Case Study — Startups
Hippo's founder built a global mobile development team using Draftbit as the hub
A 120+ screen social shopping network that aims to transform online purchasing. The Hippo Social team used Draftbit to establish a synchronized mobile development operation spanning 3 countries.
6+
simultaneous collaborators
4 mo
to assemble team and launch v1
3 days
average onboarding time
The challenge
The Hippo Social team possessed strong web development expertise — with 30+ websites built — but lacked mobile app experience. Leadership needed a platform enabling web developers to quickly onboard a mobile team without sacrificing collaboration.
The solution
CEO Derek Pappas selected Draftbit as the collaborative hub. The platform allowed junior developers with no prior mobile experience to ramp up quickly and work in real-time with the existing web development team.
"We can see the changes that others are making in real-time. We can test in real-time. And we can iterate in real-time. That's unheard-of in traditional app development."
"We literally wouldn't exist without Draftbit."
Looking ahead
The team plans to shift focus toward growth while continuing app iteration, with an ambitious goal of listing products from 1 million stores and brands.
Tech stack
Scala/SPARK, Python, Docker, SLOR, Postgres, Cassandra