Chptr Memorialization App Built With Flutter

Social Media
Flutter
Firebase
Mux
Braze

Chptr

Chptr’s founder imagined an app where people gather to share and keep the memories of someone they lost. We built it in Flutter for iOS and Android, kept it quick under a heavy load of photos and video, and led it through launch.

Product of the Day, Product Hunt: 1st
Community & Social app of the year: #4
users: 1,000+

01The ask

A way to honor lives well lived.

Chptr founder and CEO Rehan Choudhry saw something more we could do when we lose someone we love. He envisioned a mobile app where people share their thoughts and keep what they want to remember about the people they lost.

After seeing the MVP, we knew we wanted in. The app had to let people join groups that pay tribute to someone they knew, and share images, videos, thoughts, and everything else they need to remember that person. We built it in Flutter and led the project’s entire lifecycle.

In their words

Chptr

“They were not an extension of our team, but rather a core part of our team from day one. I don’t know what will happen next with our business but I do know that I am incredibly optimistic because of what the CreateThrive team built for us. Today our team gets to do what we love, helping people through their grief journeys, because the CreateThrive team took a chance on us. I’ll always be grateful for it.”

Co-Founder, Chptr Rehan Choudhry

02Performance

Heavy on photos and video, quick in the hand.

Like most social apps, Chptr carries a massive load of photos and videos. Making it respond fast despite all that media was one of the biggest challenges of the build.

The features all had to work at once, so we ran spikes to find the services that handle large amounts of media best and fit together most efficiently.

Chptr tribute gallery of family photos, a wedding embrace, a woman kissing a child, hands held in black and white, and the line Build a Chptr that will live forever — Tributes made of family photos, and the people who add to them.

03The team

Part of Chptr’s team from day one.

We worked alongside Chptr consulting CTO Jake Spracher, an ex-Apple engineer who helped shape how the project was run, with regular meetings while we refined the product as one team.

Unit and integration testing, code documentation, continuous integration, deployment workflows, and feature synchronization kept the app scalable as it grew.

After weekly syncs and sprint planning with the whole team, we launched in stages so every release was solid. The app went to the stores and was rated five stars.

Five-star App Store and Google Play reviews of Chptr, titled Beautiful way to remember loved ones, Great app, A special app to remember loved ones, and Digital keepsake — What people wrote in the App Store and on Google Play.

04The stack

Flutter up front, the right service for each job behind it.

Flutter let us build for Android and iOS at once while cutting effort and cost for the client.

Around it, Mux handles the video, Firebase is the serverless backend, UXCam and Braze cover user analytics, and Shake takes the bug reports.

Chptr Discover screen with recently viewed Chptrs, beside Product Hunt badges for the Golden Kitty Awards 2022 and 1st Product of the Day — Discover, the Product Hunt badges, and a review that says it best.

Five-star review from Joey V. calling Chptr the best method to celebrate and move through the loss of a loved one, beside the lantern welcome screen — Discover, the Product Hunt badges, and a review that says it best.

05What changed

Product of the Day, and a place people come back to.

Product Hunt

1st Product of the Day.

Top 5 of the week, and the
The stores

Five stars from the people using it.

Up to 100 reviews on the App Store and 500+ downloads on Google Play.
1,000+ users

Memories kept safe, and shared.

People store photos and videos, invite friends to add to the story, and discover other Chptrs.

06If you’re next

What we’d tell a team in Chptr’s seat.

01
Test the media services with spikes before you pick one. Every Chptr feature leaned on photos and video at once.
02
Treat speed as part of the care. People open this app on the hardest days of their lives.
03
Launch in stages with weekly syncs, so every release lands solid.