Mobile App Fundamentals

I've helped companies build software—mobile apps in particular—for about a decade now.

Each project feels specific and unique when you're in it. But step back and watch the big picture, and you start noticing patterns. Decisions that consistently influence costs, risks, and how happy both developers and customers end up being.

I tried to distill these into 12 strategies. I believe these are fundamentals that can help you build a solid product. Use them yourself, share them with your team, use them to brief your AI agent—especially now that AI makes it so easy to make great progress in the wrong direction.

What's in here:

12 chapters organized into three parts, covering the technical decisions that separate efficient builds from expensive ones.

Part I — Foundations
Environment separation, MVP priorities, code quality automation, localization. The decisions that are cheap early and brutal later.

Part II — Distribution
App store readiness, CI/CD setup, feature rollouts, force updates. How to ship confidently and stay in control.

Part III — Scale
Performance measurement, security fundamentals, analytics, strategic upgrades. What matters when you're ready for mass adoption.

Each chapter includes: real scenarios, why it happens, how to avoid it, practical approaches, and business bottom lines with ROI context.

This is useful if:

You're making decisions about mobile development. You're a founder planning your first mobile product. You're a CTO navigating delivery commitments. You're a technical leader aligning engineering with business goals. You're a developer who wants to understand the business impact of technical choices. You're an AI-powered developer who needs to strategically guide your AI agent—not just generate code faster.

This isn't useful if:

You're looking for code tutorials or implementation guides. This workbook won't teach you how to code—it focuses on the decisions that shape outcomes.

A note on technology:

The examples reference React Native and Expo because that's where my hands-on experience comes from. But the strategies, principles, and business implications apply regardless of your tech stack. The expensive mistakes look the same whether you're using React Native, Flutter, Swift, or Kotlin.

Why this matters more now:

AI tools make code generation faster than ever. But that amplifies a critical risk: building the wrong thing, just faster. As coding becomes more of a commodity, strategic decisions matter even more.

This workbook helps you make better decisions about what to build—and gives you (or your AI agent) the context to build it right the first time.

If it helps you avoid one expensive detour, one unnecessary rewrite, or one avoidable fire drill, it's done its job.

Radu Cîmpian
Mobile developer, currently helping companies make better technical decisions through consulting.