Ritmo - Dating & Sport

If Strava and Tinder had a baby: a social app connecting active singles through sport.

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💡 Inspiration

It started with a question I kept hearing in run clubs: “Who here is single?” People were already connecting through sport, but there was no easy way to know who was open to something more.

For active people, training habits, races and routines say a lot about the life they might share with someone. I wanted those details to shape the dating experience.

I’m a product designer. Before Ritmo, I had never built a mobile app or a web app, and I didn’t know how to code. Shipaton pushed me to turn that observation into my first solo product.

I had the idea on August 24. Ritmo was live on Google Play on September 4 and on the App Store on September 17.

🧡 What it does

Ritmo turns a shared passion for sport into a conversation, a date, or a real-life community. It combines dating with local Run Clubs, so meeting someone doesn’t have to stop at a match on a screen.

  • Profiles built around sport: Members share their sports, training intensity, preferred training times, personal bests, completed races and conversation prompts. They can choose to display a Finisher badge for a race they’ve completed.
  • Discovery with a conversation starter: Members browse local profiles, filter by age, distance and dating intention, and like a specific photo or prompt. They can add a note or send a Super Like to stand out.
  • Instant messaging: A match opens a real-time private chat. Ritmo suggests a first-date activity based on the sports both people enjoy, helping them turn a conversation into a plan.
  • Run Clubs in real life: Members join a club in their city, find upcoming runs, check meeting details and talk in the club group chat. After a run, they can see who attended, share photos and connect with people they met.
  • Community-led clubs: Local Founders organize runs and help keep their clubs active and welcoming.
  • Daily rewards: An interactive 3D streak bottle tracks daily discovery and unlocks rewards such as Boosts, Super Likes or temporary Ritmo Pro access. Members can also invite friends to unlock Pro time.
  • See who liked you: Members can view incoming likes in a dedicated Likes tab. Ritmo Pro reveals who liked them, so they can browse those profiles and like someone back to match.
  • Boosts & Super Likes: Boosts increase a profile’s visibility. Super Likes make a member’s interest stand out to someone they want to meet.

Ritmo helps people discover someone, start talking instantly, and meet through a sport they both enjoy.

🛠️ How I built it

I built Ritmo solo: product strategy, branding, UX/UI, development, backend, monetization and marketing.

The iOS app uses native Swift/SwiftUI. Android uses React Native and Expo. Supabase powers the backend, and RevenueCat handles subscriptions and one-time purchases across both stores.

Ritmo Control

Alongside both mobile apps, I built Ritmo Control, a web app that brings the day-to-day operation of Ritmo into one place: moderation, product analytics, revenue tracking, Run Club management and Trello-style project management.

It also lets me adjust user-facing app settings without shipping a new mobile release, so I can respond to what I’m seeing in the product more quickly. As a solo founder, I needed tools to manage the community, monitor the business, organize development and fine-tune the experience alongside building the apps themselves.

Monetization built around specific moments

Ritmo combines weekly, monthly and six-month Pro subscriptions with one-time Boosts and Super Likes. Members can discover, match and chat for free, then choose paid features that fit how they want to use the app.

I’ve built several ways to introduce that value:

  • After onboarding: the Pro paywall appears once members have created their profile and been introduced to the experience.
  • On days three and seven after signup: eligible active members who have completed onboarding but never paid can access a 50% offer. The one-hour window begins when the offer is first opened and remains consistent across devices.
  • Before account deletion: non-Pro members considering leaving can receive an optional 50% offer, while remaining free to continue deleting their account.
  • After liking a popular profile without matching: Ritmo can suggest a Super Like using engagement and profile-quality thresholds, limited to once per day per account.
  • Through a seven-day streak: a successfully recorded like or pass contributes to daily progress. Rewards encourage members to return and let them experience premium features.
  • Through referrals: inviting friends can unlock Pro time.

I’ve continued testing pricing, packaging, paywall placement and messaging, alongside these offers. RevenueCat manages the subscriptions and purchases behind this model across both stores.

📈 Launch & growth

I launched in Brazil first, where Ritmo is beginning to become known within running and fitness communities. I’ve combined that community focus with localized Meta creatives and audience targeting.

As of October 9, 2026:

  • $1,390 MRR
  • 151 active subscriptions
  • 180,000+ recorded likes and passes
  • $1,450 in revenue over the last 28 days
  • 3,694 profiles
  • 722 matches
  • 7,477 private messages
  • Run Clubs in 24 cities in Brazil
  • Around 80% onboarding completion
  • Approximately 9% of new registrations making a first purchase on their signup day

These results have developed through successive releases and ongoing iteration on onboarding, profile creation, discovery, pricing, paywalls and retention.

🧩 Challenges I ran into

Building the entire product as a designer learning to code. I had to deliver a native iOS app, an Android app, the backend and Ritmo Control while also handling the brand, acquisition, monetization and member support. Every new feature and update had to fit into that workload, across two mobile platforms and the web app used to run the business.

Growing a balanced community, city by city. More signups alone don’t make a dating app work. I need enough people nearby, an acceptable balance between men and women, and an audience with a target average age of 32. I evaluate paid conversion alongside those conditions before expanding further. That shapes the cities I focus on, the audiences I target and the creatives I use.

Monetizing while keeping the free experience useful. Discovery, matching and chat remain available for free. Paid value comes from additional visibility, stronger expressions of interest and more flexibility. I’ve had to work on both the value of those features and the moment I introduce them, from the first paywall to later offers and contextual Super Like suggestions.

✨ Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Dozens of people have already met in real life through Ritmo. Most of those first dates have taken place at a gym or around a shared activity, such as running. Seeing people actually meet through sport, just one month after launch, is one of my proudest achievements. I’m hoping it won’t be long before I hear from the first couple who met through Ritmo.

The 3D water bottle is the interaction I’m most proud of. It fills up as members build their daily streak, turning their progress toward a seven-day reward into something they can see. A familiar sports object becomes part of the way Ritmo encourages people to come back.

Building a notification system that adapts to how people use Ritmo. I built 14 notification scenario families and 25 message templates across four languages, covering likes, matches, conversations and re-engagement. Reminders respond to unread messages, unanswered matches and new profiles nearby, with evening re-engagement scheduled between 7 and 9 p.m. in each member’s local time zone. The system rotates messages, prevents duplicates and postpones lifecycle campaigns for 48 hours after a social notification is delivered. Some highly active members already receive hundreds of conversation notifications in a single day while talking to their crushes. Supporting that activity across iOS and Android, alongside personalized reminders and offers, became a substantial product and engineering achievement of its own.

I’m proud of bringing that level of craft to my first app while also building two mobile experiences, the web tools to operate them and a profitable business within a month of launch.

📚 What I learned

I learned that a dating app has to grow city by city. A thousand users scattered across Brazil can still leave someone with very few people to meet nearby. That’s why I concentrate acquisition in specific cities and look at who is joining: the balance between men and women, the age profile and whether members are actually matching and talking. I track paid conversion alongside that activity to decide where to invest next. The goal is to build a community that works locally before expanding to another city.

🚀 What's next for Ritmo

Most of Ritmo’s users are currently concentrated in five cities in southern Brazil. I’m now expanding into São Paulo, with Rio de Janeiro and Brasília next.

I’m taking the same city-by-city approach: build an active local community, monitor paid conversion, and work toward a balanced mix of men and women with a target average age of 32 before expanding further.

🏆 Award categories

HAMM Award: A freemium dating product with $1,390 MRR, recurring Pro plans and consumable purchases through RevenueCat. Monetization is tied to member behavior through day-three/day-seven offers, an optional account-deletion offer, contextual Super Like suggestions, streak rewards and referral incentives. Recent measurements show approximately 9% signup-day first-purchase conversion, alongside continued pricing and paywall iteration.

Design Award: The standout interaction is a 3D water bottle that fills up as members build their daily streak. Each day of discovery adds to the progress toward a seven-day reward, turning a familiar sports object into a visual reason to come back. Alongside tear-off photo garlands and sport-first profiles, it gives Ritmo its own personality. The bottle’s filling animation is the detail I’d most want judges to see in motion.

Grand Prize: A dating app already profitable one month after launch, built entirely by a solo product designer who had never coded a mobile or web app before. Ritmo has grown to 3,694 profiles, 180,000+ recorded likes and passes, 722 matches and 151 active subscriptions, reaching $1,390 MRR as of October 9. With most users concentrated in five cities in southern Brazil, I’m now taking that momentum into São Paulo, ahead of Rio de Janeiro and Brasília.

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Updates

posted an update —

One month in: profitable and bringing people together!

Ritmo has reached $1,390 MRR, 151 active subscriptions and more than 180,000 recorded likes and passes.

Members have made 722 matches and exchanged 7,477 private messages!

What makes me happiest: dozens of people have already met in real life through Ritmo in Brazil , often for a run or a gym date.

Profitable one month after launch, and now expanding into São Paulo after building our first communities in southern Brazil. I’d never built an app before this. Thank you, Shipaton, for giving me the push to start.

(PS: I’ve updated Ritmo’s project page to reflect our latest numbers)

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