Not to be dramatic but, I made an app and it changed my life.
Problem
I had been dabbling with vegetarianism and then veganism for a few years and had started to get serious about cutting out all animal products from my diet just before I started dating Nick. He was the first vegan I had met in Oslo, and I was so curious to find out what his experience was like. I asked him where he liked to go out to eat expecting him to name the same veggie friendly places I knew of. I was surprised when he named a bunch of different restaurants I didn’t know about. He had never heard of the places I told him about either. I sighed, ‘It’s so hard to find vegan places to eat, it takes too much time to scroll through recommendations on blogs and Facebook groups, wouldn’t it be great if there was an app or something that listed all the veggie places in Oslo on a map so you can easily find the nearest veggie place when you are out and about?’ He looked at me and raised an eyebrow ‘Sal, aren’t you an app designer? You should just make it.’
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a really good idea. It would certainly be useful for me and Nick anyway, and it would be fantastic if I could make it easier for people to eat less meat. But should it be an app, a website, or something else? How would I find places to add? Maybe it would be fun to make a little proof of concept? I started doing a little research.
Research & Ideation
I spent the next few weekends walking around Oslo looking at restaurant menus keeping my eyes peeled for veggie options, taking meticulous notes on my phone. In the evenings I analysed other restaurant guide apps, and saw what local bloggers had to say about the greener options available in Oslo. The user would need to find information about where to go when they were out and about, and it needed to take their location into account so it would need to be an app. I made some paper wireframes and then worked on some loose designs and prototypes.
Making the app
I decided upon a nice turquoise colour for the app, and an icon which was based on a dropped map pin. I dug deep into my savings and hired some developers to help me build a database, an iOS app, and connect the two. I signed up for an apple developer license, made a website, an email, and claimed all the social media handles I would need. That’s when I realised that this was really happening. After a month or two of hard work I suddenly found my mouse hovering over the publish button in the Apple Developer Console. This was it, I’d made my own app and soon real people would be able to start using it!
Making Oslo a little greener
I started the app with 30 places and no users. In the space of a week or two, and with a bit of hard work on my social media strategy the user base had grown to 1000! Nick volunteered to help me find places to add to the app so I could focus on promoting it. We spent all our weekends working on the app and testing out restaurants, it was actually really lovely and exciting. Things really took off after Oslo’s biggest newspaper: Aftenposten, got in touch and wrote an article about it. Suddenly the users started pouring in!
Expansion
Every day I would get messages from people who wanted me to make an Android version of the app. I really wanted to, but I couldn’t afford to dip into my savings again to pay for development work. I decided to find a full stack developer who shared my vision for the app, someone who wanted to be my partner in the project. My prayers were answered when I met Christian Ihle. He reached out to me and told me that he would love to work with me on an Android version of the app. A dream team was born. Christian did the development of the database and the apps, and I did design and content.
Soon after we launched the android app we started working on how we could cover other cities. We upgraded the iOS app and included new features in the UI like filters, images, and ways to sort results. We learned that the app had a bit of fanbase and we ended up with a huge group of people spread out across Norway helping us test and find places to add.
More than just an app
Making this app has been a lot of fun and led to so many other interesting experiences. I have held talks at festivals and events, and got to work with big brands and restaurant chains like Peppes Pizza and Deli De Luca to help them develop vegan options. We ended up creating The Nice Awards as part of Oslo Vegetarfestival in which we gave awards to some of the greener businesses in town. Since creating our app the amount of places with veggie options in Norway has increased dramatically. We now have over 1000 places listed in the app, and over 20,000 users. I have learnt so much about app development, the restaurant scene and the vegan scene. But perhaps most importantly I have made some friendships that I hope will last forever. Here are just a few of the good memories we have created over the years.
