There was no 3D ikebana app

Market Research

When you come up with an idea for a new service, chances are someone else is already doing it. Anyone with experience developing services will understand this.

So, I decided to first check if any similar apps existed. I searched the App Store and Google Play Store using keywords like “ikebana” or “flower arrangement” – every term I could think of.

The result was zero.

While there were several apps themed around ikebana, not a single one let you experience ikebana in 3D.

However, the absence of similar apps isn’t necessarily reassuring. There’s always a reason why no similar apps exist.

I figured that while 10,000 people might come up with a similar idea, only about 1% of them—100 people—would actually try to build it. And of those, only 1%—just one person—would see it through to completion. Development would likely be tough.

For example, while searching YouTube for ikebana tutorials, I found one video where the creator mentioned the idea of creating 3D ikebana here and there.

The idea itself has value (though certainly not zero), but what matters most is actually completing the creation. Only by building and releasing it does it gain the potential to create value.

Market research revealed a state of “no competitors, but uncertain demand.” Normally, this might be a scary area to venture into.

But looking at it another way, I realized, “That’s precisely why big companies are unlikely to enter, meaning there’s potential even for an individual developer.” Taking my idea and testing it in a space no one else has challenged. That became this app’s position.

Regardless, even without similar apps, I couldn’t feel secure at all. In fact, I was only filled with anxiety about whether I could actually finish building it. To dispel that anxiety, I moved on to the next step: technical validation.

Technical Validation

To convince myself that I could build this and that proceeding in this direction was viable, I first needed to learn how to manipulate 3D data within the app.

The concept was barely taking shape, I had no experience developing apps using 3D data, and I was still learning ikebana and knew next to nothing about it. That was my situation.

The Apple Design Resources site publishes various design files. With the release of Apple Vision Pro, 3D sample data was also available. So, I started by downloading those files, integrating them into my app, and learning the operations.

Moving objects, rotating them, scaling them, manipulating specific parts, deleting sections, duplicating elements. Usability was secondary at this stage, but I understood that various operations were technically possible.

While actually practicing ikebana, I considered how to implement basic actions like cutting and bending within the app, gradually adding the minimum necessary functionality.

Due to the nature of 3D data, bending—essentially deforming or changing shape—proved quite challenging. Nevertheless, I gained confidence that most things can be achieved digitally.

I felt development could proceed.

Technically, it wasn’t impossible, but numerous challenges remained for developing the app.

What kind of flower 3D models should I create? How should I create them? As an ikebana beginner, I still lacked floral knowledge and had never created 3D data before. The development hurdles felt overwhelmingly high.

Faced with so many unknowns, this became one of the points where I considered stopping development.