What it took to Rebuild our App from the Ground Up
Back in 2015, we started a process to turn one of our occasional side projects into a full-time business and self-initiated digital product: the tackl App. It’s been over three years now since our fledgling idea came to life in August 2016, and we’re so proud to present the second generation of tackl! Also, we gained some really valuable insights and learnings about what it took to build out digital product these days, and wanted to share our learnings during the last two year process. 🤗
1.0 The Product Pitch
The App Concept
So what exactly is tackl, and where did the inspiration (or rather the pain) come from to build such a product? In it’s most basic form, tackl is a more usable and delightful social sports betting experience. You can:
- ⚽️ Choose matches from international leagues
- 🎲 Predict the who will win the match, and by how much
- 🤝 Invite a few friends to take part in the match
- 💵 Place a wager (for now just social currency & drinks among friends)
- 👀 And follow the match live
At the time when we had the idea for the app, we saw huge potential for the product in a market dominated by entities that rarely have the interest of the user in mind. Either the odds are always stacked heavily against the user, the social component is quite weak, or the usability and aesthetics are ignored altogether. We started out designing a few concepts, and eventually reached a point where we either had to drop the project or find a way to build it.
In the end, we decided to pursue the project, bootstrap the development from the beginning, and to focus on building out a proof of concept to bring into discussions with potential investors. Back then, we wrote an article about the decisions and processes of turning a side project into a business here:
What happened next…
After many iterations and rounds of revision, we released tackl version 1.0. It was a major benchmark for us as a studio to bring a product into the world, and cause for celebration! Yet, even though we reached the milestone of releasing the app, anyone who’s ever built a digital product knows that a product release is really just beginning of a product’s lifecycle. Then begins an entirely new iterative cycle of making the product incrementally better in phases that add value for users. 🥵
Right after launching, we realized there were key aspects that were either entirely missing from the App or, even worse, alienating users before they could even get into the app experience at all. For example:
- One tradeoff we made early on was developing version 1.0 strictly for iOS (due to development costs). Yet, when a huge part of the gaming community is playing on Android devices, this seriously limits the potential reach of your product.
- Additionally, for account creation were using only Facebook login, further alienating potential users not active on Facebook from using our product.
- These issues, combined with a less-than-optimal onboarding experience, and a marketing budget of €0.00 really set back the product from reaching it’s full potential.
In hindsight, we had created a product for a niche market with more barriers than benefits for users. 😞
After taking some time to reflect, we saw major opportunities to make tackl even better. Firstly, there were major feature tradeoffs (😢 ) we had to make in order to realize a first version of the app. Secondly, throughout product development, there’s an entire backlog of optimizations, tweaks, and reported bugs (🐞 ) which need to be collected, internalized, solved and pushed back in the product. And finally, in order to justify further investment into building out the product, there usually needs to be a plan for monetizing (💸 ) some part of the product to make it sustainable (otherwise, time and resources are quickly exhausted).
3.0 The Process
Finding a Partner
We knew something needed to change, but even we weren’t sure where to start. After asking around a bit for advice, across the board we heard similar feedback and came to an important conclusion: In order to build a version of our product that we had imagined from the beginning, we needed to find a business partner with knowledge of the industry and a variety of resources that would allow us to fully realize the potential of the product. We went on the hunt, speaking with several potential partners and were most excited by our conversations with the sport gaming expert E2 Communications.
From the beginning of the partnership, E2 showed us that they were the right partner. Having so much experience promoting products in the sport betting industry, they were able to share meaningful insights about aspects of the product we had never thought of before. They had a variety of internal resources covering development, marketing and legal complexities in building products in the industry (which can be really confusing to navigate). This turned out to be such an advantage in carrying out aspects of the product’s development that we could never have achieved alone.
Rebuilding the App from Scratch
As soon as we started collaborating together more intensively, looking at all aspects of version 1.0, it was pretty clear that in order to build the product out fully, we would have to strip it down and pretty much start from scratch. Although in the beginning, this decision turned into quite a time-consuming and exhausting process, it was necessary. On the one hand, it was the only way we could establish a code ecosystem flexible enough to be developed for the multiple of platforms. Here, we were quite fortunate that E2 brought a full-stack development team to the table that we could work with to build out tackl for both iOS & Android.
It’s been a long journey, but overall, the rebuild has been worth the effort!
Without further ado… we present tackl version 2.0! 🎉
Undergoing this process allowed us also to revisit many of the key aspects of the product where we had made shortcuts in the design and implementation before. We were able to invest in a major overhaul of the interface elements and user experience in the App, while expanding the product by introducing features we had always wanted to include before. For example:
- ⚽️ Public Matches: The ability to challenge random members of the tackl community
- 🇪🇺 International Leagues: Playing matches in any of the major national & international competitions 🇲🇽 🇺🇸 🇧🇷 🇩🇰 🇹🇷
- 🥇 Groups: Playing with friends over an entire season long
- 💬 In-Game Chat: The ability to chat with and roast players inside of any match. 😜
- 🔎 Adding Friends: With the ability to search and add friends directly from the app.
- 👨🏽 👩🏻 Profile Page: Displaying the Player’s main infos., including their favorite team, win & loss statistics, and a direct challenge button from their Profile.
And a whole host of other features and interactions making the app ultimately more delightful for users. We are so happy to present a product that we’re proud of and one we already love to use ourselves! 😎 😎 😎
4.0 Our Primary Learnings
Along with any process, there are parts you learn from and carry into the next project. Here are a few points that stick out as the main learnings from our process.
#1 : Getting Lost in the Details
As designers, we get quickly get obsessed with details… so much that we lose sight of realistic product budgets, resources and time spent on any given aspect. This project was no exception. While we were admittedly naive from the beginning about exactly how much time and resources it would take to realize such an undertaking, we couldn’t have imagined building a second version of our product would take the time and resources that it did.
For one, along the way we often became caught up in making the app a one to one match with the designs we had. Being the client & creator of the product turned into a double-edged sword. Technically, almost anything and everything these days is possible to recreate in code — but this always comes at a price (either paid in money & resources, or in time spent). It was a constant challenge for us to learn where we could make realistic tradeoffs. This meant either in sacrificing specific design details and keeping project deadlines, or upholding the integrity of our initial designs which often led to the deadline being pushed further away than expected.
See our Case Study Here (or view it below):
In the end, it was an honest give-and-take process to bring a product that we were proud of to market, while still meeting a realistic timelines. With a massive budget from the beginning we could have probably banged out a product with all the bells and whistles we had our hearts set on. Realistically though, for the majority of side-projects considering becoming a full-time business, it becomes a constant balancing act between the hard reality of product development and keeping the dream of the best version of your product alive.
#2 : Go with the Flow or Disrupt for the Better
As soon as you start building products in an industry where most of the products look and feel the same (regardless of how well or poorly they work), one should always be mindful about when it makes sense to depart from a learned pattern.
We started off with a premise that a lot of what’s out there on the market isn’t good enough. Just as an example, most of the match “Prediction Pickers” in the majority of Apps involve an arduous process of manually entering each individual value with a standard numeric keypad. The process becomes even more frustrating when paired with miniature input fields to type a score into, where users run the risk of not being able to tap the input field easily or missing the field entirely (#fatfingers). Even readability becomes an issue in many cases, as the scores are often set-up differently (listed horizontally) than the teams that the scores represent (listed vertically).
Now, imagine having to predict the outcome of matches for an entire season using an interface like this… painful. So one of the first interactions we chose to streamline was building a Prediction Picker that was easier to interact with and ultimately made the process of guessing match outcomes enjoyable. From building a large custom slider for score prediction, to improving readability by connecting the scores more visually with the teams that the score is connected to. Even the task of cycling through matches we tried to make easier to use by having the user simply swipe through the matches.
We believe that a good rule of thumb is that if you’re making a task simpler & adding value to an everyday interaction, then it’s ultimately worth it to find a way to do it better. And if you’re making drastic changes to a process that users are accustomed to, it’s better to inform and guide them about that change instead of changing everything without giving any context at all. In this sense, we’re making a bet ourselves that the way tackl is built makes the experience of predicting match outcomes among friends fundamentally easier & more enjoyable. But only time will tell whether we placed our bet wisely. 😉
#3 : The Importance of Being Heard
Finally, if we had to start the process over again we would invest way more into an actual marketing strategy. To be honest, we way underestimated the value of good marketing. We believed that if we just broadcasted our idea loud enough that word of mouth would be good enough as a distribution plan… Unfortunately, this just isn’t enough nowadays. Going “Viral” isn’t a formula you can follow and is arguably much more difficult today in a world full of products clamoring for attention.
Even navigating the App Store & Play Store is a serious challenge. There are so many unique caveats to advertising your product for iOS & Android. Each store has their own set of rules for how you can advertise a product and the number of restrictions increase drastically if your product is connected to an industry known for bending the rules. Here we were once again quite grateful for the partnership with E² who had experience in the social sports betting market.
DISCLAIMER: That all said… Your product is the most important part of your entire marketing strategy. If the product is awesome, marketing will help in reaching your audience. If you’re hoping to gloss over the shortcomings of the product with marketing alone, the product will land in the trashbin faster than you can expect.
To summarize, an Instagram Profile and a few nice screen shots of your product for the App Store is not a marketing strategy. Just releasing a product in the world isn’t enough… App marketing essentials, timing of the release and a considered strategy will set your product up for success. It’s something we learned the hard way with the first version of the app (😪 ), and something we’ve devoted much more energy into with the second version of tackl. And on that note… a bit of last minute marketing from our side 😜
It’s an exciting time for us now to see how the new version of our app is received! We’re already working hard to share our experience with all our friends in our various communities. Undoubtedly, we’d love it if you wouldn’t mind spreading with word with us! 📢 And of course, try it out yourself and let us know what you think! 😉 ▶️
Download Links:
🍎 App Store | ▶️ Play Store
Social Links: You can also follow tackl on…
📷 Instagram | 🐥 Twitter | 👍 Facebook
