As 2022 comes to an end, it is time to reminisce on all the achievements, improvements, learnings that happened throughout the year. From the creation of cross-platform applications with Flutter, being pioneers in integrating desktop and embedded devices in our projects, to our own growth, events held for the Flutter community, trips, and our expansion to Latin America, in this blog we’ll explore the highlights of our year!
Three years ago, we were three software engineers, and now I can proudly say we are a team of over 47 professionals. We are proud to continue working together on our initial dream of helping businesses thrive through effective and scalable digital products with the best technology.
We could not have achieved this without the dedication, passion, and enthusiasm of our talented team, as well as the trust of our clients and partners in transforming their ideas into sky-reaching applications. And for that I want to thank them for everything we’ve accomplished in the past year.
Some of our 2022 highlights are:
- Continued building Flutter apps for mobile & web, and integrated new technology advancements such as Flutter for desktop and embedded devices.
- Another year of all 5.0 star reviews on Clutch.
- Recognized as the first company 100% specialized in creating apps with Flutter in Latin America.
- Hosted many Flutter Meetup events, with international guest speakers and uruguayan developers.
- Released open-source Flutter libraries and bricks.
- Were speakers and sponsors of major tech events, such as Flutter Vikings, Flutter Global Summit, and SelectUSA.
- Travelled several times, visiting many clients and partners from the US in states like NYC, FL, TX, etc.
- Expanded operations to Argentina and Perú.
- Celebrated our three-year anniversary.
Now, let’s dive in!
Flutter Projects
As far as projects go, 2022 was an immense year of growth for Somnio:
- We executed 23 projects, with 15 new clients and 7 ongoing projects from last year. This equals to a growth of 77%.
- We grew 142% of development hours from 2021 to 2022.
- 10 projects got new production releases.
We got to help many partners build their ideas into real, functioning applications, and they were very satisfied with our work, leaving us with 5-star reviews on Clutch!
Amongst other highlights, we built cross-platform applications on embedded devices, we integrated and built mobile and web apps for clients. This year was also the release of Flutter for Desktop, for which we got our hands on immediately and started building Flutter Desktop applications.
This year, we got to work for very distinctive industries, such as: health, fintech, education, entertainment, hospitality, gastronomy, mental health, marketing, religion, online dating, marketplace, sports, social media, human and work rights, crypto, and fashion.
The first company 100% specialized in creating apps with Flutter in Latin America
Amongst the year’s biggest news, we were recognized by Uruguay’s biggest circulating newspaper as the first company 100% specialized in creating apps with Flutter in Latin America. Flutter is something we're proud to represent and support, along with helping businesses grow faster and more efficiently, so I am extremely proud of this recognition, which came thanks to the hard work of our team.
As for other press releases, we were featured in SmartTalent, a portal by UruguayXXI, where they inquired about our history, how we work, and the profiles we search for.
I had the opportunity to be interviewed by the ORT University of Uruguay, where I studied to become a Systems Engineer and met the partners with whom I co-founded Somnio Software. As I walked down memory lane, I reflected on what motivated me to become an entrepreneur and start a business in the first place. During our discussion, we talked about the good, the bad, and some lessons I learned along the way.
I was also interviewed by App Story! In this article, I talked about my journey as an entrepreneur and answered questions about our work at Somnio, which is a read I definitely recommend for entrepreneurs in any industry.
Flutter Community
As active members of the Flutter Meetup Network, we continued to help the Flutter Community grow. The group is organized by Google and aims to bring together those who develop in Flutter or are interested in learning about it. By searching for Meetups worldwide, they create a massive community of high-level Flutter events.
In 2022, we had multiple Flutter meetup events about different topics such as working with Flutter bilingually, Flutter testing and improvements, Live Activities with iOS16, Navigation 2.0 with GoRouter, Flutter architecture, and BLoC.
We had the honor of hosting international guest speakers from countries such as Nicolás Rodsevich from Argentina, Alvaro Armijos from Ecuador, Daniel Herrera Sánchez form Colombia, and Jaime Blasco from Spain, in order to grow the Flutter spanish-speaking community!
We were also part of a series of community-led events called Flutter Festivals, where we hosted an in-person event at the Somnio Headquarters called Flutter Festival Uruguay. It provided a chance for developers to come together and learn about Flutter, Firebase, and Google Cloud technologies in one place. Two talks and one discussion panel were held during the event, where experienced Flutter Developers discussed what the future of software development will look like and the role Flutter will play in it. Watch the recap of the event here!
In addition to hosting these events, we were also speakers at other Flutter Meetup Network events, such as Flutter Medellín, where Somnio’s CTO Gianfranco Papa was a guest speaker at.
Gianfranco was also invited to the renowned Flying High with Flutter Podcast, where he talked about buidling the backend with Dart Frog, and was also featured in the famous Humpday Q&A with Simon Lightfoot, Scott Stoll, and Randal Schwartz!
Teaching Flutter
We love teaching and spreading our knowledge of Flutter, that's why this year we released open-source Flutter libraries and bricks to help the community and also started a series of short videos called Flutter Tips!
Meet our bricks!
Last, but not least, in order to also show our passion for Flutter inside Somnio, we celebrated Dart’s and Flutter’s Birthdays!
Flutter Events
This year was filled with Flutter events, which were extremely grateful to be part of.
In June, we were speakers at the Flutter Global Summit! Gianfranco Papa, CTO & Co-Founder of Somnio Software, and Abhishek Doshi, GDE & Software Developer at Somnio Software, were guest speakers for the Senior Track of the event.
We were also speakers and sponsors of the Flutter Vikings Conference back in September in Oslo. This is one of the biggest Flutter-specific events in the community, where all the biggest Flutter companies and community leaders, and enthusiasts gather for networking and discussing the latest updates of the technology. In this trip to Norway with Gianfranco, we got to meet incredible members and community leaders of Flutter! If you want to know more about our experience, Gianfranco wrote a blog about it.
I was also interviewed by Scott Stoll at the conference, where I had the pleasure of talking about Flutter’s growth and its revolutionary possibilities.
After Oslo, I traveled to London to meet with partners, where I also got to attend the Flutter London collaboration with GDGLondon on September 8th. It was great to meet Flutterists from the UK, some of which I had already met at Flutter Vikings.
Travelling!
With Álvaro de Barros, Business Development Manager at Somnio Software, we got the chance to travel to North America and attend the world's biggest tech events. It was an incredible opportunity to get together with partners and clients, after working with them throughout the pandemic.
In the US, we went to Mobile Apps Unlocked (MAU) conference in Las Vegas, visited partners in New York, Austin, Miami, and we also represented Uruguay as part of the Southern Cone at the Select USA event in Washington, DC, where we had our own booth and I gave a talk about our work at Somnio Software, as well as shared the latest innovations in cross-platform technology.
We were also present for the Collision Conference in Toronto, meeting the world’s biggest tech companies and leaders.
Our growth
With a 250% of team growth from 2020 to 2022, we are now over 47 professionals working in different areas inside Somnio! And these talented people are not only based in Uruguay, but in different countries from Latin America, such as Argentina and Perú, and also in India.
One of our missions is to expand our knowledge to all of Latin America, so we are eager to continue growing our team in LATAM where we currently have a team working remotely.
Our areas include:
- Development & QA
- People & Talent
- Marketing & Communications
- Business Development
- Design & UX/UI
- Finance & Administration
In our efforts to expand the team, we participated in the ORT University Job Fair in Uruguay, where hundreds of engineering students gather to meet interesting companies to build their careers with.
Celebrating three years
2022 was a very special year for us. We celebrated our three-year anniversary! It has been an amazing journey of growth, accomplishments, learnings, and dreaming together. Take a look here at how be celebrated this achievement big time!
It has also been one year since we moved in to the Somnio House, or as we like to call it: our home. The Somnio Headquarters have been a place of creating lots of wonderful memories together with the team.
Team activities
With such a big team, it’s always important to create a foundation of trust within every member, or Somnier as we call ourselves, in order to have a stronger working relationship. We had team building activities, such as games where we had to solve puzzles and organize ourselves with our closed, in order to create trust within the company.
The year was filled with activities to get to know each other better, share quality time outside office hours, and most importantly: have fun! We shared many "asados" (Uruguayan traditional barbecue), went to an escape room, played lots of soccer matches, had movie and also gaming nights proposed by the team, cooked "arepas" (a traditional Venezuelan meal that was taught by Somniers from the country!), celebrated Pride Day with a talk from two team members, and many more activities.
For our End of Year Party, we went on a full weekend getaway to Punta del Este with the Uruguayan and Latin-American team. Before the party, we had the pleasure of working in person with them for a whole week at the Somnio House. You can check out the video sum up of our trip here!
Corporate Social Responsibility
Helping the community and playing a positive role in it goes a long way. I am very proud to say that this year we, as a team, participated in different campaigns for people in need.
In 2022, at the Somnio House, we:
- Collected clothes for a Winter Campaign.
- Gathered toys for Children’s Day in Uruguay, where it’s a custom to give children gifts.
- Got toys and non-perishable foods together for a Christmas Campaign.
What’s next?
Last year, as we looked back on 2021 and gathered our thoughts for the upcoming year, I talked about our goals. Now, I can say that our goals of making bright ideas happen through building top-rated Flutter apps, growing the Flutter community, expanding our team, and consolidating our areas have been accomplished, and are long term goals that we’ll keep focusing on.
For 2023, we are looking forward to continuing improving our internal and delivery processes. We focused on Flutter for the efficiency it gives our customers to build digital products as if they had been natively. Our team will continue to work to make sure that happens, and continue to recommend Flutter because we truly believe it is the best cross-platform technology.
It is a pleasure to work every day with such talented professionals, but most importantly, with extraordinary people. Bring it on 2023, we are ready for you!
