Sportbnk — Case Study

01 — Brief

What I was asked to do

The ask was to redesign existing MVP screens and make them production-ready. I pushed back on starting in Figma straight away. I wanted to understand the business and the users first — otherwise I would just be making things look better without knowing if the structure was right.

The original ask

Redesign the existing screens. Make it look production-ready for investors.

What I delivered

Competitor research, user interviews, business model analysis, MVP scoping, IA decisions, design system, 25+ screens, and a written direction document. I extended the scope because the work needed it. The founder agreed.

02 — Understanding the market

How the sports sponsorship market actually works

Before talking to users I read about how sponsorship deals happen — the stages, the timelines, who has what leverage. This helped me ask better questions and understand the problem more clearly.

The deal process

From first awareness to a signed contract takes 6 to 18 months. Most of that time is spent just finding the right partner and the right person to contact. That is the problem Sportbnk is solving.

Why agencies exist

Agencies charge 15–20% of deal value. Most of that fee is essentially for knowing who is in market right now, and who to call. That knowledge gap is what Sportbnk is replacing.

Where the revenue model fits

The most valuable moment for the user is when they want to contact a specific person. That is the right place to charge a credit. Everything before that should be free to build trust and get users invested.

03 — User research

What I heard from users before designing anything

I spoke with people from all three user types. I was not validating assumptions — I was trying to understand what their day actually looks like and where things break down.

"

We spend the first three months just figuring out which clubs are even open to a conversation. By the time we find the right one, our budget cycle has moved.

Brand Marketing Manager They need to know who is open before they start.

"

We have 200 brands in a spreadsheet. We don't know who's actively looking, who just moved budget, or who signed with someone else last week.

Commercial Director — Cricket Club They need to know which brands are ready.

"

I manage 12 clients across 12 different spreadsheets. I spend more time managing information than actually working on deals.

Agency Partnerships Lead They need one place for everything.

What all three had in common

None of them said they needed more data. They already had data. What they all said in different ways was: I need to know what to act on right now. That became the core product idea — not a database, but a tool that surfaces the right opportunity at the right time.

04 — Competitive research

What existing tools are doing and what they're missing

I looked at four tools in this space. Each one is useful but each one solves only part of the problem. Looking at all four together made it clear where the gap was.

Tool	What it does	What it doesn't do
	Tracks sponsorship deals and has a large database of clubs and brands	No signals, no CRM, mostly US-focused, only shows historical data
	Measures ROI on deals that have already happened	Only works after a deal is signed — no value before the deal
	CRM for clubs and leagues to manage their sponsor relationships	Built only for rights holders — brands and agencies cannot use it
	Marketplace connecting brands with athletes	Athletes only, completely different market from what Sportbnk is doing
	Discovery + signals + contact unlock + CRM in one place	The only tool that combines all of this for all three user types globally

Every existing tool only looks backward — it shows you what already happened. Sportbnk's opportunity was to look forward: tell you what is about to happen so you can act before anyone else does.

05 — What I understood from the research

The things I learned that shaped the product

01

From founder conversation + business model mapping

The credits model is the revenue engine — and it needed to be part of the design from the start

I talked with the founder early about how the platform makes money. The model is: browsing is free, but unlocking a contact's details costs one credit. Understanding this changed how I designed the People tab. It had to show enough — the person's name, role, seniority — to make the contact feel worth unlocking. But it had to hold back the actual contact details.

02

From IA planning

One org page with two tabs was the right call for the MVP

I had to decide: build Sponsors and People as separate screens, or as tabs inside one Organisation page. I chose tabs. When a brand is looking at a club, their intent is sequential. They want to understand the sponsor landscape first (Sponsors tab), then find the right person to contact (People tab). That is one journey, not two.

03

From MVP scoping with founder

We left things out on purpose — that was a deliberate product decision

There were things we could have built: HubSpot integration, bulk export, advanced filtering, AI recommendations. We said no to all of it for the MVP. A product with five things that work well is more credible to a first user than one with fifteen things that feel half-finished.

04

From rights holder interviews

Rights holders are the hardest user to design for

A cricket club uses Sportbnk to find brand partners. But at the same time, brands are browsing that club and making decisions about them. They are using the product and being researched by it simultaneously. This is why brands and rights holders needed completely separate discovery flows, even though they are using the same data.

05

From product analysis

My Partners changes how often users come back

A pure discovery tool gets used occasionally — when someone is looking for a new deal. My Partners means users also come back to manage the deals they already have. The more partners someone adds, the more relevant the platform's signals become for them personally. That makes the platform more useful over time.

06 — Revenue model

How the credits system works

The credit gate is placed at the exact moment a user wants to take action — not earlier, not later. I had to understand this before I could design the People tab correctly.

1

Free

Browse

Search orgs, see their sport, current sponsors, deal status. No credits needed.

2

Free

View profile

Full org profile. Sponsors tab shows current deals and available categories. Still free.

3

1 Credit

People tab

See who the decision-makers are. Name and role visible. To get their contact details, pay 1 credit.

4

Unlocked

Contact revealed

Full contact details shown. User has what they need to start a conversation.

Why the gate is at step 3: By the time a user reaches the People tab, they have already decided they want to take action. Intent is at its highest. Asking for a credit there feels fair because the user already sees the value.

07 — Information architecture

How the platform is structured and why

Signals Feed

→

Top-level navigation, not a dashboard panel. If it is buried, users do not feel the platform's core value on first visit.

Organisations

→

Sponsors tab (free) + People tab (1 credit). One page, two tabs — matches sequential user intent.

Companies

→

Mirror of Organisations, but for rights holders browsing brands. Same data, different perspective.

My Partners

→

CRM layer. Manage existing relationships, not just find new ones.

Dashboard

→

Designed last. You can only design a good summary screen once you fully understand what is being summarised.

08 — Design decisions

Key decisions and the reasoning behind them

Kept the MVP small on purpose — and wrote it down

The founder wanted to include CRM integrations, advanced analytics, and several other features. I pushed back and we agreed to leave them out. A smaller product that works well builds more trust with early users than a bigger product that feels unfinished.

Trade-off: The founder wanted to show more to investors. I argued that a tight, coherent MVP tells a clearer story than a feature-rich one.

Signals Feed in the main nav, not a panel on the dashboard

The original layout had signals as a panel on the dashboard. I moved it to its own top-level nav item. Where something sits in the navigation tells users what the product thinks is important.

Trade-off: One more item in the navigation. I accepted it because the signals screen is the thing that makes this product different from a regular database.

One org page with two tabs instead of two separate screens

The user's intent when they open an org is sequential — they want to understand the sponsorship landscape first, then decide if they want to find a contact. That is one journey. One page with two tabs matches that.

Trade-off: Both tabs have different content depth. The Sponsors tab is data-heavy; the People tab is simpler. That slight imbalance is worth the navigation simplicity.

Dashboard was designed last

The founder expected the Dashboard first. I said we should design it last. A dashboard is a summary of a product. If you design it before you understand the product fully, you end up summarising your assumptions rather than real user needs.

Trade-off: Delayed a screen the founder wanted early. To bridge this, I walked him through the Signals and Organisations flow first.

09 — The product

Production screens from Figma

Command Center — Dashboard

The dashboard surfaces featured opportunities, key metrics, and quick navigation. Designed last to ensure it accurately reflects what users actually need to see at a glance.

Organisations — Discovery View

The main discovery view for brands. Filterable by sport, status, and deal type. The table columns follow the order a brand actually thinks: who is this org, what sport, who sponsors them already, are they worth pursuing.

Organisation Profile — Sponsors & People

One org page with two tabs. The Sponsors tab shows current deals and available categories. The People tab is where the credit gate lives — the moment of highest intent.

Contact Unlock — Credit Gate

The People tab shows enough to make a contact feel worth unlocking — name, role, their relationship to sponsorship decisions — without revealing actual contact details. The "260 Credits left" counter in the sidebar creates natural budget awareness without interrupting flow.

Companies — Brand Profile

The Companies view mirrors Organisations but for rights holders browsing brands. Same data, different perspective — showing the brand's sponsorship portfolio across sports categories.

My Partners — CRM Layer

The CRM layer that keeps users coming back. Manage existing relationships, track deal status, and add new partnerships. The more partners someone adds, the more relevant the platform's signals become for them personally.

10 — Outcome

What got delivered and what it enabled

The prototype went directly into investor conversations. The founder used the direction document I wrote as the basis for the product narrative in the pitch. No further design work was needed before the first beta users.

25+ Screens designed and ready for developer handoff

6d From brief to full prototype including research

3 Complete user flows — brands, rights holders, agencies

Investor conversations

The Figma prototype and direction document were used directly in fundraising. The research and positioning I did became the structure of the pitch narrative.

Beta launch

The platform was ready for the first 10 users without any additional design work. The MVP scoping decision paid off — the product was focused enough to feel complete.

The platform's job is to tell you what to do next — not just show you data.

That was the product idea I arrived at through the research. Every structural and design decision in Sportbnk came from that.

Sportbnk — AI-powered sports sponsorship intelligence platform