Rotimatic, the world’s first automatic flatbread maker, was announced in 2009 by the incubator Zimplistic Inc. It’s one of the 15 Singapore startups that received grants totaling $6 million from SPRING Singapore.
Through a series of mechanical components and sensors, Rotimatic automates the otherwise time-consuming and labor-heavy process of making rotis and other flatbreads.
Zimplistic approached rtCamp to support building a WooCommerce-powered product website, complete with a blog, user login, and global store.
An Online Presence for a Viral Launch
Given the uniqueness of Rotimatic, we were thrilled to be able to work with Zimplistic. When they contacted us, Rotimatic’s product design, manufacturing dates, and marketing plans were set. What they needed was a website to establish their online presence.
Based on Rotimatic’s business requirements, rtCamp divided the project into the following phases.
Phase 1: Creation of a fully functional website based on provided designs. The website would have an easy-to-use dashboard to manage content and fast page load times. Commencement of ongoing maintenance and long-term support contract.
Phase 2: Addition of pre-order functionality using WooCommerce.
Phase 3: Addition of a ‘My Account’ section that would allow customers to manage their Rotimatic accounts.
Design for user experience
Zimplistic had already created visual designs for the proposed Rotimatic website. The site had a few specific requirements that rtCamp integrated into the design.
- Build an image + text slider into the website to prominently display an overview of Rotimatic.
- Use a pop-up window to display the product video, instead of embedding it on the page and increasing visual complexity.
- Integrate a sign up form at the top of the page so that potential customers can subscribe and be notified when Rotimatic launches in their region.
- Reveal as many features and advantages as possible on the home page, while maintaining readability. In order to reduce page length, these were presented within two horizontally tabbed areas.
The backend template options created by rtCamp were designed to be in sync with what appeared on the frontend. This eliminated dependency and enabled them to independently update all content and landing pages.
Server and Scaling
In order to handle the anticipated maximum traffic of 10,000+ users, rtCamp set up a dedicated web server with Nginx. A FastCGI cache was deployed alongside a CDN that served static files (images, videos, scripts) and configured with edge locations across 4 continents.
However, come the day of launch, Rotimatic’s product demo video went viral and received around one million views in a span of just four weeks.
This contributed to a tremendous traffic surge of 30,000+ hits that consumed more than 1200 GB of CDN bandwidth within 2 days of the launch. Despite this massive surge in traffic, Rotimatic’s site stayed fully functional and available across 4 continents.
Ongoing Maintenance
rtCamp created well-defined schedules for regular server maintenance, backups and WordPress & plugin updates.
After the initial launch of Rotimatic’s new website, rtCamp continued working with Zimplistic to refine its design and functionality. Rotimatic’s site continues to evolve as new tools and best practices become available.
Rock-Solid from Launch
rtCamp successfully worked around a tight schedule and in collaboration with Zimplistic’s remote team to deliver a stable WooCommerce-powered solution with flexible content management tools.
rtCamp continues to partner with Zimplistic to provide ongoing support, WordPress development, and server management services.
10K+
Users Traffic Capacity
4M
Views in 4 Weeks
30K+
Hits within 2 Days
