The company

Stroke is a leading cause of death and disability, and millions of patients suffer severe consequences. Yet, within today's care systems, they don't find the support they need, resulting in poor recovery outcomes and skyrocketing care costs. The Berlin startup Rekoo aims to solve this by building the world's first virtual clinic for stroke recovery.

The app

Rekoo set out to create a native app for android tablets to support stroke patients. The app guides the patients through an individual journey based on their condition, which includes learning content in the stroke academy, exercises and habits. It also reminds patients to take their medication and tracks their blood pressure to advise on their current values and blood pressure history.

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The challenge

Rekoo's founder, Lucas Wagner, asked us if we were the right partner to build an MVP that could be validated in a clinical trial. As a seed-stage startup, it was essential for Rekoo to find an agency that works in an agile way and allows them to build, test, and adapt things quickly. This only works with software developers who not only execute but also think and actively give feedback.

As an early-stage startup, building its own team of developers was not an option for Rekoo at the time. But they wanted a partner whose developers felt and acted like employees. And they needed advice on which technologies to consider and which architecture was the most viable and cost-effective option.

Another challenge was the certification as a medical device. The company must meet numerous requirements for data privacy, data security, code quality, and processes to obtain a CE certification. All changes have to meet the highest quality standards and be logged accordingly. A lot of experience is required to be able to do this.

Of course, all this had to happen within the limited budget for MVP development. And the app had to be ready on time for the start of the clinical trial.

The solution

We started the project with a detailed analysis of the requirements. Based on this, we leveraged our years of experience to advise Rekoo and help them select the right technology and architecture.

We assembled the team from a Tech Lead in Berlin with more than 15 years of experience and a Senior Mobile Developer in Rwanda. Our Tech Lead was able to provide architecture advice and is familiar with regulatory requirements on DSVGO and CE certification. He was able to ensure compliance with the relevant quality standards and processes. Our Senior Developer contributed his years of experience developing high-usability mobile apps.

We used an open-source headless CMS to manage all educational content to move fast and save costs. This data does not need much protection, so we could save the development of a backend.

For the development of the mobile app, we decided to use Flutter. Flutter offers very high developer productivity and allowed us to progress quickly. It also gave us the option to later provide the app with the same codebase for multiple platforms.

Our team worked in an agile sprint process. Each day started with a standup with the Rekoo team, there was a close exchange via Slack and Linear, and our developer seamlessly integrated into the Rekoo team.

As a result, we completed the first version of Rekoo under budget and on time. Currently, we are working on enhancements and improvements while the clinical trial is ongoing.