Live
Cinepals
Own product, co-founded and self-funded
- Role
- Co-Founder (CEO) & Product Designer
- Year
- 2024
- Client / Context
- Own product, co-founded and self-funded
- Tags
- Product Design, UI/UX, React Native, Mobile App
Problem
Film fans didn’t have a home that felt social rather than transactional. Existing apps were logging tools first, communities a distant second.
The brief I gave myself: design something people would open to talk about what they just watched, not just rate it and leave.
Process
Started with personas and journey maps for three kinds of film fans, then moved into a design system built for reuse across dozens of screens before writing a line of code.
Every flow was prototyped in Figma, tested informally with early users, then rebuilt by hand in React Native, with design and implementation moving in the same head, which kept the two honest.
Key Decisions
Chose a feed-first structure over a library-first one, betting that activity from friends would drive more return visits than a personal watchlist alone.
Kept the design system intentionally small in v1, with fewer components used more consistently, to ship faster without accumulating visual debt.
Outcome
Cinepals launched on the App Store and Google Play and has since passed 400 users, entirely through word of mouth.
- Users
- 400+
- Platforms
- iOS & Android
- Built by
- 1 person
Gallery
01
Film detail screen
