For many professional athletes playing overseas, finding their next playing opportunity or sponsorship can be difficult. And for athletes looking to transition into the next chapter of their lives, it can be tough to get in touch with other athletes who have been in that same position.
Former pro field hockey player and entrepreneur Ainsley McCalister approached Viget with the idea of creating a platform that would give information and opportunities to high-performing athletes looking to succeed in their next stage. With a new investing round on the horizon, she needed a fully functioning MVP to showcase her vision and grow a community of beta users.
I led the product design effort, which included feature definition, design production, and prototyping.
To get things started, our team collectively facilitated workshops with Uru to get a better idea of what constituted Phase 1 MVP-level features, versus Phase 2 and down-the-road enhancements. This gave us clarity on what should be developed and tested with beta users right away, versus what could wait until later.
Working with a limited budget and timeframe, I used the Tailwind UI parts kit to streamline design production and make the front-end development process as seamless as possible. Though this introduced a structured set of design constraints, we leaned into them. It was a trade-off worth making to prioritize engineering progress in a crunched MVP sprint.
Coming out of our feature definition workshops, I prioritized designing around a few key areas for the MVP launch: onboarding and profile completion, connecting with and messaging other members, creating and managing groups, and posting to the news feed.
Today, Uru Sports is a part of the Comcast NBCUniversal Accelerator and continues to attract athletes from the WNBA, NFL, MLS, the Olympics, and universities throughout the United States.
