We shipped an app to Google Play in 5 days. Here's why speed matters.

Most agencies will quote you 3 months to build an app. We had anybean live on Google Play in 5 days. Here's why speed matters way more than people think.

We built anybean, a loyalty app for independent coffee shops. One card, every shop. Collect 10 beans anywhere in the network, get a free coffee anywhere in the network. Simple offer. Simple app.

Idea on Monday. Live on Google Play by Friday. That's not a slogan, that's the actual timeline.

Speed is how you test an idea

An idea sitting in a notebook tells you nothing. An idea in someone's hands tells you everything: whether they actually use it, whether the offer makes sense, whether you built the right thing at all. You only get that feedback once it's real. The longer it takes to get there, the longer you're guessing.

Most teams don't move slow because the work is hard. They move slow because nobody's forcing a deadline, and slack expands to fill the time you give it. We gave ourselves 5 days on purpose. Here's what that forces you to do:

• Cut the offer down to one mechanic. Collect beans, redeem beans. That's it. One thing, done properly, beats ten half-features you can't test yet anyway.
• Build the backend and the app in parallel. Not sequentially. Sequential is how a 5-day build turns into a 5-month build.
• Ship to a real device from day one. Not "it works on my machine." In someone's actual hands, immediately, so you find out what's wrong while it's still cheap to fix.

And speed doesn't mean shipping junk. anybean launched with real-time bean balances, offline support for shops with no signal, and a shop finder built in from day one. You don't choose between fast and good. You choose between people who know how to build and people who don't.

anybean is live on Google Play now, with the App Store release to follow.