Apps · 2023
Real-Time Drop Alerts for Sneakerheads
When a limited sneaker drops, ten minutes late means sold out. So notifications had to reach everyone. Fast.
→A Flutter app with a push pipeline that reaches the whole audience within moments of publishing.
Highlights
- ✦One Flutter codebase for iOS & Android
- ✦CMS publish triggers a Cloud Function that chunks delivery
- ✦Editors post drops without touching code
The challenge
Sneakerheads want drop news now. Not in ten minutes, when it’s gone.
The app had to be fast on iOS and Android, and editors needed to publish without a developer.
What I built
I led it end-to-end, from architecture to deployment:
- Flutter for one codebase, two platforms
- Firebase Cloud Messaging for push, with proper opt-in flows
- A relaunch of the backend on Kirby when WordPress hit its limits
- A Google Cloud Function that splits the audience into delivery chunks the moment an editor hits publish
The lesson
Event-driven beats polling. Every time.
Today I use the exact same pattern in AI automations: something happens, a function fires, the right people get the right message. Just with an LLM in the middle. 🤖
