Defining the Opportunity
Underdog the sports app: a fan's single sports destination optimized for gaming - where users can seamlessly consume content, review stats, and confidently place their picks.
Currently, sports fans navigate a fragmented maze of separate apps for news, statistics, and gaming. This disjointed experience doesn't just frustrate users; it represents a massive untapped opportunity for Underdog. With Underdog's strong brand and growing community, we can solve a core fan pain point and begin converting all sports fans into potential users.
Why navigate from app to app when you can do research, view content and place your picks all in one unified location.
This approach is distinct because it's:
- Purposeful, not generic: Every feature optimized for engagement and conversion to picks
- Integrated, not siloed: Natural pathways between content, stats, and gaming
- Modern & Mobile-First: Story-driven content, intuitive stats, designed for today's fan
Today's Fragmented Experience
X/Instagram (highlights/news/drama)
↓ESPN/Bleacher Report (stats/scores)
↓Underdog (gaming/fantasy)
UNDERDOG the sports app
The Users We're Leaving on the Table
Top of Funnel
Middle Funnel
Bottom Funnel
Why This Drives Exponential Growth
1. Expand TAM by 5x
- Current: Limited to users actively seeking sports gaming
- New: Every sports fan becomes a potential user
- Organic acquisition through content and stats searches
2. Create Compounding Network Effects
- More content → More users → Better data → Higher conversion
- Integrated ecosystem keeps users engaged between picks
- Social features amplify organic growth
Core Addition #1: Stats That Build Confidence in Picks
Every bettor already researches before placing a wager—we're just capturing that journey with modern, visual tools that build confidence.
Every sports bettor seeks an edge – the confidence that comes from informed decision-making. Underdog will deliver this by innovatively integrating stats in two powerful ways:
1. A dedicated, comprehensive Stats Hub for users who love to dive deep, research trends, and feel fully prepared.
2. Redesign how stats and insights are embedded within the Pick'em UI, optimizing for the modern fan with intuitive behavior and clear visualizations that quickly lead to confident wagers.
The key is implementing this with a fresh perspective. Eliminating tabular data and overcrowded UIs, designing an integrated experience that gives fans the data they need to be empowered, and the ability to easily place their picks.
Traditional Stats Experience
- Complex tables on ESPN
- Advanced models they don't understand
- Separate from gaming context
- Creates analysis paralysis
The Underdog Approach
- Dedicated stats section with modern visualizations for deep research.
- Graphics and curated stats in Pick'em UI replace archaic tables, making data digestible.
- Seamless one-tap transitions from detailed stat analysis directly to relevant markets and pre-filled slips.
- Quick-access stat overviews & player performance snapshots embedded directly on slips, game pages, and within content stories.
Core Addition #2: Content That Converts
Bring our social content home and optimize it for conversion within a highly engaging, modern format.
The modern sports fan consumes content in quick, visual, and engaging bursts. To capture their attention and become a daily habit, Underdog needs a content experience that mirrors the best of social media – but with a direct path to our ecosystem. By adopting a dynamic, vertical 'story-style' format, we meet users where they are, offering instant entertainment and information that naturally segues into deeper engagement with stats and picks.
Content Strategy & Format
- Instant Game Action: Swipeable stories delivering NBA & NFL highlights, key plays, and live score updates as they happen.
- League Buzz & Narratives: Engaging digestible stories covering NBA/NFL drama, player news, team dynamics, trade rumors, and viral sports moments.
- Underdog Exclusives & Voices: Original quick-hit analysis and insights, with picks from a curated team of micro-influencers and in-house talent.
- Optimized Social Content: Bringing Underdog's successful social media posts in-house, reformatted and amplified for this integrated story experience.
Smart Integrations in Stories
- Highlight to Picks: After an NBA player's highlight story, the next card presents their props for the upcoming game, one tap away.
- Live Score to Live Picks: A story updating live NFL scores can feature a 'Tap for Live Odds & Picks' CTA for that game.
- Influencer Pick to Slip: A micro-influencer's story sharing their 'Top Pick' includes an integrated button to 'Add to Slip'.
- Data-Driven Prompts: If a user frequently views content about a specific team, stories can proactively surface relevant picks or stat insights for that team.
Compounding Growth Loops
How Stats, Content and Picks power — and reinforce — each other.
📊 Stats Hub
Modern visualizations and insights that make research intuitive
- User wants to research a certain hypothesis or just wants to see how a player is doing
- User is nudged to view relevant picks
- User feels informed and places picks with confidence
- Continues the cycle by viewing stats for subsequent players
- Bigger, more confident wagering
📱 Content Stories
Engaging, social-first format that keeps fans coming back daily
- User logs on to view recent highlights or news
- User is prompted to view stats / odds after watching relevant content
- User feels informed and places picks with confidence
- Continues the cycle by returning to content to view additional stories
- Cheaper user acquisition
🎯 Smart Picks
Confident picks powered by integrated stats and content discovery
The Vision: Own the Future of Sports Engagement
We're capturing an entire market that's been fragmented for too long.
This is how Underdog becomes the definitive sports platform of the future.
By adding comprehensive stats and dynamic content sections, we transform from a gaming/fantasy app to the sports ecosystem. Each addition multiplies the value of what we've already built. All fans consume sports content and most current users are already conducting research before placing their picks. We're simply bringing their entire journey into one seamless experience.
Every sports fan becomes a potential user. Every user becomes more valuable.
About Me
Hello,
My name is Taha Hussain. Thank you for taking the time to review my proposal.
I thrive on building and turning ideas into reality. I enjoy using AI to learn and create cool things (like this proposal). I'm fascinated by user behavior and how people engage with content. I love sports and rooting for my Golden State Warriors.
I am ready to help Underdog become the preeminent sports app (review proposal for context :D). Hire me and throw me into the fire. I may get some burns, but things will be shipped.
How I Currently Pay the Bills:
-
Databricks 2022-Present
Program Manager, Digital Customer Experiences
- Scale digital engagement programs for customers
- Build automations and AI-powered tools for cross-functional teams
Some Things I Do for Fun:
-
Last Leg Bets
- Built a sports analytics & betting app for me and my buddies. It integrates sports stats and game betting odds into a single unified UI. No more archaic tables. No more switching between odds and stats. One app to research stats and bets.
-
Fresh Odds Daily
- An X (Twitter) bot that posts NBA odds daily. Automation has been posting tweets uninterrupted for the past 5 months.
- Business consultant
- Build out operational workflows and go-to-market plans for 3 family businesses.
- NFL Fantasy commissioner for the past 5 years.
- The only place where anyone might care about this. Run league, give weekly recaps, and of course, reject horrible trades.