Full stack development: Build a creators app with Flutter

This decade is a boon for the creators' industry be it fashion, fitness, or business. Not too long ago, the pandemic forced all of us to stay locked inside our houses and everything went downhill from there. Though it was a difficult time, people came together and helped each other. In a way, these virtual job portals came to the rescue.

People were able to find well-paid designations with all the facilities that are available to an employee at a physical office. These online platforms were seen in a new light where one can promote their services and get clients. As most of the people hopped onto the virtual world, competition increased and there was a need for a new platform specifically for the creators to build authority in their niche areas.

At Grorapid Labs, Rehustle was one such attempt made to offer a helping hand to the creators' community. This app development was made possible with the help of a skilled software development team including product managers, full-stack developers, and developers.

What is full-stack development?

Full-stack development means working end-to-end on an application that includes, front-end and, back-end. The front-end looks after the user interface and smooth navigation, on the other hand, the back-end works on the logic that supports the user interface.

‍Front-end: In software development, the user interface is significant as it encourages the users to interact with the application. The technologies used for front-end development are CSS, Javascript, and HTML.

‍Back-end: It is the backbone of any application and is written in programming languages such as Java or Python. In order to ease this process of writing the code from scratch for the software developers, some libraries and frameworks are set into place such as Ruby on Rails, Django, and, SpringBoot.

What is the difference between full-stack development, front-end development, and back-end development?

What is the significance of full-stack development?

To develop a successful app with complete functionality, an efficient architecture must be established. The full-stack development just makes sure of this bit. Some of the reasons why full-stack development is significant in modern application development are mentioned below.

• Cost-effectiveness:
  Most companies are hiring full-stack developers because they provide value for money by working on all aspects of a project.
  
• Efficiency:
  While working on both technologies, full-stack developers work on several tasks reducing the hassle of consulting the front-end and the back-end team separately which in turn saves time.
  
• Adaptability:
  Full-stack developers can handle the end-to-end development of a project. They understand the client and server-side technologies.
  
• Problem-solving skills:
  Being well-versed in front-end and back-end technologies, full-stack developers are able to solve ample problems and are able to experiment with different approaches.

In case you are looking to hire skilled full-stack developer for your dream project, then we are right here for you.

These are some of the reasons why full-stack development is a versatile skill and being updated on various technologies and frameworks is crucial for a software developer in today’s growing technology. One such framework is flutter which has gained a lot of recognition recently and has become one of the go-to kits for developing mobile apps.

What is Flutter and is it a top choice?

• It is an open-source framework by Google that helps in developing high-quality mobile applications on both the Android operating system and iOS operating systems.
  
• Flutter app development makes it easy for software developers to build mobile apps without writing separate code for Android and iOS apps instead a single codebase is used.
  
• Flutter has two components, a software development kit that contains the libraries and tools to create mobile applications. The other component is the framework which is used to build the buttons and create an interactive user interface.
  
• Some applications developed using Flutter are Alibaba which is known to be one of the e-commerce giants, and the other one is Google Ads which helps people manage their ad accounts and reach out to a large number of people.

Flutter app development is an easier process due to the reusability of the code. At Grorapid Labs, we made one such application for the creators using Flutter.

Why did we choose to create an app for the creators?

• There are ample applications and platforms available for the creators but we worked on the actual pain point of the people who are solopreneurs and trying to make a living as freelancers.
  
• They needed a user-friendly platform with an appealing interface and easy navigation. It has to also appeal to the people who are looking for the showcased services.
  
• This platform was specifically made considering the importance of brand building for the creators. By showing themselves as the expert in the industry they could monetise their services.

ReHustle: An application for the next-gen creators

ReHustle is an application for solopreneurs who are looking to monetise their services. This platform allows you to display your best talent and get paid for it.
Some of the unique features of the app are-

• Users get a personalised profile page to display their content, social links, and services.
  
• Be it any industry or even a niche one, we’ve got you.
  
• Organise live events/webinars, any kind of virtual event.
  
• Sell digital products such as e-books and other books.
  
• Sell your time consulting or monitoring.
  
• Share your expertise while counseling through chat, serving the community, etc.
  
• Get paid timely on the Paytm app securely within 48 hours.
  
• Users can share the links on social platforms to get slot bookings and sell their digital goods.

To be fair, creating such a well-rounded application wasn’t really difficult instead was a piece of cake with Flutter because of its versatility.

If you have an idea for a mobile or a web app, we’ll help you make it come to life with our vast range of services to build an interactive user interface and sturdy support using back-end technologies

Why did we choose Flutter among all other Frameworks?

• Dynamic framework:
  There are ample frameworks available in the market such as ReactNative, NativeSript, etc but Flutter provides an edge to software developers by providing a single codebase for multiple platforms.
  
• Cross-platform compatibility:
  As Flutter has a single codebase for multiple platforms, the developers are able to make Android and iOS apps without taking on the hassle of using different codebases.
  
• Hot reload feature:
  This is the USP feature of Flutter. It helps the developers make the app changes in real-time. This helps in resolving the bugs as quickly as they arise while keeping the app running.
  
• Efficient development process:
  With all the features mentioned above, it clearly dictates that with Flutter, the development process will be faster and the delivery will be quick.
  
• Time and budget effectiveness:
  With such quick processes and code reusability along with faster delivery, it helps the owner to save up on spending money for developing separate apps for Android and iOS.

ReHustle: The development process

1. Ideation
   The ReHustle app was a collective idea of our team as we are used to having discussions and brainstorming sessions, one fine day we were talking about other job portals and how crowded they have become or even the social spaces. This discussion led us to build the ReHustle app.
   Our aim with the ReHustle app was to provide the creators or the solopreneurs with an independent platform where they can leverage the features to monetise their services and sell goods.

• Validating the idea
  We wanted to see if our idea was even viable to the people we were trying to cater to.
  In order to do so, we employed a couple of methods one of them was, we reached out to some of the creators and briefed them about our idea, and depending upon their experience they indicated that it was in fact a necessary solution. Hence, first, we created an MVP to test out and then released the app.
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• Creating a roadmap
  The first building block of mobile app development is putting the idea into place and setting the workflows in a certain manner.
  Now, the plan was to get into the intricate details of the application, for example, choosing between no-code and custom-code, user interface features, etc.
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• No-code or Custom-code
  As our software development team started working on the idea, they needed to decide if the app would be developed on a no-code platform or from scratch commonly known as custom-code.
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  ‍No-code has become one of the top choices recently due to its easy template-based user-friendly interface available on platforms such as Airtable, GroRapid, and Webflow, etc, whereas with custom-code, the app is built by writing programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, and CSS, etc.
  
  The development team decided upon the custom code because of the intricate features of the app.
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• Choosing the right tech stack
  Once our development team was clear that this Android mobile application would be built using custom code, they moved to select the tech stack.
  
  Tech stack means choosing the front-end and back-end technologies of the app. Front-end is the screen where the user interacts with the server side and it can be built using Flutter. Dart is the programming language used in the Flutter. We used it to create the clickable buttons, handle user interactions, and implement the business logic. Although there are already pre-designed widgets and logic, our development team needed to implement them to create a functional application.
  
  As Flutter does not provide per se back-end technologies, it equips the developer with the plugin packages from Flutter’s active community. These plugins have integrated back-end technologies. Otherwise, the software developers can use other technologies such as Ruby on Rails, Node.js, Firebase, etc to build custom code according to the application’s needs.
  
  For the front-end technology, Dart was used, and Typescript was employed to support the server side of the app.
  This is how a cross-functional application, ReHustle was developed.
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• MVP development (Minimum Viable Product) and beta testing
  This is the stage where our team of skilled software developers built a prototype to visualise the features and functionality of the app.
  It’s action time! The development team started with building the app after deciding on the tech stack of the application such as the UI, integration of the APIs, and the back-end technologies.
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  Once the blueprint of the app was ready, we moved to the beta testing stage which is the most crucial step of the development process as this stage will pinpoint the bugs and limitations of the application.
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  One of the advantages that Flutter development offers is the real-time correction of the bugs to ensure the smooth running of the application.
  As the app was a success among the creators and they obtained results, we were ready to launch the application on the Google Play Store.
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• Deployment and management:
  The task wasn’t completed just by landing the app on the Google Play Store but management and fixing the bugs as soon as they arose was another important part of building a successful mobile app that landed on the expectations of the users and satisfied the customers. The support team regularly took feedback on the application and worked on the bugs.
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  In case you are also a creator and want to display and represent yourself with a strong hand, hop on to the ReHustle app or ask us for help.

If you want vetted software developers on your team who are familiarised with the latest technologies such as Flutter, then let’s have a talk.

What were the key results obtained by using Flutter?

Adapting to new technologies is an art and need of every software developer. Flutter is an efficient tool recommended and used by many vetted software developers.
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ReHustle app our contribution to the creator's community which turned out to be a great success. Using Flutter was a great choice due to the availability of the development key and cross-platform compatibility. Hence, results were clearly evident such as -

• Due to the availability of the hot reload feature, new features were added without any delay.
  
• We were able to efficiently dedicate time and budget to building the app.
  
• Without putting in any extra time and effort, we were able to launch the app on the Android platform.
  In today's age, we see a wave of creators offering services to make people’s lives easy. These creators are entrepreneurs in their own right, if given the right platform, they can even make it a profitable venture. We need to come up with more such platforms where they can monetise their services and build authority. We were able to empower more than 833+ creators with our app.

By now, you must be convinced or considering using Flutter development but don’t know where to start, let us know we’ll help you out with everything.

Technology is the key to building a tenacious future but it is equally important that it should be a progressive one. We are to introduce some new advancements every other week which is exciting but it is crucial to know which one will be fruitful for your business and its goals.

We help you not only provide services but also make it our mission to help you achieve your potential and beyond.