Native iOS apps
Native iPhone and iPad apps built in Swift and SwiftUI. Deep iOS integration — widgets, Live Activities, StoreKit, Apple Sign-In, HealthKit.
- App Store release
- TestFlight pipeline
- Push + deep links
- Widget extensions
NH · Apps & Software · since 2022Sheridan, WY · Remote · 80+ shipped
NerdHeadz·Apps & Software Development·v2026
Custom apps & software, engineered to ship.
NerdHeadz is an AI-first software development studio. We design, build, and ship native iOS and Android apps, cross-platform mobile apps, web applications, progressive web apps, and the backend APIs they run on — for founders, product teams, and enterprises.
/01MobileiOS · Android · RN · Flutter →
/02WebNext.js · React · PWA →
/03BackendNode · Python · Postgres →
/04AIAgents · RAG · Voice →
// 00 · What is this
App development, without the agency tax.
NerdHeadz is a custom software development studio. We build apps from scratch — native iOS in Swift, native Android in Kotlin, cross-platform mobile in React Native and Flutter, and web applications in Next.js and TypeScript. We also build the backend APIs, databases, and AI layers that make those apps useful.
Most clients come to us with one of three problems: ship a first product in a quarter, add AI to a product that already exists, or rescue a build that another agency got wrong. We handle all three. We charge a fair price, tell you the truth about the scope, and hand over a codebase you can hire a team around after launch.
- Founded
- 2022
- Location
- Sheridan, Wyoming, USA
- Team
- Senior-only engineers & designers
- Hours overlap
- Full US Eastern, partial US Pacific
// 01 · What we build
Six kinds of apps & software we ship.
Every product we build falls into one of these buckets — often two or three of them at once. Tap into the details or keep reading for how we actually deliver them.
Native Android apps
Kotlin and Jetpack Compose apps with Material 3. Play Store ready, with background work, WorkManager, and Play Billing built in.
- Play Store release
- Internal testing track
- ProGuard hardening
- Play Billing
Cross-platform apps
One codebase, two stores. React Native and Flutter apps that ship to iOS and Android together — without the usual cross-platform tax.
- iOS + Android
- Over-the-air updates
- Native module layer
- CI/CD for both stores
Web applications
Production web apps — dashboards, SaaS, portals, marketplaces. Next.js 15, React Server Components, TypeScript end-to-end.
- Production app
- Admin panel
- Auth + billing
- Observability
Progressive Web Apps
Installable web apps that work offline, push notifications included. One build, runs everywhere — iOS, Android, desktop browsers.
- Installable PWA
- Offline sync
- Push notifications
- App-like UX
Backend & APIs
The engine behind the app — REST and GraphQL APIs, background jobs, webhooks, and the database schema that scales past the first 10k users.
- REST / GraphQL API
- Background workers
- Postgres schema
- Rate limiting + auth
// 02 · How we build
Six phases. One deployed build every Friday.
We run two-week sprints from day one. You see real software — not slideware — on a schedule you can plan around.
- 011 week
Discovery
Stakeholder interviews, existing-product audit, success metrics. We come back with a written brief, scope, and a risk log — signed before anyone writes code.
- 022 – 3 weeks
Design
Research, wireframes, hi-fi flows, and a working design system. Claude-accelerated iteration: 3× the screen variants, same taste.
- 034 – 12 weeks
Build
Fortnightly sprints. You see a deployed build every Friday — not a Figma. Test users from week three, not launch day.
- 041 – 2 weeks
QA & hardening
Device-lab testing, accessibility audit, performance budgets, security review. App Store and Play Store submissions, not "code complete".
- 051 week
Launch
Staged rollout, analytics dashboards, crash reporting, status page. Your on-call rotation hands over cleanly — we stay on for 30 days of warranty.
- 06ongoing
Scale
Monthly roadmap reviews, feature sprints, and an SLA if you want one. Most clients keep us on for 6 – 18 months after launch.
// 03 · The stack
Modern tools, production-tested.
We use the same stack large engineering teams use in production — no proprietary lock-in, no bespoke framework you’ll need to replace later.
/01Frontend
Next.jsReactTypeScriptTailwindSwiftUIJetpack Compose
/02Mobile
SwiftKotlinReact NativeFlutterExpo
/03Backend
Node.jsPythonGotRPCGraphQLREST
/04Data
PostgresRedisSupabaseFirebasepgvectorQdrant
/05AI
ClaudeOpenAIGeminiLangGraphMCPDeepgram
/06Infra
VercelAWSCloudflareFly.ioRailwayDocker
/07Ops
SentryPostHogDatadogPagerDutyGitHub Actions
// 04 · Industries
Six years of domain knowledge.
We’ve built across regulated and unregulated markets. The shortlist — where we have real, shipped-to-production experience.
/013 projects
Fintech
Banking · payments · crypto
Regulated apps that handle money — KYC, PCI-compliant payment flows, real-time ledgers.
/022 projects
Healthtech
Clinical · wellness · care
HIPAA-aware systems, patient data, clinical workflows, telehealth, and wearables.
/034 projects
EdTech
Learning · credentials
Student platforms, AI tutors, assessment engines, and institution dashboards.
/042 projects
Logistics
Trucking · last-mile · ops
Dispatch, routing, driver apps, live tracking, and the integrations no one wants to write.
/053 projects
Marketplaces
Two-sided · transactional
Buyers, sellers, payments, trust — including the moderation and dispute flows that keep it honest.
/066 projects
SaaS tools
B2B · internal · productivity
Multi-tenant dashboards, billing, RBAC, audit logs, and the admin surface your team actually needs.
// 05 · Why NerdHeadz
What actually makes us different.
Every agency claims "senior team, fast delivery". Here’s what those words mean in practice, with us.
01
We ship, we don’t demo
Every Friday there’s a deployed build you can open on your phone. No two-month "prep for the demo" gap.
02
AI-first engineering
We use Claude Code daily in our own build process — which is why we can move 2 – 3× faster than a traditional agency on the same scope.
03
One team, not hand-offs
Design, mobile, backend, and infra all under one roof. Tickets don’t get lost between four vendors.
04
Senior-only engineers
No junior-hidden-in-the-middle. Every person on your project has shipped a product to production in the last year.
✺Selected work
Apps we shipped this decade.
// 07 · Decisions
The four decisions every founder asks us about.
Honest, opinionated answers to the choices that shape every build. Pick the wrong one and the project costs twice as much.
/01
Native app or cross-platform app?
Cross-platform (React Native, Flutter) is the right choice when the product is mostly business logic, forms, lists, and API calls — roughly 80% of apps. Native (Swift, Kotlin) is the right choice when the app leans on OS-specific features (Live Activities, ARKit, HealthKit, advanced widgets, Bluetooth mesh) or needs heavy local compute like video editing.
Our takeDefault to cross-platform; go native only when the feature list demands it.
/02
Mobile app or progressive web app?
Ship a PWA when the audience will reach the product through a URL — B2B tools, internal software, content platforms. Ship a mobile app when discovery happens inside the App Store or Play Store, when engagement depends on push notifications, or when the product needs Apple Pay / Google Pay / in-app purchases. Many products eventually ship both.
Our takePWA for reach and speed to market; mobile app for engagement and storefront presence.
/03
Build in-house or work with an agency?
Build in-house when the software is core intellectual property and the organisation can hire a senior product engineer, a senior designer, and a senior mobile engineer within three months. Work with an agency (like us) when you need to move in weeks, when the skill mix you need is temporary, or when the product is adjacent to the core business.
Our takeAgency for speed and breadth; in-house for long-term ownership of a core product.
/04
Rewrite the legacy app or modernise it in place?
Rewrites are tempting but rarely the right call. An in-place modernisation — replacing screens one at a time, extracting the backend into a modern API gateway, migrating the data layer behind a feature flag — preserves the compounded value of years of bug fixes and edge-case handling. We rewrite only when the legacy stack is genuinely unhireable for.
Our takeModernise in place by default; rewrite only when the language or framework has no future.
// 08 · Deliverables
What you get at handover.
Every project ends with the same four-bucket package — code, design, operations, and a clean handover. Nothing locked in our accounts.
/01Code
- A documented Git repository
- Infrastructure-as-code (Terraform or Pulumi)
- CI/CD pipelines for staging and production
- Automated test suites (unit, integration, E2E)
/02Design
- A Figma file with all final screens
- A design token file and component library
- Accessibility audit (WCAG 2.2 AA)
- Brand and asset kit
/03Operations
- A runbook for common operational tasks
- Monitoring dashboards (Sentry, PostHog, Datadog)
- On-call rotation setup
- Status page configured
/04Handover
- 30-day post-launch warranty
- Knowledge-transfer sessions
- Architecture decision records
- Optional monthly retainer for support
// 09 · Definitions
App development, defined.
The terms our clients ask about most. Plain-English answers — written for humans first, search and answer engines second.
What is custom software development?
Custom software development is the discipline of designing, building, and maintaining software tailored to a specific organization’s workflows — instead of buying an off-the-shelf product. At NerdHeadz, a typical custom software project involves a discovery phase, UX and UI design, application engineering (web, mobile, or both), a backend API layer, and a deployment plus monitoring setup.
What is native iOS app development?
Native iOS app development means building an iPhone or iPad application in Apple’s own languages and frameworks — primarily Swift and SwiftUI, using Xcode and the App Store distribution pipeline. Native apps have full access to iOS features like Live Activities, widgets, HealthKit, ARKit, and StoreKit, and they ship with the best possible performance and battery life.
What is native Android app development?
Native Android app development is the practice of building an Android application in Kotlin (or, historically, Java) with Google’s Jetpack toolkit — most commonly Jetpack Compose for the UI layer. Native Android apps have full access to the Android OS, hardware sensors, background work APIs, and the Play Billing and Play Store distribution channels.
What is cross-platform app development?
Cross-platform app development is the practice of building a single codebase that compiles to both iOS and Android — typically using React Native, Expo, or Flutter. It is usually 40 – 60% cheaper than building two native apps in parallel, at the cost of slightly less access to the very latest OS features. Most business and content apps do not notice the difference.
What is a progressive web app (PWA)?
A progressive web app is a website that meets a set of technical criteria — HTTPS, a service worker, a web app manifest — so that it can be installed on a phone or desktop and behave like a native app. PWAs can work offline, receive push notifications, and are distributed through a URL rather than through an app store.
What is a backend API?
A backend API is the server-side component of an application that stores data, enforces business rules, and handles requests from mobile apps, web apps, and third-party integrations. At NerdHeadz, backend APIs are typically built in Node.js, Python, or Go, and communicate via REST or GraphQL over HTTPS.
What is an MVP?
An MVP, or minimum viable product, is the smallest version of a product that still delivers core value to a real user. It is used to validate a product hypothesis cheaply and quickly, before committing to a full build. A NerdHeadz MVP typically ships in 6 – 10 weeks and comes with a real user auth flow, a deployed backend, and enough instrumentation to learn from actual usage.
What is a SaaS application?
A SaaS (software-as-a-service) application is a product sold as an ongoing subscription rather than a one-time license. It is typically multi-tenant — one codebase serving many customer organisations with isolated data. NerdHeadz builds SaaS apps on Next.js, Postgres, Stripe, and Supabase or a custom auth layer.
// 10 · Frequently asked
Questions, answered plainly.
The ten questions every client asks before signing. If yours isn’t here, the fastest answer is a 30-minute call — we’ll tell you straight whether we’re the right fit.
Native iOS and Android apps, cross-platform apps in React Native and Flutter, web applications on Next.js, progressive web apps, and the backend APIs and databases that power them. We ship in the same codebases large teams use in production — no proprietary lock-in.
A clickable prototype in 2 weeks. A public MVP in 6 – 10 weeks. A production app with auth, billing, analytics, and support for 10k+ users in 12 – 16 weeks. Complex enterprise builds run 4 – 9 months. We tell you which bucket you’re in after a 30-minute discovery call.
Fixed-scope builds start at USD 5,000. Embedded pods are from USD 5,000 / month. Retainers are from USD 5,000 / month. Time & materials run from USD 60 / hour. Discovery sprints are free to USD 5,000. We also do a free PoC or prototype as a relationship-builder when the shape of the build is clear. Prices are in the brief, not buried in a final invoice.
Both. Cross-platform (React Native, Flutter) is the right call when the app is mostly business logic and you want one codebase. Native (Swift, Kotlin) is the right call when the app leans on the OS — Live Activities, HealthKit, ARKit, deep widgets, or heavy performance. We’ll recommend the tool that fits the product, not the tool we sell.
Yes. About half our work is brownfield — inheriting legacy systems, modernizing a stack, or grafting AI onto an app that shipped three years ago. We read the repo first, write a plan, then ship in slices. No rewrites for the sake of rewriting.
You do. All source code, assets, accounts, and infrastructure transfer to your org at launch. We hand over a documented repo, a runbook, and a 30-day warranty — not a black box.
Yes. We handle listing copy, screenshots, App Privacy details, and the submission itself on your Apple and Google accounts. We’ve shipped 80+ products and know every form of rejection reason by heart.
A 30-day warranty window is included with every build. After that you can keep us on a retainer — from USD 2k / month for basic support, USD 5k – 15k / month for active feature work. Or take the runbook and run it in-house. Most clients keep us for 6 – 18 months.
Sheridan, Wyoming, USA. The team is distributed and works remotely with clients across the US, Europe, LATAM, and the Middle East. We overlap US Eastern business hours in full and US Pacific hours through mid-afternoon.
Three things. One: we use Claude Code daily in our own build process, which is why we ship 2 – 3× faster than a traditional shop on the same scope. Two: every engineer on your project is senior — no junior hidden in the middle. Three: design, mobile, backend, and infra are all under one roof, so tickets don’t get lost between four vendors.
Let’s ship
Tell us what app you’re building.
Thirty minutes, no slide deck. Bring a Figma, a repo, or a napkin sketch — we’ll come back with a shape, a timeline, and a number.
