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App Corp
Full-service software engineering
Engineering your experience…
App Corp
Full-service software engineering
Engineering your experience…
How we took a B2B analytics concept from Figma to live product in 10 weeks, landing 12 design partners and growing to $480K ARR within a year.
About The Client
A B2B analytics SaaS startup building lightweight, embeddable dashboard tools for mid-market companies that find Tableau too heavy and Google Data Studio too limited.
Business Intelligence & Analytics SaaS
Startup (5 co-founders)
Berlin, Germany
Startup
Technology Stack
The specific stack was chosen after evaluating the client's scalability requirements, compliance constraints, team capabilities, and long-term maintainability — not retrofitted to existing preferences.
DataBridge's five co-founders had deep domain expertise in analytics and a clear market gap: mid-market companies found Tableau and Looker too complex and expensive, but Google Data Studio couldn't handle their needs. They had $600K in seed funding, a polished Figma prototype, and a 10-week deadline to ship an MVP and start generating revenue. They had no engineers, no codebase, and no technical co-founder. App Corp was brought in to build the product from zero.
10wk
deadline from zero code to first paying customer
Key Pain Points
Zero product — only a Figma prototype and a pitch deck
No in-house engineering team — five non-technical co-founders
10-week deadline to shipping MVP to satisfy seed investor milestones
Complex data ingestion requirements across common business tools
Embedded analytics needed from day one for enterprise pilot conversations
We made a deliberate bet on simplicity: PostgreSQL-based architecture instead of ClickHouse or Redshift — more than sufficient for the MVP scale and far cheaper to operate. The MVP scope was ruthlessly prioritised down to 6 chart types, 3 data source connectors (Postgres, Stripe, CSV upload), and basic dashboard sharing. No multi-tenancy, no embedding, no white-label — those would come after validation. Ship fast, iterate faster.
A clean drag-and-drop dashboard builder with 6 chart types — bar, line, pie, table, number, and area charts. Users connect a data source, drag charts onto a canvas, and share dashboards via a link. Built with Chart.js for lightweight rendering without enterprise overhead.
Three pre-built connectors: PostgreSQL (direct query), Stripe (API sync), and CSV upload. Each connector with configurable refresh schedules and basic transformation capabilities — enough to serve 80% of target customer use cases.
Simple dashboard sharing via public or password-protected links. Multi-user accounts with role-based permissions (admin, editor, viewer). No SSO, no SAML, no enterprise auth — kept deliberately simple for the MVP phase.
Built-in onboarding flow for design partners — in-app feedback widget, usage analytics, and a direct Slack integration for the founding team to hear from early users daily. Feedback directly shaped the product roadmap.
Every engagement follows a disciplined, phased delivery methodology — built on transparency, measurable milestones, and continuous client collaboration throughout.
We spent the first 2 weeks with the founding team scoping the absolute minimum viable product. Every feature was challenged with 'does this block a design partner from signing up?' If not, it was cut. The architecture was intentionally simple: Next.js on Vercel, PostgreSQL on AWS RDS, Chart.js for visualisations.
The core dashboard builder — data source connection, chart rendering, and dashboard layout — was built in a single 5-week sprint. A working prototype with CSV upload and bar/line charts was demoed to 3 prospective design partners at the end of week 4.
With the MVP live, we onboarded 12 design partners over 3 weeks. Each partner received personalised onboarding and a direct line to the engineering team. Daily feedback sessions shaped the remaining features — the most requested additions were prioritised into 2-week iteration cycles.
Every number below is a verified, real-world outcome. No hypotheticals, no projections — these are the results delivered.
$480K
ARR at Month 12
Annual Recurring Revenue from 42 paying customers
12
Design Partners Onboarded
Within 3 weeks of MVP launch — shaping the product roadmap
10wks
Time to First Revenue
From zero code to first paying customer
42
Paying Customers
Active accounts across 12 countries at month 12
94%
Platform Uptime
Sustained over 12 months on simple AWS RDS + Vercel stack
6→20
Chart Types Expanded
Grew from 6 MVP chart types to 20+ based on customer demand
“We came to App Corp with a Figma file and a seed round. Ten weeks later we had a live product and our first paying customer. They made smart bets on simplicity — PostgreSQL over ClickHouse, Chart.js over custom rendering — that kept our burn rate low while we validated the market. Within a year we hit $480K ARR. For a team of five non-technical founders, having App Corp as our engineering partners was the difference between shipping and stalling.”
Marcus Chen
Co-Founder & CEO · DataBridge Analytics