MVP Goal

The goal was to develop a simple and easy way for Beauty and Spa Services to recoup lost money due to cancellations. Main deliverables were a web portal for posting cancelled deals, a GraphQL API and an iOS app for being notified and buying last minute cancellations. I was responsible for the icon, small landing site, and iOS app.

Previous Experience

Coming into BeeBusy I had experience designing, building, and prototyping UI components for the web and on mobile devices. I utilized my experience in illustration and design to iterate to the BeeBusy logo. My knowledge of front-end web development to make a quick marketing site and knowledge of Swift, UIKit and Cocoa Touch to build the client App.

Learning & Growth

Aspects of BeeBusy that were places for me to grow lie in designing smooth context aware animations, collaborating with a back-end dev on a GraphQL API, and dealing with the Stripe API for processing transactions.

Context Aware Animations

I learned how to use custom presentation controllers, animated transitioning, and view matching animations to create seamless transitions between view controllers.

GraphQL API

BeeBusy introduced me to collaborating on the structure of the API with a backend developer through GraphQL. This flexible way to access only the data and data relationships you need allows the client to specify the return data it gets and nothing else. This helps drastically with quick iteration of interfaces and the required backing data without much change on the backend side. While I want to further my knowledge and use of GraphQL BeeBusy was a great introduction to the concept.

Stripe Transactions

Learning the nuances of time sensitive limited quantity transactions; like multiple transaction conflicts, network failures, and purchase intent timeout invalidation.

Outcome

Technically all the MVP’s requirements were met but issues with lack of strong direction, funding, market demand, and initial business trial commitment led BeeBusy to be a failure.