Overview

Few online marketplaces carry the reputation of this one. It is one of the most popular car auction platforms in the US, a place where people auction and sell cars online, and it is known for unique and authentic vehicles, many of them rare and hard to find anywhere else.

The platform needed mobile applications for iOS and Android that could live up to that reputation. Flatiron Software took over the project mid-development, brought both apps to launch, and has kept improving them ever since. Three years later, the apps serve more than 2.7 million active users.

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Team and Timeline

The engagement started lean: a project manager who also led QA, and four developers. Six months after the takeover, the iOS app was live, and Android followed three months later. With iOS devices more common among US users and a single developer dedicated to Android, the plan put iOS first from day one. As the apps grew, so did the team. Over the last six months it has doubled to eight developers, who keep shipping new features and improvements.

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Opportunities

When Flatiron took over, the client's own designers had already completed most of the app design. The real work was in functionality, and a long list of unfinished tasks stood between the apps and their first release.

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At the heart of it was time. In a car auction, every second counts, and countdowns appear across much of the app. If a timer drifted, users could believe an auction had ended while it was still open, or miss that a listing had just received a new bid. For a platform built on trust, the apps had to show the true state of every auction, at every moment.

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Solution

The first phase focused on launch. The team reviewed the open tasks one by one, cut those that added little value, and kept only what the release truly needed. Then came the most critical piece: the real-time layer. Flatiron implemented Pusher to power countdowns and bid updates across the app, and spent significant time making that system dependable. In parallel, the team repaired broken screens and features to get the apps ready for users.

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The second phase began after launch, and it continues today. Over three years, the team has added a long list of new features and resolved a large number of bugs. The process relies on a close loop with the client's support team, which stays in constant contact with users. When a bug report arrives, the team addresses it right away and ships a new version with the fix as soon as possible. Release after release, the apps have become more stable and reliable.

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Outcome

Today, the apps serve more than 2.7 million active users across iOS and Android. Their crash-free user rate has held at around 99.90% for more than a year, a clear signal of how reliable they have become.

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What started as an unfinished project is now a mature product, backed by a team that has doubled in size and continues to evolve the experience alongside the client. For a platform where every bid and every second matters, that reliability is the foundation of the experience.

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Why Flatiron?

Flatiron delivers complex AI transformation projects at enterprise scale, fast, independently, and with no disruption to your existing teams. Our model lets you capture the value of AI while protecting your core business and product roadmap. From project management to technical delivery, we bring deep expertise, proven process, and clear accountability.

Ready to see what AI can do for your company? Let's talk.