TL;DR
Sports analytics app turned live streaming platform seeks elite designer and developer. I show up early and bring my A-game. Cue celebration confetti and victory parade.
Roles
Product Design
Creative Direction
Lead Front-End Development
Senior QA/QC
Accomplishments
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Led the branding of a major streaming platform in a rapidly evolving industry.
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Led the design and user-experience of hybrid and native iOS app across multiple pivots.
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Led development of a responsive front-end framework for web product, utilizing HTML, CSS3 (SCSS), Javascript, and messaging and video technologies.
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Led a team of contractors through branding, UX, and videography improvements.
The early days
In the summer of 2013, I joined the co-founders of Cramster to develop Baller, a mobile platform focused on sports and amateur athletes. By analyzing the activities and trends of our users, we provided personalized insights based on real, quantifiable data. From win streaks, to most compatible teammates, to team rivalries, we empowered athletes to make the most of their games.
My initial responsibilities were leading direction of visual design and user-experience. As a small team of three, we relied on PhoneGap (formerly Cordova), AppGyver Steroids, and AngularJS frameworks to make a rapid, dual-platform release possible. Shortly after moving into development, an additional back-end engineer was brought on and my responsibilities expanded to include direction and execution of front-end development.
"I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a…"*
As our feature list grew, so did the stresses on these frameworks. The addition of venue check-ins, dynamic headlines, and social network components proved to be too much for the state of hybrid app development at the time.
Realizing our limitations, I pushed for a move to native iOS development with a responsive web component. It was a big risk, but with the addition of more engineers and many months of hard work, it proved to be the right choice.
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Moving the goalposts
Getting past our technical limitations allowed us to implement even more features: event scheduling, league organization, and most importantly, live streaming.
The inclusion of live streaming was a game-changer. Users who enjoyed insights and creating memories, but complained of logging lengthy and detailed data, flocked to our broadcasting functionality and content.
Automated headlines were accompanied by automated video highlights, based on real-time viewer feedback. Activities were bonded with relevant videos. Our advanced scheduling feature extended to include future broadcasts.
We quickly realized our efforts were better served advancing this popular feature. After two years of hard work (and lots of lessons learned), Baller evolved into BallerTV.
Stretching my legs
With a new platform came new responsibilities. My role as lead designer and lead front-end developer of an emerging video platform challenged me to expand my knowledge of back-end systems (Ruby on Rails), video technologies (JW Player, RTMP, HLS), prototyping tools (InVision, Balsamiq), and animation/video production (Core Animator, After Effects).
Along the way, I strengthened my front-end methodologies. Code was executed with greater efficiency and speed through implementation of BEM (Block Element Modifier) and advanced SCSS mixins.
Leading the charge
Leading design as well as front-end development alone proved to be no small feat. Despite my best efforts, the rapidly increasing number of features and responsibilities began to impact the pace of our development. That summer, I led a team of contractors to assist with visual design.
User research led us to new ways of imbuing fun and personality. By allowing users to create an avatar using their headshot photo and a variety of character attributes, the experience became uniquely their own.
Not long after finalizing visual design, we decided to open up our platform and drop the requirement of user registration. This led to a difficult decision to halt development on this feature, but much of the visual direction was adapted to other parts of the app.
Where are they now?
In the first six months of our video platform launch, BallerTV saw explosive growth. Over 3,000 full-length games were broadcast, more than 250,000 minutes of video content were shared, and a staggering 1.5 million minutes were viewed.
With the recent addition of premium event coverage and membership, BallerTV's financial growth is on track for a record year in 2017. We created the most successful, affordable video platform to share sports moments.
Much like the athletes we empower, our success took a lot of hard work and sacrifice. Building BallerTV has been the proudest and most challenging experience of my professional career...so far.
See some of my older work
This takes you to an earlier version of my portfolio with a variety of projects.