The founders set out to build an AI-based application that helps tourists and travellers plan and manage their trips. Leveraging machine learning, the app would recommend the best places to eat, shop, and explore personalised to each traveller.
We designed the product from scratch, including the entire UI and UX experience, ran frequent user testing, and iterated based on real feedback. A senior tech lead drove the overall development, with each platform led by a dedicated senior engineer.
Turning the founders’ vision into a shippable product meant delivering several ambitious pieces in parallel:
-A machine-learning engine that delivers personalised recommendations for where to eat, shop, and explore.
-Native mobile apps for iOS and Android with rich, complex UI and animations, alongside a web experience.
-A complete UX and UI designed from the ground up, refined through frequent user testing.
-Integration with multiple third-party data sources to aggregate the places and details that power recommendations.
We delivered the product end to end - design, engineering, and quality assurance across mobile and web. A Python backend exposes REST APIs to the client apps and powers a machine-learning recommendation engine, which draws on data aggregated from multiple sources and stored in MongoDB. Native iOS (Swift) and Android (Kotlin) apps deliver the polished, animation-rich experience, with an Angular web app rounding out the platform.
We designed the complete experience from the ground up, shaping the product’s look, feel, and flows before and alongside engineering.
A senior tech lead owned the overall architecture and delivery, with a dedicated senior engineer leading each platform - iOS, Android, and web - so every surface got deep, specialised attention.
We built the ML recommendation engine and integrated multiple third-party data sources to aggregate the places and signals that drive personalised suggestions.
We ran frequent user testing throughout, iterating the product on real feedback to refine both the experience and the recommendations ahead of the beta launch.
For a founder-led startup, the first version of a product has to do two jobs at once: prove the idea and earn the right to scale. By owning the full journey - design from scratch, native engineering across platforms, a real ML recommendation engine, and continuous user testing - we helped the founders move from concept to a polished, validated beta in six months. The result is more than an app: it’s a tested product and a scalable foundation ready to grow with the business.
Focaloid partners with founders and product startups to build software end to end - UX and UI design, native mobile and web engineering, machine learning, and QA from first concept to a tested, scalable product. Whether it’s an AI-powered app, a native mobile experience, or a full multi-platform build, we can help you get to market with confidence.