BUCKiTDREAM - PLYCODE

Case study

Mobile app allowing dreamers to create, live and share their dreams.

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About

BUCKiTDREAM is an LA and Melbourne based startup that offers dreamers around the world a platform to create, live and share their dreams anytime from anywhere with their friends and family. Dreamers can share their bucket lists with like-minded travelers and get inspired. They can also collaborate with other dreamers and vendors to make their dream a reality.

Idea

Founder and CEO Tim Carroll, shares his BUCKiTDREAM idea:

What I saw in regards to what consumers partake in and what they love from an experience point of view used to be centered around the ticket. But I saw more and more it was about the total experience than just buying a ticket to a game or music event. I began to notice that the next stage of the internet would be based around consumer intentions and those are powered by dreams and passions.

To validate his concept, Carroll held a contest where the lucky winner would travel to Necker Island during the Necker Cup to meet the high-profile entrepreneur Richard Branson. The only requirement was to download BUCKiTDREAM and create and share ten dreams.

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.
– John Lennon

The challenge

Scalability

The initial soft launch validated the concept to get dreamers to create, plan, share and achieve their dreams. BUCKiTDREAM quickly grew to 250k users, creating almost two million dreams.

The beta version was built on a simple technology stack consisting of MongoDB, Ruby on Rails, Parse with native iOS and Andorid apps. With the sudden growth of BUCKiTDREAM's user base, the beta platform was reaching performance and capacity limits.

The next step was to scale the platform from the beta version to an enterprise-grade solution to accommodate millions more users and dreams.

Uninterrupted launch

Migrating data and services always poses risks and challenges and would need to be planned and tested thoroughly. All data from the beta platform would need to be to be migrated across to the new platform, while the launch should support an uninterrupted service for the tens-of-thousands of active users.

Our approach

At PLYCODE, we analysed our various options and architecture methodologies and settled with using Google Cloud Platform, primarily due to the vast offering of tools and products that would assist with the scaling of BUCKiTDREAM.

We proposed to build the new platform in a modular way so that it could be delivered quickly in phases rather than waiting for the complete end-to-end system to be ready. We also ensured that our new API would maintain backward-compatibility with the existing web and mobile clients.

Back-end:

Technology stack

Utilising various services within the Google Cloud Platform, we were able to design the architecture in a modular and serverless manner that provides a solid base for scale and simplifies manitenance and deployment.

Cognitive content tagging

With over two million dreams already created on the platform, we needed a way to organise, classify and link dreams in a manner that would enable simple discovery by users.

To solve this challenge, our engineers built a custom machine learning algorithm with natural language processing that would apply a sentiment analysis to each dream. This would automatically classify and tag each dream according to location, event, and experience for effortless discoverability of user-generated content.

Front-end:

React Native for mobile app

As part of the platform redevelopment, we were tasked to develop a new mobile application for BUCKiTDREAM. React Native Framework was a great solution as it would support our speed-to-market while supporting both major mobile platforms (Android & iOS).

This decision allowed us to move quickly and ship the new BUCKiTDREAM mobile application in about six weeks.

Included in the new build was support for Intercom for engaging with users via marketing automation through means of email and push notifications. We also included Firebase tools for app analytics, monitoring and messaging.

The result

With our approach and the technology choices we made, the first version of the product was in the users’ hands in just under two months. We successfully migrated the user base with no downtime. With the implementation of cognitive content tagging, BUCKiTDREAM improved the user experience by displaying relevant dreams to new users and blocking inappropriate content.

DREAM BOLD. DREAM BIG.

Featured in

BUCKiTDREAM engaged Hashi Kaar and his Plycode team in early 2017. Our core need was to find a worldclass local engineering team that could architect and engineer BUCKiTDREAM Future Intention Data Platform. Hashi and his team have exceeded our expectations and demonstrated total alignment and passion. Even better the BUCKiTDREAM platform has been tested by worlds best brands, media and merchants. A seamless technology partnership that continues today and I can highly recommend to local ventures who are thinking global.
– Tim Carroll

Why did BUCKiTDREAM choose us?

We value long-term relationships – When we take on a project, we spend time to understand the vision and goals to develop products that are built for scale and are future-ready.

We understand start-ups – We have worked with many startups from inception to launch and beyond.

We are experienced – We have proven ourselves through the numerous workshops we've had with BUCKiTDREAM to ideate and validate ideas to then roll out.

We do – Our team consists of people with “can-do” attitudes, putting in their own time and effort to find solutions to challenges.

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