FanCode: a sports commerce business from zero
- Company
- FanCode, Dream11's sports platform
- Role
- Product Manager, platform (0→1)
- When
- Jun 2022 – Dec 2023
- Result
- Launched a new sports merchandise business, and shipped jersey personalisation, which lifted order value and conversion.
The job
Dream11 wanted to sell sports merchandise to FanCode's audience. It was a new vertical, so the strategy, the store, the journey and the fulfilment set-up all had to be defined from scratch. I was responsible for taking it from an idea to a working business.
Deciding what to build first
Trust mattered from the first order: late or incorrect deliveries could discourage fans from returning. I used MoSCoW prioritisation to set the first release scope: a reliable catalogue, a working checkout and dependable fulfilment. Other features followed later. This helped get a working MVP out quickly while protecting the essentials.
Learning from early customers
I ran ongoing discovery: structured interviews with early buyers, and analysis of how people actually moved through the store. I turned what we learned into a prioritised backlog. It helped us find what made people hesitate to buy, and it shaped the early product-market fit.
Fixing the journey
I was responsible for the full journey: catalogue, checkout, fulfilment and post-order. Behavioural flow analysis showed where people dropped off, and I worked on improving those points one release at a time.
Jersey personalisation
Fans want their name on the shirt. I shipped jersey personalisation through quick experiments, holding the quality bar on the physical product.
The plumbing
Behind the storefront, I led the integrations with the order management system (Unicommerce), the warehouse system and logistics partners, working with engineering. I designed them for scale and for a low rate of failed fulfilments, because missed deliveries can affect a fan's trust in the store.
What I took from FanCode
Starting from zero meant deciding what not to build. At FanCode, a focused first release helped prioritise reliability. I've applied that lesson at Zigly.