Bracketology

Bracketology.tv is America’s leading platform for fantasy games for reality TV, such as ABC’s The Bachelor franchise (think fantasy football for reality TV).

Client Name

Bracketology

Location

Chicago, IL

Challenges

Rebuilding a platform to scale with 700,000+ users

Tech Stack

Ruby on Rails, Vue.js, WordPress

Outcome

Fully custom platform, modularized to scale and replicate into new verticals

Context

Bracketology's founders were four women who were frustrated that their husbands and boyfriends had an obsession with Fantasy Football. They decided they wanted something of their own, so they got together and started drawing up a fantasy sports-type game for The Bachelor franchise on the back of a napkin.

Through pooling their money together, they were able to work with a few developer friends and get something sufficient out to market for people to use.

In just 4 years, the platform took off and recorded over 500,000 unique users, with over 200,000 of them coming in 2021.

Bracketology.tv was redesigned to look great on any device
Bracketology.tv was redesigned to look great on any device

Challenges

Bracketology.tv has goals to expand their offerings to other shows, beyond The Bachelor Franchise such as Fantasy Survivor and Fantasy Big Brother. They needed to build a scalable platform that was also modularized so they could efficiently scale into new shows.

First, Bracketology.tv needed a new architecture diagram and scalability plan. They needed a roadmap that allowed them to handle hundreds of thousands of users, a wonderful problem that they never anticipated.

A second challenge was the design. Bracketology.tv is a user-facing application, so the design is incredibly important. They needed a modern and refreshed look, one that kept users engaged and excited about the games they were playing.

How do you build a product that is cost-efficient, delivered quickly, and also high in quality? That defies the odds of software development.

The site was built to scale up during period of heavy load
The site was built to scale up during period of heavy load

Solution

After a diligent search through our Partner Network, Bracketology's Outsourcing Strategist was able to connect the team with Onix, based in Ukraine. Onix was well-equipped for the job for a few reasons:
They have deep experience in building scalable platforms that require heavy server load.
They have an incredible design team that is modern and detail-oriented.
They had the necessary resources available on a short notice.


The Onix Tech Lead was able to effectively communicate with the Bach team, walking them through the roadmap step by step and ensuring that they were prepared for each step of the journey.

To the Bracketology.tv team, the most important requirement was meeting their deadline since The Bachelor runs on a set schedule and they wanted the site ready for the next season. In order to meet the deadline, the Onix team reviewed the timeline and roadmap every week to ensure we were on track and trim features if necessary.

Today, Bracketology.tv has a brand new platform for users to use and is positioned to scale their current user base and break into new shows.

Business Outcome

In April of 2021, Bracketology.tv approached Aloa with a mission: to build a brand new platform for the new Bachelor season. Since Bracketology.tv didn’t have all of the funds, Aloa was able to create a financing plan to ensure that they could help build the desired platform in a scalable manner.

Starting development in September, Aloa had a tight deadline to build this new platform. Aloa informed Bach Bracket of the risks and challenges, that some features would have to be cut and there would definitely be bugs, but Bracketology.tv was up for the challenge.

After outsourcing their development with Aloa, Bracketology.tv was able to launch their redesigned platform for 2022’s season of The Bachelor. While there were bugs at the start, the Bracketology.tv team was incredibly happy with the outcome as they had a brand new look and feel, along with more reliable servers and improved functionality.

Check them out here
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