abillion – we make vegan easy - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

I have four years of experience in full stack development. I started from scratch in a bootcamp and gained technical exposure along with practical experience that helped in my career as a developer. I then co-founded a company called Domato Devs which was an itinerary planner and content discovery platform. I realized I needed to hone my coding skills so I moved on to work with abillion, a startup that’s dedicated to making social impact through social media and user generated content.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

Balancing the needs of members in our community and providing features which are intuitive to use for new members, while also providing a user experience for existing and power users. Mobile screen space is valuable real estate and we have to decide what to highlight to make the experience more enjoyable for members of the community.

_{Rebecca Elizabeth Tay - Software Engineer, abillion.}

Rebecca Elizabeth Tay is a Software Engineer at abillion. In her role, she works as a full-stack engineer to develop and maintain features on several products and has four years of experience building web and mobile applications. Rebecca is a Singaporean, graduated from the National University of Singapore, and likes fluffy cats.

Name a few of your favorite apps and reason you love them.

Goodreads: It is an app to keep track of books you have read and get recommendations. It has a cool image recognition feature where you can scan a book cover or barcode to quickly get information without having to search for it.
Nexo: It is a crypto savings account with daily interest. The interface is clean and the app just provides utility without bells and whistles.

How long have you been working on this app?

Almost three years.

What need of the user did you have in mind when developing this app?

My aim was to provide a smooth and enjoyable user experience for the members of our app. So that they can connect with like-minded individuals and find reliable information about plant-based food and sustainable product options.

In what way do you think your app is better than similar apps on the market? Please describe in detail what innovation you think you bring and what you are proud of in your app.

Social impact is at the forefront of what we do. Every time a member posts a review of a plant-based dish or a cruelty-free product, we credit US $1 which members can choose to donate to any of our 67 nonprofit partners. Since 2017, we have donated over $900,000 to nonprofits around the world. Each review credits $1 that can be used to create a real impact. We also leverage tech to amplify our community’s voice and push for more sustainable business practices. We have the most unique and largest data set on sustainable and plant-based food and products that help businesses look for growth opportunities.

I’m very proud of the dining feature that my team and I worked on. The dining feature allows our members to search for vegan options near them. It was challenging to provide good recommendations for users in remote areas or who have denied location permissions. We addressed this by using their IP address and approximate locality to guess where they are. We are continuing to make our dining feature better for members to enjoy good plant-based food near them. It is not just an individual effort, it's a team effort that we were able to make our app user-friendly to provide a satisfying experience for our community.

What are your future plans and expected features of the coming new versions of this app?

We recently launched social posts that allow our members to post anything they want. We like to say we are a social media for social good platform, so adding the social posts feature was very important. It has helped our members to start conversations about sustainability, circular economy and share tips, social concerns to a larger conscious community.

As for the future plans, we are working on launching a marketplace to help conscious consumers to buy and sell plant-based and cruelty- free products on our app. The marketplace is an attempt to bridge the gap between conscious consumers and businesses who are looking to offer more sustainable options.

Assuming new users of your app are reading this page. What do you want to ask them to do (contact you about X, Share the app, etc.)?

Download our app ‘abillion’ and create a meaningful impact today!