DreamLabs
DreamLabs
[Who we are]
South Pasadena keeps a small-town feel that its larger neighbor doesn't, with a walkable Mission Street business district of family-owned shops, and we build their iOS apps with senior engineers using AI-enabled development, in about six weeks.
★★★★★
“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]
For South Pasadena clients, we combine AI-assisted planning and implementation with hands-on senior engineering to move from concept to a working iOS app efficiently, without over-building for a scale you don't need. AI handles a meaningful share of the repetitive build work in Swift and SwiftUI; our engineers own architecture, code review, and every decision that affects how the app performs for a genuinely loyal, often long-standing customer base. We break projects into short, visible phases so you see real progress at every step rather than waiting for a single big reveal. Continuous integration and automated testing run throughout the build, which lets us maintain a fast pace without sacrificing the reliability a small business depends on to keep its regulars happy. Whether you're a longtime Mission Street shop adding online ordering or a newer local business building a loyalty app, we deliver an iOS application sized and priced for a small, independent business. We also design with an eye toward keeping ongoing costs manageable, since a small business needs an app it can actually afford to maintain long after launch.
[Deliverables]
Custom iOS applications built for South Pasadena's independent shops and restaurants, engineered by senior developers using AI-accelerated development to compress the timeline without cutting scope. We manage the full build in Swift and SwiftUI, from architecture through App Store launch, at a cost scaled for a small, independent business.
Ordering, loyalty, and booking apps built for local retail and restaurant businesses that know their regulars by name. AI-assisted development speeds up implementation while our engineers make sure the app actually fits how a small, independent business operates day to day, not a generic enterprise workflow.
Interface and experience design built around Apple's Human Interface Guidelines and grounded in how your specific, often loyal, customer base actually uses an iPhone. AI-assisted prototyping gets working screens in front of you early, so design decisions get made with real feedback instead of guesswork.
[FAQs]
Most custom iOS builds take about 6 weeks with our team, compared to the roughly 6-month timeline common at a traditional agency. AI-assisted architecture and testing let our senior engineers move quickly without over-building, which matters for a small business that doesn't need enterprise-scale infrastructure.
Our published tiers anchor the range: prototypes start at $6,000 and full MVPs at $15,000. A typical custom iOS build with our AI-enabled process runs around $20,000 all-in, compared to the roughly $200,000 a traditional agency might charge for comparable scope. AI reduces the manual hours needed for scaffolding and testing, and we scale that efficiency to a project priced right for a small business.
It depends on how your regulars actually want to interact with you, which we help work through during discovery before committing to a build. For a business built on repeat customers, a well-scoped app for ordering or loyalty can pay for itself quickly without the cost of an unnecessarily large build.
We scope the initial build to avoid features that mainly add ongoing maintenance cost without real customer value, and we're upfront about what post-launch support typically involves. AI-assisted development also keeps future updates efficient, so adding a feature later doesn't require the same overhead a manual rebuild would.
[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.
