Overview
Permanent makeup artists relied on paper consent and intake forms that had to be printed, filled out, signed, and stored by hand. Each procedure needs a signed consent from the client and the artist, and microblading, brows, lips, and other services each call for their own paperwork.
PMU Forms is a subscription product that replaces that paper: a native iOS and iPadOS app for artists, a web app for their clients, an internal form builder, and a .NET backend tying it together. Clients can log in on the web, book, and fill out their forms before they arrive.
Dephyned built and operated it from 2019 to 2024. More than 1,800 artists signed up, serving more than 6,000 clients, and over 53,000 forms were filled out.
The first production version, a Swift iOS app and an Angular web app, was built in six weeks. It was sold as a monthly App Store subscription and grew to $1,200 in monthly recurring revenue, with a 4.3 average from 37 App Store ratings.
What it does
Running the business
- Appointments, client records, and the services an artist offers
- Client notes with photos from the camera or library
Forms per service
- The right forms assigned to each service
- Editable templates: add, edit, and delete sections
Signing
- Clients sign on the device and the artist countersigns
- Forms lock once signed
- Any filled form can be viewed or printed as a PDF
For clients
- Web app to log in, book, and fill out forms ahead of time
- “Before” photos taken with the webcam
- Short links to the artist’s online forms page
Support
- In-app tutorials and help videos
- LiveChat in the app and a HelpCrunch help center
How it’s built
A native artist app
The artist app is Swift with programmatic UIKit, SnapKit, RxSwift, and Dephyned’s own SwiftyBootstrap library, backed by Firebase Auth, Firestore, Storage, and Cloud Functions. Subscriptions go through Apple In-App Purchase using Dephyned’s DephynedPurchasing library on StoreKit.
Signed forms as PDFs
Filled forms, signatures included, are rendered to PDF on the device with UIGraphicsPDFRenderer so artists can view or print them.
A client web app
Clients use an Angular and AngularFire app on Firebase Hosting to book, fill out forms, and take photos from their own devices, with Datadog logging for production issues.
Backend and tooling
A .NET forms API serves versioned form templates and runs in Docker on AWS. Alongside it are a worker that syncs and caches Firestore data, a CLI for backups and form setup, and a React and TypeScript form builder for the team.
Operating the product
A 2022 email survey of users shaped the roadmap, including editable form templates, which shipped in 2023. Daily automated Firestore exports to Google Cloud Storage protected the data.
