Social App
Social products win or lose in the first session. TruLykes, a startup in the entertainment and technology space, set out to build a social platform where following and shopping are the same gesture, an Instagram-style experience designed for content creators to generate revenue through direct sales. Users follow creators for their taste, in apparel and beyond, and everything in the feed is for sale, either directly through the platform or through referral link integration. WWC designed and developed the TruLykes mobile app from first flows to a finished iOS pilot, shaping the user experience and the commerce-driven social features at its center. Flutter and Firebase power the build, one codebase with the real-time backbone social features need. The result is an app built to feel fast and familiar from the first tap, with a business model built in from the start.
Users decide within seconds whether an app deserves a place on their home screen, and in social commerce the bar is set by the biggest products in tech. TruLykes, a startup, saw an opening those products had not filled, a platform where content creators earn from what they share and followers shop a creator's taste directly, through the platform or by referral link. The founders needed a workable app to raise funding on, not a prototype or a deck. TruLykes brought WWC in to design and build the entire app, covering user experience design, the social commerce product itself, and the engineering underneath it.
WWC built the entire app, from user experience design through a pilot ready for the App Store. Screen flows, interaction patterns, and an interface shaped for the quick, repeat sessions social apps depend on came first, with commerce woven through the social experience so discovering a creator and buying from one happen in the same flow. WWC developed the app in Flutter for native performance and paired it with Firebase to power the real-time backend a social platform requires, supporting sales made directly through the platform as well as referral link integration. The pilot launched on iOS, a complete, workable product built to put in front of investors.
TruLykes reached the App Store as a working iOS pilot, exactly the asset its founders set out to raise funding with, a real product instead of a pitch deck. Timing told its own story. Shortly after the pilot launched, Instagram introduced its own Shop feature, validation of the concept from the biggest player in the category even as it complicated the funding path. Instagram has since retired Shop, leaving the opportunity open. More importantly, the pilot proved a startup can put a competitive social commerce product in front of investors without a big-tech budget.
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