We catch up with everyone involved in The Body Coach launch!

by Ned Hallett
As Digital Marketing Manager and JAM’s primary pair of lungs, I provide the JAM-y take on the ever-evolving worlds of DevOps, SaaS, MACH - and acronyms yet to be coined.
Published on July 2021

Recently, Just After Midnight had the superlative pleasure of sitting down with Nikki Wicks (The Body Coach) Ozioma Uzoegwu (AWS) and Aaron McTavish (ustwo) to chat about one of our favourite bits of work.

In December 2020, we supported the launch of The Body Coach App, providing 24/7 support for the application, infrastructure and all 3rd-party integrations.

The launch went off without a hitch, and it’s one of the projects we’re most proud of.

This talk was a brilliant way to catch up with everyone involved in bringing this app to life, and to get the 360-view on this complex project.

If you’d like to listen to the team behind the number one app launch reflect on their digital transformation journey – the full recording is below. Or if you’d like to skim the key highlights from the discussion, keep scrolling!

Key highlights from the discussion

The Wicks brothers weren’t exactly set on Silicon Valley stardom

Well… not quite.

But Nikki did tell the story of a trip to Headspace HQ in California, seeing the 200+ devs and engineers (likely milling about their futons and cryogenic freezing pods) and thinking, ‘this will never be us.’

Prior to launching The Body Coach, much of the pair’s content was actually housed in a PDF!

So it really was a massive leap in terms of technology.

ustwo were the agency that really got this, and understood that Nikki and Joe wanted to keep things trim and nimble.

And that’s part of the reason they were chosen to design the app.

Today, the technical team at The Body Coach numbers 40+ and Niki and Joe have accepted their roles as rivals to the Winklevoss.

ustwo built Nikki and Joe’s values into the app itself

Although none of legacy code or data from the thebodycoach.com ended up in the App, Tech Principal at ustwo Aaron McTavish made sure that those key values of inclusivity and accessibility were baked into the final product.

Starting from a blank page allowed ustwo to leverage next-gen technology, and at every stage of the design process, the question was asked, ‘are we closing a door, or leaving it open?’

Nikki – who, amongst other duties,  took on the role of product manager – explained how Aaron always put these kinds of decisions in front of him.

From leaving room for android compatibility to building an API that could connect easily with new frontends, Nikki, Jo and Aaron worked towards a version of the app that could connect with the highest number of users down the line.

Just After Midnight planned for every outcome, delivering a seamless launch

Aaron chose Just After Midnight for our track record of delivering 24/7 full-stack support for mission-critical apps.

AWS were picked for their broad offering, and particularly AWS Cognito, which allowed the team to protect users’ personal information simply and securely.

Working with AWS Solution Architect Ozioma, we delivered extensive testing and monitoring to sure-up the solution for the launch, and supported the entire stack 24/7.

This fed into our experience supporting cloud-naitve, next-gen solutions, including 3rd-party integrations and serverless architecture.

The whole team was rightly confident of a seamless launch – with virtually no downtime.

Looking forward 

We’re thrilled to have had the opportunity to work on an app like The Body Coach, and we’re doubly thrilled we did so alongside such a lovely team and a great outcome.

If you’re looking for support for a next-gen, mission-critical app, or just fancy talking it through, then get in touch!

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