Helping Dow Jones Fast-Track Technology & Cut Development Costs by 50% with Flutter

‍

The Challenge

Building a new mobile app was critical for Dow Jones’ MarketWatch team, but they faced a familiar dilemma: limited time, high expectations, and the need to support both iOS and Android audiences. The company wanted to launch a feature-rich version of its Virtual Stock Exchange game before the new academic year began, but traditional native development would require duplicate work, slowing delivery and driving up costs.

‍

• Goal: Engage the education and university market with a mobile version of the Virtual Stock Exchange.
  
  
• Deadline: Launch before the semester start (~3 months).
  
  
• Constraint: Native development meant separate iOS and Android codebases, adding time and cost.

Our Solution

Dow Jones turned to VGV and our expertise with Flutter to deliver a high-quality cross-platform app with a single codebase. By partnering with us, they could rapidly design, build, and test the app—ensuring it was beautiful, performant, and ready to scale. This included:

‍

• Going Cross-Platform with Flutter: Instead of writing and maintaining two separate native apps, the team built once in Flutter and deployed everywhere. This dramatically accelerated development and eliminated duplicate engineering effort.
  
  
• Focusing on Speed and Polish: With just three months to launch, efficiency was paramount. Flutter’s Hot Reload and widget-based design enabled rapid iteration without sacrificing design quality, helping the team keep momentum while still delivering a refined experience.
  
  
• Choosing Future-Proof Technology: Beyond this project, adopting Flutter positioned Dow Jones to scale and reuse code across future products. The app became a proof point internally that modern frameworks could deliver both cost savings and strategic value. 

‍

“Thanks to Flutter and VGV, we delivered on our goal of building a fun, engaging, and performant app for all screens and mobile devices in significantly less time and cost than if we built it natively. The team and thousands of players are very happy with the results." - Clarence Kwei, SVP Consumer Technology, Dow Jones

‍

The Result

3 Months

Fast-tracked launch on iOS and Android

‍

50% Cost Savings

Compare to native development

Want an even closer look? Dive into all the technicalities with our in-depth Flutter Showcase!