Piwi App Hero Image

Projects Product Design & Engineering

Mobile App · React Native · Play Store Live

Piwi
Athlete Passport

Tunisia's first unified platform for endurance athletes. From fragmented Facebook posts to a centralized race discovery engine, verified leaderboards, and digital athlete passports. Built from zero engineering background to Play Store launch.

download Get it on Play Store
Project Type 0 → 1 Product
Platform React Native (Expo)
My Role Designer & Founder
Industry SportsTech / Endurance
Status Live on Play Store
01 — The Challenge

New skills unlocked

I didn't start building an app because I had a startup dream. I started because the bridge between design and development was big for the longest time, but now the lines are blurring and I was curious to see what's on the other side. After vibecoding my portfolio, I decided to go further and see where my creativity and problem solving skills take me. They took me to the Play Store.

palette

Product Designer

Systems & UX

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code

Vibecoder

AI Amplified

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design_services

Fullstack Designer

Design + Code

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rocket_launch

Product Owner & Founder

Ship & Scale

02 — The Fracture

Races were everywhere and nowhere

In Tunisia, finding your next race meant scrolling through fragmented Facebook posts, WhatsApp forwards, and word-of-mouth. There was no single source of truth for endurance athletes.

No place to discover events, compare distances, or track your own history across seasons. Athletes had no digital passport. Years of results scattered across screenshots, spreadsheets, and memory. The community existed, but it was invisible.

Discovery Friction

4+

Average apps/platforms an athlete checked before registering.

Identity Gap

0%

Athletes with centralized, verifiable race history.

Trust Deficit

High

Results were self-reported and unverified.

Organizer Reach

Limited

No dedicated discovery channel beyond social circles.
chat WhatsApp Forwards
post Facebook Posts
table Scattered Spreadsheets
memory Word of Mouth
03 — The Journey

From idea to Play Store

The barrier wasn't technical knowledge. It was momentum. Curiosity. Stubbornness. Systems thinking. Taste. The willingness to stay inside confusion long enough for clarity to emerge.

I traced issues, fixed flows, restructured components, improved logic, and kept shipping. What started as "let's see if I can" became "I actually can." The escalation wasn't just in complexity, it was in belief.

D1

Idea

Concept born. Research into the Tunisian endurance scene. Problem validated through athlete interviews.

D7

Design

Figma system established. User flows, wireframes, and component library created from scratch.

D14

UI V0

First React Native screens. Theme system centralized. Navigation and basic layouts functional.

D30

Database Connected

Supabase PostgreSQL schema live. Auth, real-time subscriptions, and API layer operational.

D60

First Beta

Internal testing with 10 athletes. Discovery feed, race cards, and basic profiles functional.

D75

Play Store Launch

Public release. Real users downloading. The story had just begun.

04 — Core Features

Designing the athlete passport

Feature 01

Discovery Feed

Personalized race recommendations, featured events, and discipline filters. The UI prioritizes visual hierarchy. Race photos take center stage while metadata sits cleanly below.

lightbulb Designer Note

I used a rotating featured race system (AsyncStorage persistence) to give every organizer fair visibility without algorithmic bias.

9:41
Piwi Home Page Mockup Piwi Race Page Mockup Piwi Featured Race Mockup
Feature 02

Advanced Search

A unified search experience that handles everything from empty state suggestions to deep filter logic within a frictionless context.

lightbulb Designer Note

Instead of burying users in 5 separate screens, I designed a unified search flow. From empty state to results, everything happens in one coherent context.

Feature 03

Athlete Passport

A centralized profile showing race history, verified personal records, badges, and national rank. Athletes finally have a digital identity that persists beyond any single event.

lightbulb Designer Note

The PR grid uses sport-specific icons and color-coding so athletes can scan their achievements in milliseconds. Guest mode shows preview data to reduce signup friction.

Feature 04

National Leaderboards

Filterable by sport, distance, gender, age category, and governorate. Result claims go through admin verification to maintain credibility.

lightbulb Designer Note

The podium uses gold, silver, and bronze gradients with rank-appropriate heights. 1st place is physically elevated. Privacy-aware: athletes can hide from leaderboards.

9:41
Piwi Leaderboard Podium Mockup Piwi Leaderboard Filter Mockup Piwi Leaderboard Ranking Mockup
05 — How It Was Made

Designer, amplified

My product design background turned out to matter more than I expected. I already understood user experience, hierarchy, reusable systems, product flows, visual consistency, and emotional engagement. AI didn't replace those skills. It amplified them.

01 — Design

Figma

Design system, component library, and theme tokens for dark/light modes.

  • Component library
  • Theme tokens
  • Dark / Light modes
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02 — Code

React Native + Expo

TypeScript frontend with Supabase backend. AI-assisted logic generation.

  • React Native + Expo
  • Supabase backend
  • AI-assisted logic
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03 — Ship

Play Store

OTA updates, real users, and continuous iteration post-launch.

  • Play Store release
  • OTA updates
  • Real users

Tech Stack

React Native Expo TypeScript Supabase PostgreSQL TanStack Query AsyncStorage Figma Claude Cursor Kimi AI
lightbulb Designer Note

I centralized theming early because I was terrified of spaghetti code. Every color, spacing value, and border radius lives in a single theme object. The app supports full dark mode because it cost almost nothing to implement systematically.

06 — Day One

Real users, real feedback, real next steps

I launched yesterday. The numbers are small because the story just started. I am documenting the journey publicly, sharing builds, explaining decisions, showing the messy middle.

People aren't just reacting to the product. They're reacting to the speed of transformation.

Downloads

<100

Play Store downloads (launched yesterday).

Database

60

Races catalogued in the database.

Active Users

30

Early adopters exploring the platform.

Verification Queue

Growing

Result submissions waiting for admin review.

What's Next

business

B2B Infrastructure

Race organizers can list events directly without manual entry.

payments

Payment Integration

In-app registration and payment processing for races.

groups

Social Features

Following athletes, activity feeds, and community engagement.

apple

iOS Release

Bringing Piwi to the App Store for iPhone users.

07 — What I Learned

I stopped waiting for permission

I used to think there would be a moment where it becomes clear that I'm not cut out for things like this. But instead, the opposite kept happening. Things kept getting more complex, and I kept finding a way through them.

I originally wanted someone else to give me permission to enter the tech world. A recruiter. A company. A job offer. But building Piwi taught me that sometimes you become the thing first, and the permission comes later.

I thought I was waiting to become a product designer at a company. Instead, I was accidentally becoming a founder.