What building an app for a coffee shop taught us about our own apps

GERG was the odd one out: a loyalty app for a coffee shop, built by a studio that makes AI story apps. It turned out to be the project that changed how we build everything else.

There is always a second user

In a loyalty app, the second user is the cashier, and designing for them made the customer's experience better. It made us look for the second user in our consumer apps too. In Dreamify it is the child, who never touches the screen but experiences everything. In Viola it is the sleeping version of the person, who the app must not wake. Every product has someone it serves who is not the one holding the phone.

The boring features are the product

We expected the stamp card and the points to be the app. The regulars told us the menu with its allergens and prices was why they opened it. In our own apps, the equivalent boring features are the sleep timer, the "never mention" list and the delete button. We now give those the attention we used to reserve for the headline feature.

A regular, not a download

A coffee shop does not count downloads. It counts people who come back on Tuesday. That is the right way to count a consumer app too, and it is embarrassing how long it took us to measure our own products that way.

Listening to someone else's customers

When the app is yours, every review is personal and it is tempting to argue with it. When the app is a client's, you listen differently: calmly, looking for the pattern. We try to read our own reviews the way we read GERG's now, and the roadmap is better for it.

The counter is a release

A feature in a loyalty app is live the moment the shop opens. There is no phased rollout at a till. That forced a discipline about testing with real hardware in real conditions that we have carried back into everything else.

We will keep doing both

Building for brands keeps us honest. Building our own apps keeps us ambitious. Each one makes the other better, which is why brand work is not a sideline for us.