Sportlinker
Highlights
- Full-cycle development: from ideation to functional prototype
- Custom cross-platform application
- Scalable real-time chat with anonymous-to-public messaging flow
- Role-based user system: players, scouts, coaches, administrators
- Custom UI/UX tailored for sports talent recruitment
Challenge
The client is a Danish entrepreneur with a vision to digitalize the way sports clubs recruit and manage team members. We had already worked with the client on several successful projects, including an application that won a Danish Tech Award. Given the strong partnership and proven results, the client turned to us once more with a new idea: to build a mobile app that would serve as a social and recruitment platform for sports clubs and players.
The initial concept was focused on handball but was later expanded to accommodate multiple sports. The platform needed to support player discovery, anonymous communication between scouts and players, team management, and profile showcasing — all within a secure, scalable, and user-friendly environment.The client had no technical documentation or designs, only a rough idea of the product’s goals.
Solution
Our mobile development team started with a discovery phase to turn the client’s high-level idea into a clear product vision. Through several workshops, we defined user roles, core features, and scalability needs, resulting in a functional proof-of-concept.
The app was built from scratch with React Native for cross-platform compatibility and Firebase for backend services, including Authentication, Realtime Database, Storage, and Messaging. Real-time chat was implemented using Firebase, with custom logic for anonymous-to-public messaging. We also integrated Algolia to enable fast and efficient search functionality.
To support the development process, we used App Center for CI/CD and conducted manual testing throughout the project to ensure performance and reliability. Although the application wasn’t publicly launched yet, we delivered a fully functional solution with a scalable infrastructure designed for high volumes of real-time communication.
Tech Stack
Frontend
React Native
App Center
Firebase Cloud Messaging
Google Sign-In
Algolia
Backend
Firebase Authentication
Firebase Realtime Database
Firebase Functions
NoSQL
How it works
The mobile app provides separate user experiences for different roles — players, coaches, scouts, and club administrators.
- Players can showcase achievements, connect with teammates, and receive anonymous recruitment messages from scouts.
- Scouts browse ranked player profiles, initiate chat anonymously, and convert to public messaging if the player agrees.
- Clubs can create teams, assign roles such as coach or physiotherapist, and customize their public-facing page.
- Administrators manage user roles, push notifications, and club-level settings.
The real-time chat is central to the app’s functionality and was built to work without refresh delays. Firebase’s backend infrastructure ensures that all messages and updates are delivered immediately. Push notifications keep users informed of new messages or invitations.
SoftTeco’s team built the data structure on a NoSQL model, allowing flexible relationships between users, teams, and chats. Despite limitations in Firebase’s throughput, the app was designed with proxy fallback logic to ensure message delivery even under high load.
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Results
Although the app wasn’t publicly launched yet, the technical and design work was successfully completed. SoftTeco developed a fully functional cross-platform application with robust chat functionality, role-based access, and scalable architecture.
