Before diving into the Q&A, read the full case study to see exactly how Tapcart achieved 70% faster builds, near-100% reduction in manual effort, and seamless maintenance for 1,500+ apps.
For small enterprises with big ambitions, Tapcart opens up a world of possibilities. Founded in 2017, the Los Angeles–based SaaS company is on a mission to democratize access to world-class mobile commerce tools for every brand. A big part of making that happen is its partnership with Bitrise.
Few people have seen the evolution of that partnership more closely than Sahand Ansari. Starting out as an intern at Tapcart focusing on everything from frontline operations to merchant communications, he's watched Bitrise grow and evolve alongside his own career.
We caught up with Sahand, now Director, Solutions and Support at Tapcart, to hear what’s top of the company’s priorities right now, how Bitrise is helping it deliver more value to merchants, and where the partnership is headed next.
[Q1] Can you tell us a bit more about Tapcart’s mission and what you’re focused on right now?
[Sahand] We want every brand, no matter what industry or size, to launch and run mobile apps with ease. It’s a misconception that apps are only for big brands, they’re now the primary way consumers shop and interact with brands. Our mission is to democratize world-class mobile commerce tools, and that remains our focus.
Right now, it’s all about growth and scalability for us. We already power more than 1,500 apps and continue to launch dozens each week. The challenge is meeting that demand while ensuring we give each brand the best tooling possible to deliver superior shopping experiences, build loyalty, and create new value for consumers.
[Q2] How was your mobile set up before Bitrise, and were there any particularly painful challenges you were dealing with?
[Sahand] In the very early days of Tapcart, our team managed mobile builds using local machines. Then as we started to scale to support thousands of apps, we needed to find a better CI solution. The biggest challenge back then was that we could only build one app at a time, maybe two, at a push. But the setup we had was not sustainable long-term.
[Q3] Was your previous process mostly manual? What did it look like week to week?
[Sahand] Absolutely, the process was incredibly tedious and time-consuming. We had to manually update keys in iOS and Android config files, set up Apple Pay and push notification certificates, and configure plist files for every app. A manual deployment took 30–50 minutes per app just to compile depending on the speed of your computer. Then uploading to the app stores was extra time on top of all that.
[Q4] Was the manual setup an issue for your customers?
[Sahand] Yes, without a doubt. One of the value-adds we bring for merchants is letting them update their app store assets through a simple request. Previously, if they wanted to change screenshots, an icon, or even descriptions, it required a full new build uploaded to the store. Even a single icon update could take 30-50 minutes to compile.
In our early years, with just a dozen customers, even small requests were time-consuming. During busy seasons like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, when multiple customers wanted seasonal updates, we had to compile and upload every build individually, and just hope nothing went wrong. That pulled resources away from delivering more value, like helping customers drive sales.
And of course, human error came into play. Processing dozens of builds leads to fatigue, and one wrong checkbox or config entry meant a 40-minute failed build. All that time wasted on a small mistake. It was soul-destroying.
[Q5] What convinced you and the team to choose Bitrise?
[Sahand] There were definitely a few things our team was looking for in a new solution. One was good documentation, and Bitrise really ticked that box. Bitrise was also pretty active on developer forums, and there was a lot of positive feedback from the community around using it. There were also a lot of answers and guides on Stack Overflow around Bitrise and the implementation of Fastlane APIs with it, for example.
Also the fact that Bitrise was an industry leader in the mobile space, and your marketing was kind of cool, it felt like the kind of brand we wanted to align with. And of course the Bitrise tech stack was exactly what we needed. It really was the best fit for all our needs, and a huge step up from our humble physical machines.
[Q6] How did the migration to Bitrise go, and was it clear early on that you had made the right choice?
[Sahand] At the time, I was the only employee working with Tapcart’s founders, and I was handling a lot of frontline operations myself, like running builds, onboarding customers, and managing customer-facing activities. Instead of focusing on our customers, I had to dedicate so much of my time and attention to running builds.
Our CEO Eric and the Tapcart team built an internal dashboard connected to Bitrise to streamline and monitor build operations, which has since evolved into a core tool for managing app deployments. It controls the API layer we have with Fastlane and Bitrise, essentially giving us a CMS where we can search for apps, click into one, and access all the deployment configuration options, app listing info, and anything else that feeds into Bitrise to run a build.
Moving to Bitrise, we went from a fully manual process to a dashboard where we could set up configurations, validate data, and use front-end checks to prevent errors before a build started. Suddenly, we could review all those configurations easily and confidently run a build with just a few clicks. It made my job so much easier and less stressful. Instead of worrying about whether a build would fail or not, we were able to turn our focus on delivering more value to our customers.
[Q7] What are the standout improvements you have seen since moving to Bitrise?
[Sahand] The biggest value is the time saving for sure. We don’t have to babysit builds anymore. We don’t need to worry about operational details like whether a build is running properly or not. Bitrise handles it all for us in the background. And so this all frees up our time to focus on helping customers grow revenue through well designed, high performing apps.
We’ve seen huge improvements in build times. Back in the early days, iOS builds could take up to 50 minutes. Now 15-minute iOS and Android builds are the norm, and the experience end to end is super smooth.
Our build logging has also greatly improved. It’s much easier to see exactly why something has failed. Instead of digging through one giant log file, the steps are broken out, errors are clearly flagged, and we can pinpoint the exact issue. It’s definitely saved us a lot of time troubleshooting and rerunning builds.
[Q8] Now that you're using Bitrise for Android as well as iOS, how's that going?
[Sahand] We started off using Bitrise for iOS, and then when we expanded to Android, the value really started to rise. If you were to plot it on a graph, you’d see a steep jump at that point. Normally with Android, you’d need a second tool to handle compilation and retrain the team on how to manage builds locally in Android Studio. But since we already had Bitrise set up for iOS, plugging in Android was simple. From then on, we could deploy to both the iOS App Store and Google Play at the same time with almost no extra effort. That was a big win for us.
[Q9] How does Bitrise impact your merchant experience?
[Sahand] Since moving to Bitrise we’ve continued to automate even further and it has given us more time back to focus on customer success, rather than all the technical aspects of the build process. Our goal has always been to make the Apple and Google build process feel seamless for customers: you request an update, and it’s live within an hour. That’s the “magic” we want them to experience. Bitrise helps us deliver that.
The value for our customers is they always have up-to-date apps in the stores, aligned with best practices and guidelines, without ever dealing with submissions or failed builds.
Bitrise has been a really powerful change for us, it’s transformed how we manage builds for our customers, and we want to keep building on that and scaling it further.
[Q10] What’s next in delivering value to your merchants?
[Sahand] We are continuing to smooth out our internal processes to make Bitrise workflows easier, and more connected to the customer experience. For example, in the Tapcart dashboard, there’s a support section where we recently added a button that says Request an App Update. When a merchant clicks that, it notifies us that they want their app updated. We can then batch those requests and run them accordingly.
Right now, they just see the request button, but in the future, we’d love to evolve this into a fully self-serve experience. Imagine a merchant clicks Request an App Update, we make an API call to Bitrise, the build runs, and once it’s successful, a webhook notifies the customer that their app is ready to test or submit.
That’s the direction we’re heading: opening up more of Bitrise’s power directly to our merchants through Tapcart’s UI. The long-term goal is to let merchants manage builds themselves. Whether it’s triggering updates or even handling first-time launches,Tapcart can provide the interface with Bitrise running everything behind the scenes.
[Q11] How is Bitrise helping you scale your business?
[Sahand] Bitrise has been a huge part in helping us scale the business to what it is today. We’ve never had to second-guess whether the platform could handle our scale, we know it will. And it’s only improved and become more reliable and scalable over time. Recently, we went through a big migration from native Swift and Kotlin codebases to React Native. It allowed us to unify what used to be separate iOS and Android workflows into one. Now we run a single workflow in Bitrise, with similar build times and error profiles across both platforms.
From a scaling standpoint, Bitrise has been huge. We don’t have to worry about capacity or reliability; with Bitrise we have a solid foundation and the APIs to automate what we need to as our requirements change.
[Q12] How do you see the relationship with Bitrise and Tapcart continuing to evolve?
[Sahand] We’ve always seen Bitrise as a strategic partner. It’s a core part of our offering and how we deliver value to our merchants. Our core promise to them is that they don’t have to worry about builds, we manage everything and ensure their app is always up to date. Bitrise makes it possible for us to always deliver on that promise.
Without Bitrise, the alternative would’ve been building and maintaining our own tooling, which just wouldn’t have been sustainable. What’s been great is that Bitrise has grown alongside us, and the partnership has only become stronger. As we continue to evolve, we see Bitrise becoming even more woven into our offering, which ultimately means an even better experience for our merchants.
[Q13] Beyond faster builds and smoother day-to-day operations, are there other benefits you’re seeing from the partnership?
Definitely. We get early access to new features through our Customer Success lead at Bitrise, Mackenzie Foote, and the team. As a leader in the CI/CD space, Bitrise also gives us direct access to best practices and expert insights. All of these things combined with the platform itself really help give us a competitive edge.
[Q14] What’s next for Tapcart and how does Bitrise fit with your future goals?
[Sahand] We are focusing on making our platform more extensible and exploring expanding into loyalty messaging, push notifications, and other value-adds we can offer our merchants. Instead of only saying, “we upload and manage your build and provide a CMS,” we want to layer in additional tooling and functionality that helps merchants launch, promote, and grow their apps more effectively.
With Bitrise, as our platform grows more powerful and flexible, we expect to build more automated workflows to handle app updates without requiring direct involvement from a Tapcart customer service rep. The long-term goal is to supercharge our dashboard so customers can easily self-manage builds, in the same way someone can open a Shopify store and run it end-to-end without a rep guiding them step by step.
Bitrise is core to us delivering that vision. It powers the backend, automates the build process, and gives our merchants build status updates and other relevant information so they always feel in control. Ultimately, all of this means we can continue to make the merchant experience smoother and deliver even more value in the future.
