App development in practice: how we build apps with our clients
We build apps close to the people who'll use them — from idea to launch. Here's how we work, and why the apps we build are still in use years later.
Most people think building an app starts with a requirements document. For us it usually starts with a conversation and a rough prototype you can hold in your hand a few days later. We build apps with our clients — not for them at a distance.
That sounds small, but it changes everything. When you see something real early, you make better calls: we don't need this button, I'd pay for that, something's missing here. Those are decisions, not guesses.
From idea to something you can hold
We prefer to build a working prototype before we build the real app. Shorewalk, a guide app for cruise tourists in Kristiansand, went from an idea in the morning to an app on TestFlight that same evening. Not finished — but enough for people to try it and have an opinion.
A prototype that kills a bad idea has done its job exactly as well as one that confirms a good one. You'll know after a day, not after three months and a big invoice.
Apps that stay in use for years
We don't build apps to impress in a demo. We build them to be used. An internal scheduling and job-management system we built for a construction company has been in daily use since 2018. Mine Gavekort, a gift-card app we built for our client iGive AS, is on the App Store and Google Play and used by people across Norway and Sweden.
That's the real test of an app: not whether it looks good on launch day, but whether it still does its job five years on. That takes someone to operate it, update it and fix things when they creak. We do that.
What it means to build an app with us
MaartenTracker replaced a spreadsheet that had grown unmanageable for a passenger boat in the Kristiansand archipelago — trip planning, crew and automatic customer notifications. We built it close to the people who actually use it, adjusting as we went instead of guessing up front.
You don't need to know anything about code. You need to know what the app should achieve. We handle the rest — development, launch on the App Store and Google Play, and running it afterwards.
Have an idea for an app?
Tell us what you want the app to do, and we'll suggest the simplest path from idea to something real. Get in touch , or see the projects we've built.