This was one of the first high-urgency projects I tackled after Wagr's launch. As a designer at a small startup, the stakes were clear — growth and retention weren't just metrics, they were survival

Wagr was a social sports betting app built around a simple but powerful idea: you should always know who you're betting against. Where traditional platforms kept opponents anonymous, Wagr put transparency front and center — letting users send bets directly to friends rather than betting against the house. Our team believed that the social layer was the product.

But weeks after launch, a troubling pattern emerged: bets were going unanswered. Through user testing and team discussions, the insight was straightforward — users didn't necessarily need to bet against someone they knew, they just needed to know someone was on the other side. That distinction changed everything.

Working closely with product and engineering, I designed the interfaces of an automatic bet-matching system that expanded each user's network beyond their immediate circle to the broader Wagr community. The result was stronger retention and a meaningful increase in average handle