Vijay Goyal

I turn ideas into products.

What I do

Product manager and independent app builder. I design, build and ship my own iOS apps, end to end.

Shipped

Two iOS apps on the App Store. xBill: 8 releases, all approved first time. The Shady Spade: 7 submissions since v1.5, 6 approved first time.

Selected work

Two products, built end to end

xBill reviewing a scanned ALDI receipt on an iPhone: each line item parsed with its price, and tappable chips assigning every item to one or more people
The Shady Spade mid-hand on an iPhone: six players marked bidder, partner or defense, spades as trump, two called cards, and the bidding team 150 points into a 130 bid
The xBill app iconThe Shady Spade app icon
01 — xBill · Shared expenses

Splitting expenses shouldn’t be complicated.

xBill divides a bill, tracks who owes what, and closes the loop when people pay.

  • Track

    Every balance is derived, never stored — each split minus each settlement — so the numbers cannot drift out of agreement.

  • Settle

    Either party records a payment: the person who owes, or the person owed. A correction is a delete and a re-record, so there is no silent edit of someone else’s money.

  • Swift · SwiftUI
  • Supabase · Postgres row-level security
  • v1.7 live · 531 tests at release
Release history · 8
  1. v1.711 Sep 2026 · approved first time · 531 tests (unit)
  2. v1.64 Sep 2026 · approved first time · 513 tests (unit, widget)
  3. v1.527 Aug 2026 · approved first time
  4. v1.425 Aug 2026 · approved first time · 469 tests (unit)
  5. v1.324 Aug 2026 · approved first time · 441 tests (unit)
  6. v1.222 Aug 2026 · approved first time · 410 tests (unit)
  7. v1.118 Aug 2026 · approved first time
  8. v1.011 Aug 2026 · approved first time · 361 tests (unit, UI, widget)
02 — The Shady Spade · Card game

A classic card game. A modern experience.

Six players, no fixed teams. The highest bidder declares trump and calls two secret partners — so you learn who you are playing with by playing.

  • Play together

    Online, over Bluetooth with no network at all, or against AI opponents.

  • Think strategically

    250 points on the table. The three of spades alone is worth thirty. Make your bid and you score what your team caught; get set and you lose it.

  • Swift · watchOS
  • Bluetooth · Firebase
  • v2.0 live · 280 tests at release · with Apple Watch
Release history · 7
  1. v2.024 Sep 2026 · approved first time · 280 tests (unit, UI)
  2. v1.10submitted 7 Jun 2026 · approved first time
  3. v1.9submitted 31 May 2026 · rejected (guideline 5.1.2)
  4. v1.8submitted 28 Apr 2026 · approved first time
  5. v1.7submitted 23 Apr 2026 · approved first time
  6. v1.6submitted 16 Apr 2026 · approved first time
  7. v1.5approved first time

How I build

Problem → store

  1. Discover

    Use the thing. Most of what is worth building shows up as an irritation first.

  2. Define

    Decide what it is not. Scope is the first design decision.

  3. Design

    In SwiftUI, not in a mockup — the real thing on a real device, early.

  4. Build

    Offline-first, so the apps work on a train. Row-level security where money is involved.

  5. Refine

    Automated tests behind every release, and a release runbook that gets executed, not read.

  6. Ship

    Submit, get approved, watch what people actually do, repeat.

Toolkit

Verified, nothing aspirational

Product
Discovery, scoping, release planning, App Store submission
Design
SwiftUI, design systems, iOS and watchOS interface design
Build
Swift, SwiftUI, Xcode, XCTest, Supabase, Postgres, Firebase, WatchConnectivity, Git
AI
Claude and Codex as working tools: implementation, code review, and audits with the findings written down

About

Product thinker · builder · constant learner

I’m Vijay Goyal.

I work in product management, and independently design, build and ship applications.

What interests me is where product thinking, design, technology and AI meet — and how much further modern tools let one person take an idea than used to be possible.

Have an interesting idea?

I’d love to hear about it.

imvijaygoyal@gmail.com