One Big Match

The story

The idea started with a TikTok of a huge event using a matchmaking tool. My first thought was, “I want that for my org.” I’m also a huge fan of Jackbox: a whole room playing in seconds on their phones, no downloads. I talked about it with my friends Abby and JJ, and we just said, “We should build that.”

So we did. I started coding, JJ jumped in with me, and Abby took on all the design. She’s the reason it actually looks and feels fun to use.

The Jackbox feel was our north star, so a web app with a real-time lobby was non-negotiable. We used Next.js and React so the phone interface felt instant, and spent a lot of time getting WebSockets right on the Node.js backend so the room felt alive the moment people joined. PostgreSQL and Prisma handled the data.

What came of it

We coordinated a 10-person team across product, design, engineering and outreach, and ran 4 student-event pilots with 80+ users. Those pilots taught us what mattered most: fast joining, clear host controls, and a first interaction easy enough that people actually participate.

One Big Match made me better at separating “cool product idea” from “thing a room will actually use.”