Minibri Score — The Inception

TL;DR

Minibri Score is a sports prediction game that is actually fun!

Visit https://score.minibri.com to signup for early access 🚀 and stay tuned for its release ⏳

Why?

Whenever there was a big football event, like UEFA Euro 2016 and FIFA World Cup, me and my friends were doing contests on who can predict the score, top scorers, etc.

We were using a Google Spreadsheet (or Excel) with some formulas, and in some cases extended it with a bit of JavaScript code to calculate our special point awards and generate a ranking table. At the end of the tournament the player with the most points was the winner (you can put money down to make it more interesting 💸 but don’t get too addicted…).

The funny thing is that this is something that many groups of friends do, and it’s even popular among colleagues in companies, since it’s a nice bonding activity. Who doesn’t like some healthy competition!

Three years ago, one of my friends had the idea of taking what we were doing on spreadsheets, and make a product out of it. It didn’t seem exciting to me at first; who was going to use it, and who was even going to pay for it. We did some research and there were not a lot of similar alternatives on the market. So, we spend the next few weeks discussing the product on and off. After a few weeks of inactivity it basically went to sleep.

A few months ago, I wanted to start something on my own, outside of work, a side-project that I was going to have fun working with. If it got any traction, and customers used it, even better. Therefore, I revived that original idea, refined it, and decided to implement it. The timing now is actually quite good, since next year there will be several big sports events, and it will be a great opportunity to use it, even if just among my friends.

What?

The idea behind Minibri Score is not new, it’s not innovative, and it does not have to be.

I spent a few weeks looking for alternatives, competitors, but apart from 1 or 2 others, everything else is way too bloated. Full of advertisements all over the screen, a million menus and complex options, and most of them really focused on just a couple of sports. They all try to be another fantasy league. For context, a fantasy league is where you basically focus into a specific league tournament (e.g. Premier League in England), and choose/buy/sell players, take points every time the players you chose score, or their teams win, etc.

Minibri Score is not a fantasy league. I don’t want it to be one.

The only thing a user will have to do is predict the outcome of a fixture. All of the fun, and strategy, revolves around the point awards. There are several ways to get points, and they all use the score prediction versus the final score in some sort. Maybe you have to take a big risk with a low-chance score to win the big points, or always play safe and getting steady points.

Which Sport?

One of the major drawbacks of the alternatives, which is a consequence of going with a fantasy league style of tournament, is the fact that you can only find a couple sports supported, mainly football. There is just too much work into the specifics of a single sport.

One of the main goals I have with Minibri Score is to allow any two-sided sport to be supported right from the start. There are several things that are sport specific, for example volleyball has sets instead of just a final score. There will be exciting point awards around the sport specifics, but the core functionality is going to be shared across all sports.

👉🏽 As long as it’s a two-sided sport, Minibri Score just works 🙌🏽

I consider this a big differentiator, and an advantage since many people will be able to have fun. You will be able to compete in a tournament with teams from your local town that you would never find in major fantasy leagues. Or even create a tournament for a sport that is not as popular, but still follows the same principles of two sides and a score.

Simple. Friendly. Fun.

I want a product that is:

Simple to use without complex menus and unnecessary options.
Friendly, without advertisements and flashy popups coming out from everywhere.
Fun among friends and colleagues alike.

When?

I am hoping to release the first version before the end of the year 🥳

Next year is going to be exciting 🎾 🏓 🏏 ⛹️‍♀️ ⚽️

👉🏿 Visit https://score.minibri.com to signup and I will email you when it’s out and ready 🚀

You can also follow its development on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MinibriScore 🐦