Rally Tennis

The problem

Finding someone to play tennis with was genuinely broken. Leagues were expensive and rigid, Facebook groups and Meetup were slow and unreliable, skill ratings were inconsistent, and every match took a long thread of texts to coordinate. Existing apps either pushed paid coaching or had no in-app messaging at all.

What I did

I co-founded Rally and owned everything on the product and design side: research, competitive analysis, personas, flows, UI, and the roadmap. We launched in two months with matching by skill, distance, and playing style; weekly availability; in-app chat; match scheduling and scoring; and a leaderboard.

Then we iterated on what real players did. Filters became universal across the app and hid inactive players. Manual two-week availability — which people abandoned — became “typical availability,” set once during onboarding and auto-filled weekly. After women reported unwanted requests, we added gender-preference matching so players only see people who match their preferences, plus block, report, and delete in chat.

What happened

10,000+ signups, 1,000+ daily actives, and 5,400+ matches recorded in the first three months. We eventually wound it down because we couldn’t find a monetization model — not for lack of engagement.