Business Update 010: April Updates
Hey everyone, here’s another quick update on the state of Crowd Card.
At the end of March I began migrating Mission Control’s backend from Firebase to Supabase (for reasons previously discussed). I am happy to announce that the migration went smoothly - Mission Control is now 100% moved to Supabase. I have tested Mission Control’s event management system over multiple UFC cards and confirmed that everything is working as expected. My next step for Mission Control is to build out a better analytics dashboard that will be used to better understand app usage. I don’t suspect this will be that difficult to build, but it’s relatively low on my priority list until the Crowd Card app is actually launched and has users.
With Mission Control running smoothly on the new backend, I was able to shift much of my focus in April to building the iOS app. I’m happy to share that I’ve made a lot of progress on the app! The user authentication layer is fully functional - users can register using email/password, create and edit their profile, sign in and out of the app, and delete their account (hopefully they won’t want to). Supabase makes implementing this type of authentication system very (very) easy.
I have also successfully connected the iOS app to Supabase, where it reads events posted from Mission Control. For example, I create an “event” in Mission Control, let’s say UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Figueiredo, and add individual fights on the card as “sub-events.” Each “sub-event” then has “micro-events” that represent individual rounds in each fight. All of this is created in Mission Control, pushed to Supabase, and then read by the Crowd Card app via an API. In other words, the UI for the Crowd Card app will display all upcoming events created in Mission Control:
In the app, users can then bookmark events that they’re interested in and cast judgements on each “micro-event” (i.e., round) in real time. As a round ends, judging for that round “opens” on the app and users can cast their scores, which are then stored in the database. After judging “closes” for a micro-event, scores across all users will be tallied and shared - this is the “Crowd Card.” I’m still working on the UI/UX for the scoring pages, but have a few ideas. My top priorities for scoring UI/UX are simple:
It needs to be fast; as a fan, I want to be on social media during fights, not some other app. So I want people to get in and out of Crowd Card quickly (fast loading, intuitive design, etc.).
It needs to be simple; this is heavily related to priority 1 - nothing keeps people on an app for a long time more than a complicated UI/UX. I want this to be as simple as voting on an X poll.
Users need to be able to share their scores; when I’m watching a fight and a round ends, I immediately post my scores on X. You should be able to link to your social media accounts and share your scores from Crowd Card with very little friction (ideally with a single click of a button).
Scoring is easily the most sophisticated piece of the app - but it’s also the crux of the entire company, so I am spending a lot of time thinking about the design.
My tentative goal is to have the iOS app ready for Test Flight by UFC Baku on June 21st. Although I’m confident that the app can be built and tested adequately enough for launch by this date, I am hedging this statement with the word “tentative” because I’ve never gone through the submission process with Apple’s App Store. It’s possible that I get caught up at the end stages of launch. I will do my best to provide updates throughout the process!
Although I’m initially launching specifically for UFC events, trust me, I plan to expand! If you can judge it, I’m coming for it…
If you’re interested in being one of the first users on the platform, join the waitlist today or shoot me a DM on X!
Other Updates
Here are a few additional updates on development:
My Github commit streak continues! At the beginning of the year, I set for myself a goal of committing at least once per day to Github (a code repository). As of April 30th, I have made at least one commit for 120 consecutive days, with a running total of 256 commits this year. This represents thousands of lines of code across multiple applications (two web apps and an iOS app) using multiple languages (Swift, PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript…). I will do my best to keep this streak alive.
Web app: As the iOS app rolls into shape, I am starting to spend more time thinking about the Crowd Card web app. Users will be able to use either iOS or web (and eventually Android) with the same account, depending on their own preference.
Media: I had another great month on social media - I ended April with just under 44k impressions and exactly 1.3k engagements (my second best month ever, just behind March). Traffic to the website remains pretty stable and several future users joined the waitlist in April. I am going to make a push to increase traffic to the site with more regular posts, particularly on X. Given UFC’s newly announced partnership with Meta, I am considering shifting some focus to their products, particularly Threads and Instagram. I will link to these accounts on the website when they’re up and running.
Coming Up
I’m headed to Des Moines this weekend to watch Sandhagen take on Figueiredo! Believe it or not, this will be my first time ever attending a UFC event live. After that we have UFC 315 followed by a few Fight Nights. Outside of the UFC, we have the first round of the PFL LHW and HW World Championships this Thursday and a great BKFC event and ONE Fight Night 31 on Friday. Great weekend of fights ahead!
Okay back to work - thanks for reading.
Written by Daniel Kuhman, Founder
