal data organization equipped the app with real differentiators.
Visually appealing app design
Miquido’s UX, UI and design team embarked on a comprehensive journey to design the branding and user interface (UI) of My Waffle’s app. By meticulously analysing the target audience, market trends, and the client’s vision, we crafted a visually stunning app design that captivated users and reinforced the company’s brand image. The prototype’s design helped to communicate the app’s value and show the real benefits of the app’s features. Miquido’s team strategically placed key features and functionalities within reach, enabling users to interact effortlessly with the app.
The successful app launch on Apple Store
Thanks to the structured discovery process and main focus on the end users in each stage of the development process, our client was able to launch an Alpha version of the mobile app quickly. Based on previous experience, Miquido’s team has prepared detailed instructions for the Apple store rollout and made sure the mobile app will meet all the requirements. Right now, My Waffle is rated 5.0 in the App Store and is slowly gathering new app enthusiasts.
Fostered client’s independence for future growth
Through our collaboration, we fostered our client’s independence, empowering him to take charge of the app’s development journey. After the project’s completion, he is equipped with the knowledge and expertise to build My Waffle’s own development team and scale up autonomously. Our worked-out solutions, recommendations, and provided tools served as a solid foundation for the client’s continued growth and success, enabling him to navigate the path forward on his own terms confidently.
Miquido’s specialists were invaluable in refining features, validating with users, and designing the right tech stack. Their communication and trustworthiness made a significant impact.”
Pedro Rivera Torres Moir, My Waffle CEO & Founder
