Yumvote.
The app we built for ourselves, so you can see exactly how we'd build yours. Empty repo to a paid product on both stores, in one quarter.
- Client
- Blinklabs · our own product
- What we did
- Brand · App · Backend · Payments · Launch
- Platforms
- iOS · Android · Web
- Timeline
- One quarter, idea to App Store
We were the client.
The clearest way to show how we build is to build for ourselves, with nothing faked and no one else to blame. Yumvote got the exact standard we'd hold your project to: brand, the iOS and Android app, the backend, the payments, the legal surface, and the marketing site at yumvote.app.
So read the rest as the anatomy of an app build, not a product pitch. If you're here to have an app made, this is what working with us looks like.
One team. Every layer.
An app is never just screens. It's a brand, a cross-platform product, a real-time backend, billing, store compliance and a website, all of which we handle in-house. Here is what each of those looked like for Yumvote, and what each proves about the work we'd do for you.
Interfaces people actually use.
We design the real interaction, not wireframes. Yumvote's core is a voting flow a whole household picks up in seconds. For your app, this is the difference between screens that demo well and screens people come back to.
Live, shared state across every device.
Multi-user state is where apps get hard. Everyone in a Yumvote household sees the same plan update instantly on their own phone. That same real-time backbone sits under anything collaborative we'd build for you.
Content structured to do real jobs.
Every dish is structured data driving search, dietary filters, allergen warnings and an automatic shopping list, across 609 catalogued ingredients. Whatever your app runs on, catalogue, inventory, or records, we model it so the features come easily and scale cleanly.
The last 10% that makes it feel done.
Shopping lists that merge ingredients and sort by aisle. A hands-free cook mode with built-in timers. The unglamorous details that separate a demo from a product people keep on their home screen. We build to that line, not to the deadline.
typed end to end
database migrations
ingredients
repo to launch
We find the real problem first.
Most app briefs describe a solution. Our first job is to find the actual problem underneath it. With Yumvote, the insight was that dinner isn't a recipe problem, it's a decision problem, so we built for the deciding and let the recipes follow.
That's the thinking we bring to your product: build the smallest thing that solves the real bottleneck, not the biggest thing on the spec. It's cheaper to build, faster to ship, and far more likely to get used.
One codebase. Both stores. One number to call.
A single React Native codebase ships to iOS and Android. A Postgres backend carries real-time sync, server-side push and store-native subscriptions. Cloud builds and over-the-air updates mean we can fix and improve your app after launch without waiting on a full release.
A detail that says a lot about how we work: the whole thing was built on Windows, with every iOS build compiled and submitted from the cloud. We solve the plumbing so you never have to think about it.
Most of all, it's one team. No separate designer, iOS developer, Android developer and backend shop to brief, chase and reconcile. One person is accountable for the whole product, start to finish.
We sweat the decisions that decide whether it's used.
Small product calls make or break an app. Yumvote lets a household decide three different ways, because real families don't all behave the same:
Chef's Picks — one person shortlists, everyone votes on the shortlist.
Open Floor — everyone nominates, then everyone votes on the pool.
Just Call It — skip the vote and set the menu, because sometimes it's Tuesday.
That's the level of thought we put into the features that matter, and the restraint to leave out the ones that don't. It's the part of the job you can't see in a screenshot, and the part that decides whether your app sticks.
The problems that quietly kill app projects.
The screens are the easy bit. What you're really hiring an app studio for is the work that only shows up once real people, real money and two app stores are involved. Yumvote has all of it.
Billing that survives the real world. Subscriptions belong to a person, but Yumvote sells to a whole household. One member pays and everyone unlocks, including people who join later. That means reconciling store entitlements against membership, handling transfers, and failing over to another paying member when the original one leaves. Getting subscriptions wrong is how apps lose money and trust.
Data security, enforced in the database. Everything is scoped to a household and locked down in the database, not just the app. Row-level security governs every table, with roles for admins, adults, teens and view-only members. Your users' data is protected by the system, not by hoping the client behaves.
Logic that matches real life. Three recipes calling for onion become one shopping-list line, even when one says grams, one says "2 medium" and one says a cup, scaled to who's actually eating. Households include toddlers and reluctant partners who never open the app, yet still count for portions. The messy real-world rules are where the actual engineering lives.
Two stores, two rulebooks. Billing copy, cancellation routes and privacy declarations differ by platform, and getting them wrong is a rejection. We know the review process on both stores and get you through it.
Empty repo to the App Store in a quarter.
Not a prototype we polished later. A production app from the first commit, in about ninety days.
Late May. Schema, auth, multi-user foundations, and the first end-to-end loop working.
June. The core product taking shape, and the unglamorous win of getting signed iOS builds shipping from the cloud.
July. Depth: the full catalogue, real-time sync, notifications with quiet hours, performance work and a guided first-run.
Late July. The commercial and legal surface: subscriptions, sign-in with Apple and Google, account deletion, privacy policy, terms, and the store listings.
29 July onward. Live on the App Store, with Google Play following in August, including a pricing change rolled out without breaking existing users.
That pace comes from being one accountable team with modern tooling, not from cutting corners on the parts that matter.
"It wasn't a prototype that later needed a real build. It went out as a production product, taking payments and passing review on both stores, inside a single quarter."The standard we'd hold your app to
If you have an app in your head.
One team, no handoffs. Brand, design, mobile, backend, payments, compliance and launch, from one accountable person. You explain it once, to someone who owns the whole outcome.
Built to last, not to demo. Versioned migrations, database-enforced security, real-time sync and over-the-air updates from day one. Your app is built to grow and be maintained, not to fall over after launch.
Shipped, not just designed. We take it all the way, through store review and onto real phones, with the subscriptions, legal surface and support it needs to be a real business. Yumvote is the proof.
Got an app in your head?
From idea to the App Store. Let's talk it through over coffee.
Tell me about your idea