Case Study: A C2C Sports Marketplace for Surfers

In this article, we're going to tell you the story of LetsSurf which helps beginning surfers finding a coach.

Technologies went so far as to allow consumers to find the needed service fast and without leaving their sofa. You can order pizza, book a flight, rent a car. And find a surfing coach!

Our customer saw a perspective in a business model that connects people willing to do various sports activities with instructors who can help them enhance their skills.

Why exactly surfing? This kind of sport is quite popular in Los Angeles where our customer comes from. In addition, there were no similar products in that area.

The absence of similar products and the belief in this model has encouraged our customer to create LetsSurf. With this decision, the customer contacted us and shortly afterward we started our cooperation.

Our team built this project from scratch and met the set deadline. To be precise, the scope of services we've provided to our customer is the following:

• UI/UX design;
• Web development;
• Android development;
• iOS development.

This product represents a directory that connects beginning surfers with coaches from all around the US. The project has no breakthrough tech innovations behind yet it provides customers with a decent user experience.

Let's start at the very beginning and briefly overview the LetsSurf capabilities.

As soon as users launch an app, they have two options: sign up or search for a coach by entering a ZIP code or city where they want to take a surfing lesson.

This feature allows users overviewing coaches available in their region by distance and popularity. That's quite convenient as users can view coaches and search for them using various filters (e.g. price, age, session type) before continuing their interaction with the app. However, users have to sign up to request a session.

The sign up procedure is pretty standard. If users want to register via email, they should fill in a basic information (e.g. name, surname) and make up a password. Another option is to register via Google and all the required information will be automatically pulled from the account.

As soon as users sign up, they get to the Book screen with the same functionality they could access to before registration. But there is one exception -- now they can request a session as they use the full-fledged app.

On this screen, users can also apply various search filters to get more relevant results and review coach profiles. Each profile contains a common information like gender, age, price, available equipment, etc. Besides, profiles may contain reviews from the previous learners.

When users have picked the coach they would like to learn from, they should tap the 'Request Session' button where they select all the session related details.

Talking about the web version of LetsSurf, it has nearly the same functionality as the mobile app except for the website has a UI/UX design tailored to desktops in order to provide the top-notch user experience.

Monetization is vital for any online product. That's why it's extremely important to understand which monetization strategy fits a project most of all.

LetsSurf is a directory and one of the most natural and best-fitting ways to monetize it -- charge the commission. The product retains 20% of the amount a user pays to coach for the lesson. Respectively, coaches keep 80% of the total cost.

Stripe was used to deal with online payment processing and implement this monetization strategy.

As you are already aware of features and peculiarities, let's consider technologies we've used to turn this project into life:

The main goal of our customer is to expand the product coverage in the US and world. We hope to cooperate again soon!

If you have the idea for a mobile app or website and you need a reliable software partner -- contact us. Our tech-savvy managers will consult you and provide with a project estimate.

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