Kōhi Records App

A cross-platform app for a record label: releases, pre-orders, event tickets and a listening room that works underground.

Year: 2025
Location: Tokyo & Johannesburg
Duration: 18 weeks

Client: Kōhi Records
Role: Product definition, App design, React Native build
Discipline: App Development
Delivered: 2025 · 18 weeks

The problem

What we were actually solving

Kōhi's audience finds releases on social media, buys on a webstore, and gets event tickets somewhere else entirely. Three systems, no shared customer record, and a launch-day rush that broke the store twice in one year.

The approach

Record shelves, posters and an orange chair in a warm listening room

How the work was made

Version one was deliberately narrow: releases, pre-orders and tickets. Everything else on the wish list (community features, artist uploads, a marketplace) went onto a written cut list rather than into the build, which is why it shipped in eighteen weeks instead of forty.

Offline came first, not last. The listening room caches audio and artwork locally so the app is usable on the Tokyo metro and in the basement venues where half their events happen. Sync reconciles when signal returns rather than showing an error screen.

Release drops now run through a scheduled queue with a static pre-render, so a thousand people hitting the app at 18:00 on a Friday does not take the store down. Load testing was written into the contract as an acceptance criterion.

The outcome

Pre-orders through the app overtook the web store within two releases, and no drop has fallen over since launch.

Weeks from definition to both app stores: 18Weeks from definition to both app stores
Of pre-orders now placed in the app: 62%Of pre-orders now placed in the app
Failed release drops since launch: 0Failed release drops since launch
Average store rating across iOS and Android: 4.7Average store rating across iOS and Android