Case Study - Aplify: scaling a community marketplace to 100K+ downloads

Overview

Aplify started with defence communities, who needed a quick, safe way to buy, sell and rent locally, and later opened up to civilian users.

Founder Shanmuk handed the existing product to us to run its technology and scale it. Our founding engineer, Aaron Dsilva, became CTO.

The ask

Aplify needed a partner to take over development without disrupting current users, then grow the product to handle a large, active user base. The main requirements:

• Continuity: Learn the existing product and keep it running for current users while taking over development.
• One marketplace, many categories: Used goods, vehicles, real estate, services and jobs in one place.
• Two communities: Separate defence and civilian sections, so each audience sees what matters to them.
• Trust and safety: Verified profiles and safety badges, so buyers and sellers can deal with each other confidently.
• Every platform: The same experience on web, iOS and Android.

The solution

We started by learning the codebase and keeping the product running for existing users. Then we worked on what a marketplace depends on: listings, discovery, trust and repeat use.

Core features

• Unlimited free listings: Anyone can post ads for free.
• Direct buyer-seller chat: In-app messaging with no brokers or middlemen.
• E-auctions: Sellers can auction items instead of setting a fixed price.
• Defence and civilian communities: A separate section for each audience.
• Verified profiles: Verification and safety badges on user profiles.
• Rewards program: Rewards for users who stay active on the platform.
• Category discovery: Search, filters and categories for mobiles, cars, bikes, property, services and jobs.

Platform

• Cross-platform apps: One Flutter codebase for iOS and Android, plus a web app.
• Cloud infrastructure: Hosting on AWS and Cloudflare that has kept up with growth past 100,000 downloads.

The outcome

Aplify has passed 100,000 downloads. Since the takeover, the same team has kept shipping features as the user base grew.

Core technologies