Case study / Solo product, brand, UX, native engineering, AI

A home for the Frenchie parent in me.

FRNCHY is a native community and care app for French bulldog parents. I designed and built every part of it myself. It is coming soon to the App Store.

Illustrated Frenchies Luna, a brindle, and Athena, a fawn in a grey hoodie
  • Community
  • Care education
  • Health journal
  • Heat safety
  • Behavior observations
  • Illustrated portraits
  • Private messaging
  • Native iOS app
  • Coming soon to the App Store
Luna story artworkLuna
Athena story artworkAthena
Park story artworkPark day
01 / Why

I am in this community.

I love the French bulldog community, and I am part of it. Athena and Luna are my two Frenchie kids, and they are the reason FRNCHY exists.

I recognized the people around me: they join groups, post and share, and obsess over their dogs exactly as I do. The in-app community, sharing, connection, and private messaging bring those behaviors into one place.

That revealed the product opportunity: the joy of sharing lives in one place, while everyday care lives somewhere else. I wanted a home for both—the silly moments we cannot stop posting and the practical information we need before a walk or a vet visit.

The brand has a childlike charm because Frenchies are sweet, cute, funny, silly and mischievous, and they share a lot with human children. The charm stops where health information starts: that content stays clear and professional.

Playful on the surface. Careful where it counts.
02 / Scope

Breed-specific utility.

I owned product strategy, branding, interface design, native engineering and AI integration. This is a working native product—not a click-through prototype handed to someone else to build.

Care education and health journal

Education on breed health issues, a journal for tracking, and reminders surfaced in a notification center.

Heat safety

Local weather context with a manual fallback. Awareness, not a diagnosis or guarantee. Seek a veterinarian for distress.

Cue observations

Upload video and read visible behavior observations. Interpretation of cues, not translation.

Personalized portraits

A profile photo and details become a downloadable illustration.

03 / Personality in motion

Athena barks.
Luna snorts.

The welcome experience introduces the personalities behind the product. Expressive illustrations, gentle motion and the familiar sounds of a Frenchie make the brand feel like a family, not a generic pet utility.

The same personality continues through rounded type, soft colors and illustrated details. For care and weather, I pair that warmth with direct language and clear next steps. Delight should help someone feel at home; it should never obscure what matters.

Rendered welcome visualization using original FRNCHY artwork. Not a native screen capture.

04 / Workflows

From everyday joy
to everyday care.

Weather context before the walk

Short snouts make Frenchies overheat easily, and heatstroke can be fatal. This flow gives context, not a diagnosis.

Interface visualizations reconstructed from published UI definitions, with illustrative content. These are not native screenshots or screen recordings.
05 / Community

Share the silly stuff.

Community is the reason FRNCHY exists: family profiles, a feed of shared moments, stories, a composer and private messages between families. Four views, shown together.

Frenchie Family

Find familiesMessages
Stories
Your story

A little moment belongs hereShare a photo to start your family stories.

LLuna and Athena

Park day with the crew

Feed and storiesPick a story in the strip to preview it in the viewer.
LLuna
Luna story artwork
Snort practice, take nine.
Story viewer

A new moment

Who is this about?

Your story

What did your Frenchie do today?
Add a photo
Publish post
Post composerChoose who and a photo to preview. Nothing is posted from this page.

Messages

Messages here are private between your families.

Message centerOpen a conversation from the inbox, then go back.

Rendered interface visualizations with illustrative content and original FRNCHY artwork. Not native screen captures.

06 / Brand

Sweet, rounded, warm.

The palette comes straight from the published code. Nunito in regular, semibold, bold and heavy keeps everything soft and legible.

Cream#F9EFE6
Peach#FFDCC5
Apricot#FFB878
Coral#D88E74
Lilac#E9D9F4
Cocoa#5C3A21
Danger#A85038
Regular Semi Bold Heavy
Vest artwork
Vest
Harness artwork
Harness
Wipes artwork
Wipes
Bowl artwork
Bowl
Weather artwork
Weather
Ornaments artwork
Ornaments
Sign-in label artwork
Sign-in label
07 / Engineering

Native, with AI behind an API.

I connected the native experience to persistent data and API-mediated AI. Supabase authentication and PostgreSQL data services support signed-in families, community content, messages and care entries. A generated client and React Query hooks connect the screens to purpose-specific AI endpoints.

The interesting engineering work is not just calling a model. It is handling photo and video selection, pending requests, useful error states, account-bound data, location permissions and stale weather readings—and presenting the result in language a Frenchie parent can act on.

  • Native appReact Native + Expo SDK 57
  • LanguagesTypeScript / JavaScript
  • NavigationExpo Router
  • Auth and databaseSupabase / PostgreSQL
  • Server stateReact Query + generated client
  • Photo and videoexpo-image-picker
  • Weather and locationexpo-location / Open-Meteo
  • Soundexpo-audio
Native clientTypeScript and JavaScript. Supabase auth and session handling, data services, messaging that refreshes in the client.
Generated API hooksTyped contracts shared between screens and requests.
/api/frenchie/interpretVideo in, visible-cue observations out.
/api/frenchie/avatarPhoto and details in, illustration out.
08 / Future

Where it could grow.

These are business possibilities I have considered, not live commerce or verified results.

Possibility

Social sharing

Portraits and moments designed to travel beyond the app.

Possibility

Partnerships

Breed-aware brands and care professionals.

Possibility

A shop

Branded goods, informed by the gear artwork already in the brand.

09 / Takeaway

What this demonstrates.

Product strategy rooted in lived community knowledge. A distinct brand carried into native UI. Responsible framing of health and AI features. Real native engineering with a typed client and clear data separation. All of it by one person, from idea to an app arriving soon on the App Store.