PRSNT

Delivering a fully functional gift-giving MVP application within a month before Christmas

Technical Solutions Informed Digital Decisions Team augmentation UI/UX

Gifting 2.0

The mobile gifting niche is continuously expanding, and the players are upgrading the online shopping experience to be even more convenient to help consumers to gift with less effort. PRSNT, the UK-based startup, launched its gifting 2.0 services, which enables people to purchase gifts for anyone in their contact list.

PRSNT works by highlighting a list of curated gifts from both local and international retailers and brands. To begin, a user simply chooses someone from their contact list, then browses through the different categories to find an appropriate gift.

Finally, all of his gifts are delivered instantly and arrive digitally wrapped for the receiver to scratch away and reveal what’s inside. PRSNT key partners: Amazon, Asos, Deliveroo, Uber, Costa, Starbucks, M&S, Sports Direct, and The Body Shop.

The context

When the client contacted CODESILK, they were operating with a 60% functional MVP, built without documentation. The start was even more difficult because of the lack of a rock-solid roadmap and unclear requirements and outcomes. We were brought in after the other company could not meet the client’s expectations.

The challenge & key requirements

Reverse-engineering the existing code to understand the current state of the product and match it with client’s requirements

Develop a well-established set of specifications that allowed to deliver the MVP app within 1 month and on budget

Achieving the project success and with client expectations alignment considering the given context: a huge breach between the existing product and the anticipated outcome

Assist the launch of PRSNT by Christmas 2020

Ensure clear and transparent communication with stakeholders during the entire process

Build an action plan that is flexible enough to meet and overcome unexpected situations.

Provide excellent project management skills to meet the client’s final goal and CODESILK team efficiency and proficiency.

Our approach

Planning was the key

Because of the tight deadline, this project demanded careful planning and procedures.

The Analysis and Planning reflected the process of reverse engineering within the existing tech stack to determine flows, data structures, and functionality. Also, our team ensured a clear audit to identify the weakness and serious threats we need to handle:

GDPR issues – ensure GDPR compliance to safeguard the users’ data, securely manipulated and stored within the ecosystem
Outdated frameworks – assure that the technology stack was up to date to eliminate the security issues that could lead the project to fail
Missing hardcoded elements – ensure a well-established quality control system that provided end customers the highest standards when using the application
Updates & upgrades required – establish a system to proactively maintain and improve the software to keep subsequent delivery at the same high standard

Within this phase, PRSNT documentation and the action plan were an absolute focus for the CodeSilk team to effectively serve the scope of the project.

Key points & operations

Set up the priority flow: Security – Performance – Optimisation, turning this process into a scalable ecosystem on a modular codebase.

Implement the Cleaning, Refactoring, and Modularity process to achieve high-quality and clean code.

Ensure secure and highly adaptable to varying data loads servers to host the app

Preserve PRSNT s custom creative design & vision within the final result

Revamping the app

What most people do is they either decline the project or they are not willing to re-adjust their approach, or action plan. Most of the time, that leads to more complex situations turning the projects into non-functional final results.

Setting up and acknowledging clear milestones in the first phase, not only helped us to follow a structured plan of actions but also empowered us to properly handle risk management.

Core Team

Project Manager

Creative thinkers

Highly-Performing Developers

Deliverables & Technology Stack

Delivering high proficiency results required a high performing team and technology stack.

Technology stack (mobile & backend & backoffice)

Development of the Prsnt mobile app has been done using react-native and the associated technology stack. Furthermore, our team used Swift and Java to further enhance the functionality of the mobile application by interacting with the native APIs

The back-office system, rest API, and data management layers have been built using the Laravel framework as well as Angular for the front end. Furthermore, our DevOps team introduced advanced security concepts and data encryption on the database and communication layers

Architecture planning & implementation

The architects of our software team created an ecosystem that satisfies both needs. By utilizing cloud servers, scalability demands for both the application and database are met at any time. We consider proactive monitoring essential for the project’s success. Reductively, our well defined maintenance process and our established monitoring systems allowed us to be one step ahead and offer a seamless experience to the end customers.

The results

A fully functioning PRSNT app within the deadline and budget estimate.

Exceptional process flow to meet the client’s requirements and expectations.

The client raised a funding round of GBP500K

Sustainable Results in Numbers

2500+

New users within 3 months

800+

DAU (daily active users)

£45,000+

in revenue from in-app sales

New features rolled out

UI/UX+

Improved the insight into buyer personas and UI/UX demands

£500,000

In financing from private investors

Total Effort

1200+

Hours of development

8 Members

In the Core team

4 Months

Of software development and design

3 Objectives

Successfully achieved three main objectives for the client

90+

90+ screens designed

Our internal outcomes

Successful app development project within a tight deadline

Consistent and continuous proactive approach to the final result

Excellent project management within a robust ecosystem

Our well-structured and clear approach made the PRST project 100% successful for both the client and our internal team.

A clean and high-quality code-base is one of the keys to successful tech businesses.

Clear and informed technical decisions along with great planning and documentation is crucial.

Core team must proactively engage and work with stakeholders to provide optimal solutions and ensure requirements are fully achieved in the final result.