DreamLabs
DreamLabs
[Who we are]
Berkeley's mix of academic research and startup ambition deserves a development partner that moves just as fast. We pair senior engineers with AI across the build to deliver a production-ready Android app in weeks, not the better part of a year.
★★★★★
“Other app developer quoted 10X the price to create a live testable version. DreamLabs pricing structure has meant we can quickly get the app in users hands and see what they think!”
Jenn Brooks · Founder & CEO @ Nurture
As a fractional product team, we start by defining your vision and sharpening your strategy. We don’t just say “yes,” but always ask “why?”, helping your dev budget go further and faster.
We use AI-accelerated development to help teams of all sizes launch custom, scale-ready digital products. Ship in days/weeks, not months/years.
User testing is a bonus service we offer to all clients for free. This means we learn together from real users with each release.
[What We Do]
Our process for Berkeley clients combines AI-assisted architecture, implementation, and testing with direct senior engineering review at every stage. AI takes on a meaningful share of the scaffolding and repetitive coding; our engineers own the architecture and every decision that affects how the app performs and scales. We move from requirements to a working prototype quickly and then iterate in short, visible cycles, which suits Berkeley's often research-driven, hypothesis-testing approach to building products. Continuous integration and automated testing run throughout, so you can validate ideas with real users without waiting months for a stable build. We work in Kotlin and Flutter depending on what the project calls for, and we build with the Google Play Store's review standards in mind from day one: performance, security, and genuine reliability under real usage. For a Berkeley founder testing a first concept or an established business extending an existing product, our AI-enabled process gets you a working, production-grade Android application on a timeline that matches how quickly ideas move in this town. We also build with Berkeley's regulatory and academic review processes in mind when a project requires it, adding the extra documentation and testing rigor that kind of oversight demands without slowing the overall timeline.
[Deliverables]
Custom Android applications for Berkeley founders and established businesses alike, built by senior engineers using AI-accelerated development to move from concept to working product fast. We handle the full build, from architecture through Play Store launch, with the rigor a research-adjacent market expects. Whether you're testing a first hypothesis or building a product ready for a wider launch, we scope the work to match where you actually are, not where a generic package assumes you should be.
Interface and experience design tuned to how Berkeley's users actually behave, informed by real usage data rather than assumptions. AI-assisted prototyping means you're looking at working screens early, so design gets validated before engineering time is spent building the wrong thing. We validate designs with real target users before committing engineering time to a direction, which matters especially for a Berkeley audience that tends to notice when a product feels untested.
Strategic guidance for Berkeley teams still shaping their Android product, from technical feasibility to a realistic roadmap. We help you figure out what to build first, informed by AI-enabled development timelines that make a genuinely custom MVP achievable on a startup budget. We're comfortable working alongside a research advisor, a co-founder with a technical background, or a board that wants to understand the tradeoffs before signing off on a build.
[FAQs]
Most Berkeley builds take about 6 weeks with our AI-enabled process, compared to the industry-typical 6 months. AI-assisted scaffolding, code generation, and testing let senior engineers move through implementation much faster, while every piece of the build is still reviewed and owned by a human engineer before it ships. That timeline assumes a typical project scope; something with unusual research or compliance requirements may run a bit longer, and we'll flag that clearly during discovery.
A typical custom Android build with our AI-enabled process runs around $20,000, compared to the roughly $200,000 a traditional agency might charge for comparable scope. That gap matters most for early-stage Berkeley companies, where the difference often decides whether a genuinely custom app is even on the table. That figure covers a genuinely custom build, from architecture through Play Store launch, not a stripped-down MVP that leaves out the features you actually need to test your hypothesis properly.
Every piece of AI-generated code goes through senior engineering review, automated test coverage, and continuous integration before it's considered done. AI speeds up the first draft of scaffolding and boilerplate; our engineers are responsible for verifying it, extending it, and rewriting anything that doesn't meet production standards. We're glad to walk technically literate founders through exactly which parts of a given build were AI-assisted and which required more hands-on engineering, since Berkeley clients tend to ask.
It depends on your users and your team. Native Android in Kotlin gives you the tightest performance and platform integration; Flutter lets you target Android and iOS from a single codebase, which often matters more for an early-stage team watching runway. We help you make that call during discovery, based on your actual product, not a default answer.
[01] Product Strategy
We start by helping you define your long and short-term product visions. We then break down the concepts into concrete features and functions, so we can piece them back together into a prioritized roadmap.
[02] Development
With the framework pinned down, we go heads-down on execution. We leverage AI-powered tooling and a modern Flutter + Firebase stack to develop your product in record time.
[03] Polishing + Launch QA
Your finished product to ensure that each feature works seamlessly, every color is precise and all copy is ready for publication. We then manage the entire app publishing process on mobile, web or both.
