TennisFlow

Overview

The problem

Recreational tennis players plateau because progress is invisible. They don't know what to practice, training alone kills motivation, and the apps out there are either pro-level analytics or social feeds with no real skill development.

What I built

A journaling app that makes logging a session quick, then turns those entries into patterns, streaks, and a suggestion for what to work on next. It's in private beta right now while I tighten up the core loop.

Who it's for

Recreational players, roughly NTRP 1.5 to 4.5.

My role

Solo founder and developer. Product, design, backend, and the app itself.

How it came together

1. Make logging easy

   Tap play when you walk onto the court, throw your phone in your bag, and fill in the details whenever you're done. If logging takes more than a minute, nobody does it twice.

2. Smart Coach

   A daily Next Best Action card on the home screen looks at your recent sessions and patterns and suggests one thing to work on. I wanted it to feel like a coach giving you one note, not a dashboard.

3. Progress you can see

   Court Score turns consistent journaling into XP and levels. Streak heatmaps and per-skill hours show the work adding up, and you can see how your friends are doing, which turns out to be pretty motivating.

Where it landed

In private beta. I'm tightening up the core loop of log, review, and adjust before opening it up to more players.

Inside the app

• Timer-tracked sessions with one-tap start and end
• Drill pack library with a weekly focus and personalized suggestions
• Court Score, a player XP system with levels
• Streak heatmap, lifetime stats, and hours logged per skill
• Smart Coach card that picks the next best action for the day

What I learned

1. Building solo means making countless decisions all the time. The architecture and the product calls both need real care, or the app gets hard to maintain fast.
2. Shipping the smaller version was usually better than waiting to polish it. Lots of times I'd catch myself spending hours getting something just right when I really should've just shipped it and moved on.
3. Talking to other tennis players gave me way more direction than any roadmap could. Hearing what they actually pay attention to and what they ignore told me more about what to build than I could've figured out by myself.