Flutter Kanpur
It was Independence Day.
Most people were probably enjoying a holiday, watching the flag hoisting, eating good food, scrolling through Instagram, and generally doing what normal people do on a holiday.
We, on the other hand, were looking at a website and thinking:
“Can we build this as a mobile app?”
And that one question somehow turned into a completely unplanned 4-hour late-night Flutter Kanpur build session.
This is the story of how Azaadi went from an idea inspired by the Deluxe Saloon website to a real Android app on Google Play — all while we were live on YouTube.
It Started With the Deluxe Saloon Website
The original inspiration wasn't even an Independence Day app.
We came across the Deluxe Saloon website and really liked the way the experience was presented.
And naturally, as developers, our brains did what developer brains do.
Instead of simply appreciating the website, we started asking:
“What if we made something like this for mobile?”
That quickly became:
“Can we build something inspired by this?”
And then someone asked the dangerous question:
“Why don't we just build it tonight?”
There are certain sentences that developers should probably avoid after midnight. This was one of them. 😂
Then Came the Independence Day Twist
Since it was Independence Day, we didn't want to simply make a copy of the original concept. We thought:
What if we took the idea of a visually engaging music experience and gave it an Independence Day theme?
And that's where Azaadi was born.
The concept was pretty straightforward:
A beautiful, lightweight mobile experience centered around Indian patriotic music and the feeling of Independence Day.
We weren't trying to build the next Spotify.
We weren't trying to build a massive product.
We just wanted to create something fun that people could open on 15 August and instantly feel:
“Yep. It's Independence Day.” 🇮🇳
And Then We Made One More Crazy Decision, Instead of quietly building it and showing everyone the finished app, we decided:
Let's build it LIVE. So we started a YouTube livestream.
No polished demo.
No pre-recorded presentation.
No “we built this over three weeks.”
People could literally watch us go from:
Idea → Design → Flutter → Bugs → Build → Deployment in real time.
Which, in hindsight, was either a fantastic idea or a terrible one.
Probably both.
Hour 1 — “This Should Be Easy”
The first hour was full of confidence.
We had the reference.
We had the idea.
We knew the general direction.
So we started designing the mobile experience. The first priority was making sure it didn't feel like another generic music player. We wanted something visually connected to Azaadi.
The colours, illustrations, cards, typography and overall experience were all designed around the Independence Day theme.
At this point, everyone was still optimistic. We had three more hours. Plenty of time. Right?
Right?
Hour 2 — Okay, Now We Need to Make This Actually Work
Once the UI started taking shape, the fun part began.
A static design is easy.
A real application is not.
Now we needed:
Music playback
Play/pause controls
Queue management
Skip controls
Seek functionality
Favourites
Player interactions
Proper navigation
Responsive UI
And, of course, a build that doesn't randomly explode😂
This was where the app started feeling less like a design experiment and more like an actual product.
You know that moment when you tap a button and something finally happens?
That's when everyone in the room goes:
“LET'S GOOOO.”
Hour 3 — The Deadline Starts Looking Real
At some point, somebody checked the clock.
And suddenly the sentence:
“We have plenty of time.”
was no longer valid.
We were building. We were testing. We were fixing things.
We were making design changes. We were questioning previous design decisions.
And, as always, there was at least one moment where someone said:
“Don't touch anything. It's working right now.”
Every developer knows exactly what that means.😂
But this is also where the advantage of Flutter really became obvious.
We could move extremely quickly between idea, UI and implementation.
The feedback loop was basically:
Think → Code → Hot Reload → See → Change → Repeat.
And because we were doing this as a community activity, everyone could contribute ideas along the way.
Hour 4 — Ship or It Didn't Happen
Now came the serious part.
We didn't want to end the livestream with:
“Well, here's the APK. Good night.”
The goal was to actually deploy the application.
That meant release build.
Testing.
Fixing the last-minute issues.
Preparing everything for publishing.
And finally…
Google Play.
This is always the moment where developers become suspicious of every single line of code they've written. 😂
But eventually, we got there. Azaadi was live.
A project that had started from:
“Can we make something like this website for mobile?”
was now an actual Android application. You can find it on Google Play: Azaadi on Google Play
The App Is Actually Pretty Simple And that's intentional. Azaadi isn't trying to solve world hunger. It isn't trying to replace your favourite streaming service. It's a small, focused experience built around Independence Day.
You open it.
You find the music.
You play it.
You enjoy the vibe.
That's it.
Sometimes a project doesn't need 50 features. Sometimes you just need to build one thing really well enough to make people smile.
The Interesting Part Wasn't the Code, If you ask us what we built in four hours, the answer is: an Android app.
But if you ask what we actually learned in those four hours, the answer is much bigger. We experienced the entire product lifecycle.
1. Inspiration
We saw something interesting on the Deluxe Saloon website.
2. Ideation
We asked:
“What if we made this for mobile?”
3. Product thinking
We figured out what the experience should actually be.
4. Design
We created the visual language and mobile UI.
5. Development
We turned the idea into Flutter widgets and functionality.
6. Testing
We broke things. Fixed things. Broke something else. Fixed that too.
7. Deployment
And finally, we shipped it. All in roughly four hours.
Why We Love Doing Things Like This at Flutter Kanpur This is probably the biggest takeaway for us. Developer communities don't always have to be about:
“Today we are going to learn State Management.”
Sometimes it's more fun to say:
“Let's build something completely random tonight.”
And then actually do it.
That's what makes community building exciting.
You don't need a huge team.
You don't need months of planning.
You don't need a perfect idea.
Sometimes you just need:
A crazy idea + a deadline + 4 developers.
And maybe a YouTube livestream to make sure you can't escape halfway through.😂
From a Website to a Mobile App. Looking back, the funniest part is how small the original idea was. We weren't sitting around planning an Independence Day product. We simply saw a website — Deluxe Saloon — and thought:
“This could be interesting as a mobile experience.”
A few conversations later:
“Let's make it Independence Day themed.”
Then:
“Let's build it tonight.”
Then:
“Let's stream it.”
Then:
“Let's deploy it.”
And four hours later:
Azaadi was on Google Play.
That's honestly one of our favourite kinds of development. Not because the project is huge. But because it proves something we often forget:
You don't always need a perfect plan to build something. Sometimes you just need to start.
4 Hours. One Idea. One App. 🇮🇳
What started as a random observation of a website turned into a late-night community experiment.
We designed.
We coded.
We argued about UI.
We fixed bugs.
We watched the clock.
We probably drank too much chai.
We went live.
And finally… we shipped. That's Azaadi.
A small Independence Day project built by the Flutter Kanpur community — not over weeks, not behind closed doors, but together, live, in about four hours.
And honestly?
We'd do it again.
Try Azaadi
If you're curious about what four hours of late-night Flutter chaos looks like, give the app a try:
Download Azaadi on Google Play
And if you're a developer reading this, here's our advice:
The next time you get a random idea, don't immediately create a Jira ticket for it.
Open Flutter.
Start building.
You never know where four hours might take you.
Built with Flutter. Built by the community. Built on Azaadi. 🇮🇳
~Flutter Kanpur