Case Studies / fishing points

A Worldwide Fishing App

fishing points
The challenge
"Building a scalable backend with real-time data sync for 10 million users."

Fishing Points is an app that helps fishermen discover fishing spots, save locations, and receive detailed forecasts, including tides, moon phases, marine conditions, and weather reports. With over 10 million users globally, it needed to evolve beyond a mobile-only platform.

The product faced challenges in syncing data across devices, especially when migrating to new phones, leading to potential data loss. The goal was to create a seamless experience by introducing a backend solution, migrating existing user data, and launching a completely new web app.

deliverables

Tech & Design Discovery

  • Highly Scalable AWS Architecture with POC

    After a couple of iterations & POCs, we made the decision to build a custom synchronisation engine.

  • Wireframes & Design for the new Backoffice / CMS system

    Finished and aligned V1 designs & feature set for the custom built CMS.

  • Estimated Roadmap

    To align on expectations, timelines, and resources.

Software Development

  • Scalable Backend Infrastructure

    Introducing a robust backend and database to handle the massive user base and serve as the single source of truth for all user content.

  • Custom Backoffice

    For content and administration management.

  • Web App

    To provide users with a new type of experience in planning & reviewing their fishing expeditions.

  • 14 Million Landing Pages

    With real-time forecasts & fishing activity statistics for all cities and waterways in the world - more than 14 million pages.

DevOps

  • Data Synchronization

    Safeguarding user data by migrating millions of records from individual devices to a centralised database and syncing this data to user’s other devices without disrupting the user experience.

  • Security Protocols

    Data security is key element of infrastructure for the. As combined work of all teams we implemented protocols to safeguard the data and all transfer of data.

  • Disaster Recovery Scenarios

    What will happen with the infrastructure if the AWS Availability Zone is down? We know.

  • Monitoring & Analytics

    Integrating monitoring tools is easy, polishing the metrics, dashboard and alarms based on the ongoing work is the hard bit that we're constantly working on day-to-day.

development

Implementation Challenges

A huge database of users from all over the world and no previous cloud solution for storing it were the key challenges we were facing. Smooth and accurate migration, stable performance worldwide, and an engaging user experience for the new web app were at the forefront of our goals.

Migrating Millions of User Data

All user content like locations of catches was previously stored directly on the iOS/Android device. We needed to devise a plan of migrating this content to the backend. Because of the large user base, we had to do this on a per user basis.

Scaling Infrastructure Globally

Users are dispersed over the whole world, so we had to take special care to maintain stable performance of the platform for all geographical locations. The same goes for the large user base, where spikes of traffic can cause serious degradations of service, so we have to monitor, test the performance and optimise the platform constantly.

New Web App User Experience

We wanted the new web app to mirror the mobile app’s functionalities, but we also considered the specifics of the platform and made custom adjustments to ensure optimal performance for the web app as well.

14 Million Landing Pages with Real-time Forecasting

We generated 14 millions of dynamic landing pages, each representing a specific geographical location. These pages offer real-time fishing-related forecasts, pulling data directly from the backend for high accuracy and reliability.

Klemen Klemenčič

"They are constantly seeking feedback and acting in it, trying to understand what we would like to achieve."

Klemen Klemenčič

CEO, Fishing Points

cooperation

The Partnership

Looking back at the the story behind the founding team at Fishing Points and the last 3 years of our cooperation, there are a couple of things that really stand out as cornerstones to the success of the product.

Hard Work & Attention to Detail

This is common advice, but we rarely see someone live by it as much as the FishingPoints founders do. And that’s one of the foundations that helped the product go from a good MVP with an initial user base to long-term sustainable growth.

User-first Mentality

When every decision is dictated by “how will this affect the users,” this shows in the long run. Some call it PLG - product led growth. We’ve named it user-first mentality. Either way, it’s definitely something that everyone at Fishing Points lives by.

Analytical Mindset

Track all events, collect all the data, make decisions based on user behavior. We’re sure you heard it all before, but going from collecting data to acting on it is a hard step that the Fishing Points team has done and it has helped them build a successful product users love.

Trust and Respect

It’s easy to talk about respect and trust when things are going smoothly, but sometimes things don’t go in the desired direction (slow progress, bugs, unforeseen changes, learning on the job, you name it!). It’s even more important to look in the same direction then, and think about how to solve problems (instead of assigning blame and feeding on negativity).

Want to see more?

Newsletter

Join Beka, our resident goat on her quest to understand the mysteries of building & launching digital products. From Business & Design to Engineering, Processes & Teams.

Subscription successful!

Expect a steady stream of knowledge and inspiration in your inbox soon. We’re glad to have you in the loop!