This year has been a big one for us at Very Good Ventures. We've worked on many Flutter apps, created high-quality open source software, and even opened a couple of international offices. Here is a look back at the top five VGV moments from 2021.
Betterment x VGV
Working with Betterment has been a major highlight of 2021. Earlier this year we posted a case study of our work together which details how we helped Betterment integrate Flutter into their existing native app. We’ve continued to work together closely with their engineering team on expanding Flutter within the Betterment application, which continues to deliver top-notch investment tools to its users.
Hear more about our work with Betterment in this podcast with Sam Moore or watch this session from Droidcon London 2021 where Jesse Harrelson and Florian Harr discuss their engineering team’s transition to Flutter and how we helped support them.
Very Good CLI release
We released Very Good CLI in February which enables users to generate a VGV-approved Flutter starter application called Very Good Core with one command. It includes a bunch of scalable features out of the box, including web support, build flavors, internationalization, sound null safety, layered architecture with bloc, 100% test coverage, logging, our preferred lint rules with Very Good Analysis, and continuous integration with GitHub Actions.
Since the initial launch, we’ve released many new features, including templates for packages and plugins, and reached over 1,100 stars on GitHub. Check out the Very Good CLI repo here.
Very Good Start release
Shortly after the launch of Very Good CLI, we released Very Good Start, our proprietary Flutter project generator for our consulting clients. This tool is specifically designed for teams or developers looking for a solid foundation for a production-quality Flutter application. With Very Good Start, we can generate about one month’s work in one day, so that our clients can begin building new features right away.
Very Good Start has been a helpful tool for our internal teams. It helps our developers spin up a new codebase with a built-in scalable foundation in one day. It also helps our teams start working on features right away and they can always use the codebase as a good example for implementing a scalable architecture. As of now, Very Good Start is only offered to VGV clients as part of our ongoing consulting arrangements, but we’re looking for ways to make it available to more users. Stay tuned!
I/O Photo Booth
Teaming up with Google to build a web application for Google I/O was definitely a highlight from 2021. We combined Flutter + Firebase to build I/O Photo Booth, a performant web app where users could take photos with their favorite Google mascots and props. The app was even highlighted in the interactive virtual world I/O Adventure!
The codebase is open source and showcases the scalable approach to building apps that we adhere to at VGV. You can still take a photo in the I/O Photo Booth here or read the deep dive into how it’s made.
VGV expanded to the EU
We officially opened our first VGV EU office in Warsaw, Poland in July. Led by Principal Engineer Dominik Roszkowski, our Poland team has already grown to four members (and counting). In keeping with our central hub office model, we also opened offices in Madrid and Rotterdam to support our teammates there. In 2022, we look forward to expanding our team in the U.S., Europe, and beyond! 🚀
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