The Beginning- October,2015

React Native was in its early stages and we were experimenting on it like mad scientists. Being one of the earliest adopters of React Native, we were left with minimum documentation and a lot to learn. With time, we went on to create our very first product in React Native called ‘Native Starter Pro’, and made our very first sale at ‘strapmobile.com’ (Now market.nativebase.io) for $25. Rewriting every basic component from scratch, over and over again was exhausting and it was only then we realised that it wasn’t as complete as we hoped it would be. There were major gaps that needed bridging and we thought to ourselves, ‘why the heck not?’

Little did we know that this experience would open gates for us, which we didn’t even know existed!

NativeBase- The Arrival — April, 2016.

Post- Development of Native Starter Pro, we concurred that all the generic code that is used during development can be isolated, generalised and made into components that can be used over and over again without actually writing the code repeatedly. This eureka moment led to the birth of NativeBase 0.1.0 on April 15th, 2016. Users could now expedite their development process drastically and all it would take is a few clicks. It was exciting for us, emotional rather. The attention we received in the coming time was overwhelming and the product was rising to the surface quite steadily. Maybe a market was required to be put in place for developers and customers alike. (Another notion?)

The A-Team (2018)

Open Source & The Makeover — April, 2016 to February, 2017

NativeBase was destined to be a raging success, but there were quite some things that needed our attention. We knew that given the versatility of the product, we could never fully furnish it by ourselves.

It was time to let everybody in on it.

NativeBase was released as an open-source experiment on 15th April, 2016 . Almost instantly, we started receiving feedbacks, applauses and comments on how the product could be improved and taken forward. It’s safe to say that the community had our backs as we proceeded with NativeBase from that point forward.

To bring this very community together, we launched a Q&A forum for NativeBase on July 21st, 2016. The forum welcomed all kinds of queries, feedbacks and discussions on NativeBase, its functionality and how it must evolve.

It attracted quite a lot of people who pooled in their knowledge and made comprehension a child’s play, but we knew that we could do more than this.

So, on December 16th, 2016, we created a Slack Community for the global manforce that had involved itself in our expedition (you can find it here!) People were joining the group in gigantic numbers and it was amazing to see the same enthusiasm in them, as we had for NativeBase. As of today, 1946 members have joined the slack community from across the globe). React Native had officially been revolutionized by NativeBase by opening avenues for people across the globe to try things that they never thought they would.

The next step in the evolution was to make it compliant.

As the need of the hour went, we had to revisit NativeBase and make amends to make it compliant with platform guidelines set by Apple and Google.

Santa ‘NativeBase’ Claus

On February 6th, 2017, NativeBase 2.0 signed up for greatness. With a completely re-written core, alongside the team at Shoutem (We’re grateful!), NativeBase 2.0 was everything NativeBase originally stood to be and more. It blurred most of the lines between iOS and Android UI presentation and made it seamless and relatable. Along with this, we announced a market place focused on custom solutions and premium products made using NativeBase components.

The marketplace we had sought after for so long was soon to unveil itself.

The Bazaar & The Seed — February, 2017 — September,2017

It had been on our roadmap for the longest time and it’s time had come. On March 27th, 2017, the NativeBase Marketplace was finally launched. The aim of this marketplace was not just to showcase premium products made using NativeBase and put them up for sale, but it was also a means to encourage people to create their own products and sell them on it, and it delivered. The NativeBase marketplace was a success and continues to be so even today. We urge you to check it out after you’re done with this article, or you can go now and come back. We’ll wait here, because we’re not done yet.