A creator engine
for the quiet weeks

A content surface to defend lean periods

FanCode is India's multi-sport streaming platform. Its problem was structural: when no major tournament was being streamed, content supply dried up, and DAU, WAU and time-spent fell with it. Channels was the answer — a platform where a curated list of sports creators publish professionally produced content (analysis, fantasy tips, behind-the-scenes, watch-alongs) to FanCode's huge existing fan audience.

A streaming app with nothing to stream

FanCode's whole rhythm is tied to the sporting calendar. The gaps between tier-1 and tier-2 tournaments left the platform with a low content supply — and during these periods the core engagement metrics fell off a cliff.

One surface, four outcomes

Channels wasn't a vanity content feed — it was scoped against four concrete business goals, each of which the design had to move.

What fans get out of it

Designing for the habit, with the Hooked model

A content engine only works if it builds a habit. I mapped Channels onto Nir Eyal's Hooked canvas — Trigger → Action → Variable Reward → Investment — and tied each quadrant to a concrete psychological lever.

Learning from where fans already watch

Creator-based video is everywhere — so rather than reinvent patterns, I audited how the biggest players present it, and pulled out the conventions fans already expect.

Patterns worth keeping

• Endless scrolling list of videos
• Autoplaying videos in-feed
• Occasional rails for supplementary content
• Creator profiles with a profile pic & cover
• Recommendations below the player

Pattern teardown — the recurring feed, rail and recommendation layouts pulled from those platforms.

Build on muscle memory, not against it

Fans spend most of their time on other apps, so they expect Channels to work the way those apps already do. Leveraging those existing mental models let users focus on the content, not on learning a new interface.

Jacob's Law in practice — rejecting the unfamiliar layout (✕) for the conventional one (✓) fans already know.

Three formats, one feed

Sports content doesn't come in one shape. Channels had to host everything from a vertical highlight to a full-length breakdown to a live show — so the player and feed were built around three supported content types.

The player & the feed, shipped

The video player was designed across every mode — live chat alongside a stream, a portrait short with a follow prompt, a landscape player with playlists and recommendations below.

Live · chat

Portrait short

Creator · follow

Landscape mode — full-width player with playlist & up-next below.

The Channels surface, end to end

From the entry feed and creator-explore rails to profiles, trending and the watch experience — the full set of screens that make Channels feel like a home, not a tab.

Final UI — the complete Channels experience: feed, explore, creator profiles, trending and the in-context video pages.

What this project taught me