Building a React Native Chatbot App To Unlock New Growth Opportunities for a FinTech Startup
Cleo is an AI powered finance chatbot with over 1,000,000 global users, allowing customers to interact with their bank accounts and financial information using natural speech.
Originally created as a Facebook Messenger app, the team at Cleo wanted to explore moving the app away from the technical constraints of Facebook by creating a stand-alone mobile application. An app also presented organic growth opportunities, with exposure to new users through the App Store and Play Store.
Whilst the team at Cleo had an abundance of React knowledge, they lacked specific React Native expertise and mobile DevOps knowledge, so turned to Theodo to both upskill the team and create the MVP version of the app.
Working in the Theodo agile structure, and leaning on techniques like Pair Programming and technical refinements, we were able to deliver the app and upskill the team of four developers on areas like Fastlane, notifications and codepush.
Head of Engineering
Head of Engineering
Working onsite alongside the Cleo developers, we delivered the MVP and went live with the app in 7 weeks of development.
Once the app was on the app stores, the focus shifted to ensuring the Cleo team had the autonomy to continue development without Theodo. A live app represents new challenges, and we invested time getting their developers comfortable with building and deploying to a production app, and using CodePush to quickly push critical fixes to the codebase.
The app has a few standout features, including a waitlist to control entry to the app, a Monzo style ‘magic link’ system for new user authentication and working with Facebook auth tokens for existing Facebook messenger users.
Within one week of soft release, the app had over 4,000 users on the waitlist, and after 3 months, Cleo had onboarded thousands of new users directly through the app.
