Success Story

Daffodil helps 101 Islands to transform their product vision into a market-leading mobile application

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101 Islands is an online travel & tourism platform that shares unique traveling experiences through high definition (HD) videos, high-resolution photographs, travel ideas, itineraries, tour,s and exotic products. Their application named Grotu helps in group travel & events planning using a patented application that saves time and money.

Services Used:

Travel & Transportation Solutions Mobile App Development UI/UX Design

The Situation

101 Islands was aiming to simplify the planning of group trips and events and transform the conventional way to plan trips and events. They wanted to leverage mobile technology in order to enable users to plan and manage their trips through a mobile application. The client had a patented trip planning concept with novel features such as surveys, expense reports, group photo organizer, etc., and was looking out for a technology partner to transform it into a market-ready application.

101 Islands approached Daffodil Software to transform their vision into a market fit product. They needed a technology partner who could proactively contribute to the design and ideation of their application, rather than just provide development services. The client chose Daffodil for our best cost/value balance, extensive expertise in application development as well as innovation-oriented approach. The requirement was to:

Ideate, design and develop a mobile application that could help users to create and manage trips, events and other activities.
Develop a scalable and robust architecture for the application which could help them scale and add more travel businesses to the platform.
Building an engine for event planning, photo uploads and create expense reports for individual events.
Creating an intuitive UI/UX that creates an engaging interface for travelers.

The Solution

Team Daffodil kickstarted the project by understanding the requirements of the client through face to face sessions and finalized the workflow of the app. After understanding the conceptual design of the app, the team utilized their extensive experience and knowledge in custom application development to choose the most effective and appropriate approach for the project. It was followed by UI/UX design and development of a functional prototype of the app.

To reduce the time to market, our team recommended front end development using React Native technology. React Native is an app development framework for building native apps, wherein a code written for one platform can be used for building applications on another platform. In addition, building cross-platform apps using React Native saves up to 40% of app development and maintenance costs. Further, considering the scope of the project, features, and functionalities, we recommended Drupal as backend technology because of its versatility, a vast array of modules available to build scalable applications.

Using React Native and Drupal as core technologies, cross-platform mobile apps were developed that allow users to plan & organize trips. The app facilitates to conduct surveys, manage group expenses, organize & share group photos, and send event & potluck invitations. The app includes features such as:

Create New trip Survey
View Trips
Potluck, Party & Event Planner
Group Photo Organizer
Create Expense Report
View Expense Reports

Since the app involved uploading and exchanging HD images, scalable server space was needed to host the images. Therefore it was crucial to optimize the image size on the server. To reduce server space cost, enhanced security, and to ensure that image downloading speed doesn’t vary at different locations, the images in the app were hosted on AWS S3.

For enabling 101 islands to monetize through in-app purchases and advertising, the app was integrated with Google AdMob, which is a mobile advertising platform that helps in generating revenue from mobile apps.

The Impact

Team Daffodil delivered a cross-platform mobile application by leveraging its team of software development experts and helped the client launch its product in the market. Since the launch of the app, 101 islands have received exceptional response from its users. It has been raved by the travel community and avid traveling group for its intuitive way of planning trips, managing expenses, and sharing trip memories. More than 200 travel businesses have been associated with the platform who have provided their services to around 10,000 users. Also, the app has been granted a US patent, making the app idea an innovation in the industry.

200+
travel businesses associated
10,000+
users served
25,000+
trips managed
5000+
events managed

“Daffodil Software deployed an extremely talented and responsive team for building and launching GROTU app on ios and Android platforms. They used the latest tools and methodologies and paid attention to the project specifications and requirements. They have delivered a great product.”

Sunmeet Jolly

CEO- 101 Islands LLC