Building a fantasy companion app -- looking for feedback

Hey guys,

I'm new to the forums but a regular reader/member of draft calc. I'm also a mobile app developer and I'm building a fantasy football companion app, but I just want to get some quick validation and feedback from members here.

Can you do me a favor and take this quick 3 minute survey here?

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LVYW9QJ

Here's some more info. I'm building a fantasy companion app that is a like a fantasy specific version of GroupMe/WhatsApp.

The app lets you sign in with your Yahoo/ESPN credentials, and then gives you a single thread for each league where you can chat with league members.

In the same chat thread, you'll see automatic big play alerts, injury updates, roster updates (adds/drops, waivers). All this will be combined in the thread for each league to jump start the conversations. You'll also be able to post short video messages for trash talk. Imagine that you get a push notification every time one of your players scores a TD or has a big play-- same thing with players getting injured.

I came up with the idea with a few friends-- we all use GroupMe and WhatsApp for our leagues already, and also use the regular Yahoo/ESPN/CBS apps.. On Sundays we're all constantly talking about who just scored a TD and we thought-- why not just have this all automatically combined in one app. So that's what I'm thinking about building.

I would appreciate any feedback you can provide and if you can forward the above survey to your league members-- I've asked all my friends already, but the problem with asking your friends is they won't tell you straight up if they think your idea is stupid ;)

Thanks in advance!

Here's the survey link again. Feel free to post comments/ideas/suggests here as well!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LVYW9QJ

I did your survey for ya.

As I said in that, having something that's always current inside the app is the key. Whether it's news (huge item to take on, and feeds only isn't all that solid) or fantasy content, it needs something to keep people on there to even wanna check for smack talk, etc. not every league is super active communication wise, so willing participants might give up checking the app if there isn't a daily reason to check regardless.

My two cents.

Welcome to the forums. Good luck with the app.

Thanks Smitty! Thats exactly what I'm trying to figure out. Are big play alerts + league communication enough of a draw?

My leagues are very active smack talk / communication wise so I thought there was enough, but that's why I'm trying to get more response to figure out if we are the norm in that regard.

Not sure I want to get into the fantasy content game.. I'll leave that one to you ;)

Well, again, my biggest advice is to have something that's a must check, a daily fix... smack talk won't be enough, because it will take some days to finally login with the invite from their buddy, or whatever, and if you don't have "must view stuff" outside of smack talk, you could end up with 4-5 guys wanting to use the app but they all grow tired of checking and waiting for others to join.

Example, i tried a fantasy mock draft app prior to the season... it was slick, well designed, and very, very fun at a glance. It had an 8 hour timer, though. And you had to time out twice before you'd go on auto draft. Well, even with friends invited, I found myself logging in to see my friend hadn't yet logged in and 8 hours had to go by... or some moron joined the league and bailed, thus his 8 hour timer had to time out (twice, so 16 hours total for him to hit autodraft at round 3)... Bottom line, great app, great idea, human nature not factored into it, so bust, i deleted and wish it was better thought out. So, in your example, I could see John Doe finding the app, downloading, inviting 3 friends and then John grows tired waiting for his friends to login... so John leaves, then friends A and B finally login, but John now isn't responding, so A and B leave, and C joins 3 days later... no one is on the same page, the app dies. If you had some awesome daily must view, an additional product, then John, A, B and C might all still be checking the app, thus all finally running into each other on the app at the right time/frame of mind.

Make sense?

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