I’m the tech founder on a two person team. I still haven’t left my day job yet. My background is heavy Android and in the last year I’ve been forcing myself to learn Kotlin for my startup project. I’ve been aware of KMP for a while but I just saw that it was recently declared stable and ready for production. There have also been some pretty significant companies using it in production (I believe the Forbes app is now entirely KMM (KMP for mobile)).
Since my background is Android a native iOS version probably requires us to do some fundraising. KMM is very attractive. I can centralize the business logic. Which I hope can reduce the learning curve if I decide to roll my own SwiftUI components. Not to mention it sounds like sometime in the nearish future Compose for iOS may have a stable build.
What I didn’t realize is there’s a number of companies using Kotlin server side for a while now. I wrote our backend using Flask but now I’m thinking about rewriting it in Kotlin before it gets too complex.
Anyone using KMM or KMP more broadly? If you are what have your experiences been like?
If you have a server side and an android version up and running, launch an MVP with that. Don’t wait on iOS, just put something out there. When someone asks about the iOS version, tell the truth that you are working on it.
Fair enough. I’m thinking a little further ahead rather than anything immediate. You’re absolutely right we need to get the MVP out the door first and gauge traction. What got me thinking about this was trying to figure out how much we should raise (we’re simultaneously preparing for an MVP launch and refining or pitch once we get some traction). The more tech I can roll solo leads to either longer runway or hiring more business oriented folks rather than a dev or two.
Yes, yes, yes! This! You get it!
If you haven’t got much traction then don’t rewrite the backend just to change tech. You’ll be forced to do a big rewrite at some point due to pivot, scaling etc and so just do it then. Test traction before tech.
That’s a good point. I’m not going to refactor the MVP! I was looking beyond releasing the MVP a little to raising funds (assuming we get traction). We’re working on our pitch deck while simultaneously getting closer to release. The hope is we get some solid traction then start pitching. I need to decide the feasibility of me tackling an iOS version sometime in 2024 and bake that into the ask amount.
We use KMP for core business logic on iOS web and android. If we started over I’d do all our apps in KMP end to end except maybe web since there’s some stuff we need wasms for.
Core business logic let’s you you write once and update everywhere to avoid discrepancies across platforms for the most critical processes. Id advise doing this if you’re planning to change
Just fyi though you do need about 2-3 weeks to train a kotlin dev to learn KMP. There’s a shortage of KMP devs so that’s the best way to find them
For backend? Id need to investigate more but my first thought is there’s likely better languages for this like Go or even Laravel and you’d get more willing participants (Kotlin guys tend to be front-enders)