Hyzerbase

A fantasy sports app for disc golf — draft players, score tournaments, compete with friends. Co-founded with a close friend and built from zero to 1,500 users with no marketing budget.

My Role

This was a true co-creation. My co-founder built the entire technical stack — Android, iOS, backend. I drove the product side: defining the core loop, running community engagement on Reddit and Discord, managing user communications, and making the product decisions that shaped retention.

We made decisions together. Neither of us was “the boss” — we debated features, reviewed user feedback jointly, and iterated fast. But our day-to-day focus was complementary: he was in the code, I was in the community and the product.

What Worked

Getting the core loop right before scaling. We spent weeks refining the draft-score-compete cycle before we told anyone about it. By the time we shared it on the disc golf subreddit, the experience was tight enough that people stayed.

Community as the growth engine. Every user came through organic channels — Reddit, Discord, word of mouth. We responded to every piece of feedback personally. The early adopters became advocates because they felt heard.

Knowing when “good enough” was good enough. We shipped with a minimal feature set and added what users actually asked for rather than what we assumed they’d want.

The Result

89% 7-day user retention in a category where 7.3% is average. 1,500 users acquired in six weeks with zero paid spend. Monetized via subscriptions. The app is still live, maintained by my co-founder — I stepped back to focus on other projects.