Urban Camel
Posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2025
Urban Camel is an on-demand moving and delivery platform designed to connect users with reliable movers for transporting furniture and household items. Much like Uber revolutionized personal transportation, Urban Camel simplifies the process of moving bulky items—offering a fast, seamless, and hassle-free experience.
To ensure maximum accessibility, the app is being developed for both iOS and Android using React Native, allowing us to build a single, unified codebase for both platforms. The project goes beyond just developing an app—we are building an entire startup from scratch, working closely with the founder, Sienna Hermanry, to shape the product, define its features, and bring it to life.
Before starting the design and development process, our team conducted an in-depth product research study, analyzing six competitors and similar platforms. This research helped us: identify industry standards, recognize common pain points, discover opportunities for differentiation.
To gain direct insights from our target audience, we conducted two targeted surveys—one for our primary users (customers needing to move furniture) and another for our secondary users (movers offering services). These insights allowed us to refine the app’s feature set and ensure real market demand.
With research-backed insights, our team created detailed user personas and use cases before structuring the Information Architecture—a roadmap defining all features to be developed across three phases. We also designed the brand identity, selecting colors, typography, and crafting a professional logo.
Our design team then developed over 60 high-fidelity app screens, ensuring an intuitive and frictionless user experience. The app includes two user interfaces within one platform, adapting dynamically based on whether the user is a customer or a mover.
For the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), we focused on essential features required for a fully functional and scalable platform. Developing Urban Camel presented several key challenges, including secure payment processing, real-time furniture tracking, and the complexity of building two distinct user experiences—one for movers and one for customers—within a single application. To tackle these, our development team dedicated two months to research and Proof of Concept (PoC) implementations, testing industry best practices and real-world solutions.
For payments, we integrated Stripe, a leading payment processor, ensuring a seamless and secure transaction experience similar to platforms like Uber. Every detail was carefully configured to enhance security and user confidence.
For real-time tracking, we optimized API usage to reduce costs while maintaining smooth user experience. Instead of sending 60 API calls per minute, we developed an adaptive tracking algorithm that adjusts update frequency based on movement speed and a bounce timer. This approach keeps tracking accurate while significantly lowering API costs. The system simulates continuous movement through interpolated updates, providing a fluid visual experience for users.
These are just a few examples of how we overcame technical hurdles. Below is a list of key MVP features:
User Authentication & Authorization (secure sign-in), Job Request System (users can create moving requests)
Image Upload & Storage (for furniture photos), Mover Selection (choosing a preferred mover), Integrated Payments (using Stripe for secure transactions), Real-Time Notifications (updates on job status)
Mover Dashboard (job management for service providers), Ratings & Reviews (ensuring service quality)
Live Tracking with Google Maps (for real-time monitoring).
To build a robust and scalable system, we used modern and proven technologies:
Frontend: React Native (for cross-platform development), NativeWind (for styling), Redux (for state management), Google Maps API (for real-time tracking).
Backend: Node.js (server-side logic), Firebase (database), Google Cloud (cloud infrastructure), Stripe (payment processing).
Urban Camel is a market-ready product, built from the ground up to solve a common pain point: how to move furniture easily without owning a large vehicle. With a sleek, intuitive app and a solid technical foundation, it is well-positioned to disrupt the moving industry in the same way Uber transformed personal transportation.