Active

#0004 · Solo

AthleteEra

What's a college athlete's card worth tonight?

From the specMarkdown

Entity

Solo

Role

Founder, design, build

Stack

Next.js · Drizzle · Neon · Ably · Stripe Connect

Started

Mar 2026

Ships

0 · from the spec

Platform

web

01 · The arena

Five cards each. The score moves the cards.

Arena · H2H · simulated feedQ1 12:00
Opponent
#1GR. Castro0.0$13.00
#7GK. Boateng0.0$10.40
#21FS. Petrov0.0$11.90
#34FL. Harlow0.0$9.10
#44CE. Marchi0.0$12.20
Opp0.0
You0.0
You
#3GM. Okafor0.0$14.20
#11GT. Lindell0.0$9.80
#24FJ. Reyes0.0$12.60
#32FD. Whitley0.0$8.40
#50CA. Nakano0.0$11.10
Press Play. The night is scripted from a seed; the arena reads it live.

This is the live H2H matchup, the one screen that is the product. Your five athletes across the bottom, the opponent's across the top. Every basket, board and steal lands as fantasy points on a card, and the card's value moves with it. The epicenter pulses on every play.

The feed here is a seeded script, so the night is invented, but the arena is the real one: the same reducer, cards and clock. Press Play. Speed it up. Start another game and the names stay while the night changes.

02 · The model

Three heads, one card.

Studio
athlete pages, NIL-ready
Leagues
H2H card battles, live
Market
values move on performance
Payouts
Stripe Connect

A brand studio for athletes, fantasy-style card leagues for fans, and a card market where values move on real performance. Fans first; the DFS model proved the beachhead, and the matchup is where fans spend the night.

The card is the unit across all three. The athlete's page issues it, the league plays it, the market prices it.

03 · The feed

Plays in, cards out.

Source
Sportradar
Store
Redis
Fan-out
Ably
Reducer
event log → cards
Points
2PT 2 · 3PT 3 · REB 1.2 · AST 1.5 · STL 3

Plays arrive from Sportradar, land in Redis, and fan out over Ably to every open arena. A reducer turns each play into fantasy points and a value move. The arena is a pure function of the event log, so a reconnect replays the log and lands in the same state.

Points: 2PT 2, 3PT 3, FT 1, REB 1.2, AST 1.5, STL 3, BLK 3, TO minus 1. Win probability is the score gap against the time left, nothing cleverer.

04 · Learned

Pick the one screen that is the product and build that first.

Everything else is a form. The schema merged first, then the arena spec. The arena above is that spec running on a script; the real feed comes next, and nothing in the arena changes when it does.

The drawing below was the plate until tonight.

Punch list · 3 open
  • Wire the arena to the real feed
  • Fan screens
  • Stats feed: Sportradar to Redis
Arena · H2H · simulated feedQ1 12:00
Opponent
#1GR. Castro0.0$13.00
#7GK. Boateng0.0$10.40
#21FS. Petrov0.0$11.90
#34FL. Harlow0.0$9.10
#44CE. Marchi0.0$12.20
Opp0.0
You0.0
You
#3GM. Okafor0.0$14.20
#11GT. Lindell0.0$9.80
#24FJ. Reyes0.0$12.60
#32FD. Whitley0.0$8.40
#50CA. Nakano0.0$11.10
Press Play. The night is scripted from a seed; the arena reads it live.

The arena · Playable. Names and numbers are invented; the reducer is the product's.

Ticket 4 of 7. Left and right arrow keys move between tickets.

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© 2026 Dalton CoxEmail is the best way to reach me