CASE STUDY
Tool Battles Product Launch Platform
This case study covers the 0–1 build of Tool Battles, a custom product launch platform for makers and founders. At its surface, Tool Battles might seem like a simple directory. But underneath, it’s a dynamic product with gamification, user-generated content systems, real-time community features, and a self-serve monetization engine.
Every UX and development decision was intentional, designed to challenge how people think about launching, discovering, and supporting digital tools. If you would like to see the most recent updates to the platform, please visit this case study.
- Updated: April 12, 2025
The Problem
Platforms like Product Hunt reduce launches to one-shot moments. After years of launching my own projects — and over 450+ consecutive days active on PH — I kept running into the same issues:
- Launches felt like fleeting, one-day spikes
- Discovery was static, not driven by real user intent
- Smaller makers were overshadowed by big launches
- There was no longtail visibility or value
- Paid promo was out of reach for most solo founders
There was room for a reimagined platform, where visibility is earned, community is real, and launching is just the beginning.
The Goal
To design and build a platform that supports product discovery beyond launch day, with real incentives for contribution, strong UX fundamentals, and a foundation for long-term growth.
- Clean, transparent UX for browsing and submitting
- Real community-building features (follows, feeds, upvotes)
- Gamification for rewarding effort, not just popularity
- Native monetization engine (no tacked-on ads)
- Content systems built for SEO and scaling
- A joy to use. Fast, intuitive, lightweight
My Work/Roles
- 0–1 Product Design (UX, UI, systems)
- Frontend & Backend Development
- Gamification System Design
- Platform Strategy
- Marketing, SEO & IA
- Custom WordPress Development
- Everything else from start to finish
Time to complete:
- ~Roughly 2 months for V1. Continuous iterations since.
Design Goals
User-Centric Design
-Make it simple for users to browse, search, and submit.
-Keep all non-community features locked until a user lists a product, pushing builders to contribute.
-Prioritize speed and clarity in dashboards and submission flows.
Community Building
-User profiles with listings, badges, bios, and social features.
-Following, activity feeds, and contributor credits.
-Upvotes, comments, and reviews built into each product page.
Easy Product Discovery
-A dynamic homepage with a queued launch system.
-Advanced filtering by revenue, team size, category, location, etc.
-SEO schema to make every product indexable and sharable.
Tech Media Source
-Curated tech news content to support longtail traffic and SEO.
-Subcategories like crypto, cybersecurity, social, gadgets, and more.
The Results
User signups
Since launching on Jan. 18, 2024
Unique Visitors
Spanning across 96 Countries
Digital Software Products Listed
With new ones being added near daily
Custom WP functions created
& even more bugs that were fixed
Potential WP plugins created
by proxy of building highly custom functions
Visit Tool Battles
List your software or startup product for free!
What I Built
Multi Content Dashboards
Most directories are single-track — only products. I wanted Tool Battles to support jobs, founder stories, press releases, and more. But it needed to be intuitive. I designed and built multi-content dashboards with fast switching and lightweight UI patterns. Each content type (products, jobs, stories) had tailored flows, metadata, and logic, without overwhelming the user.
- Unified dashboard with tab-based content types
- Quick-action shortcuts to content editing
- Fast, clean mobile-first layouts (Flexbox-based)
- Modular PHP/ACF structure for scalability
This improved retention by giving users more touchpoints to engage and contribute, beyond just product listings.
User Generated Content Submission Flow
Poor submission UX kills most UGC platforms. If it’s slow or confusing, users bounce. I built distinct submission flows per content type, all optimized for speed, clarity, and structure.
- Conditional field logic (e.g. salary fields shown only for job posts)
- Inline preview rendering
- Schema + SEO structured data for every listing
- Auth gating: Certain content types (e.g. press releases) required premium access
- File upload validation & sanitization logic via WP hooks
The result was a seamless, satisfying submission experience that turned casual visitors into contributors.
Community Engagement
Build a real sense of network, not just traffic. I designed a lightweight social layer to connect builders, contributors, and users, encouraging recurring visits and participation.
- Public user profiles with badges, bios, and listings
- Follows and contributor credits
- Activity feed to track what makers are up to
- Comments and upvotes across all content
- Leaderboards and recognition via gamification
These features transformed the platform from “list-and-leave” to an ongoing ecosystem.
Gamification System
I wanted to reward contribution without making it a popularity contest. I implemented a game layer designed around real effort:
- XP-style point system for actions (listing, commenting, upvoting)
- Badge system with visual hierarchy (e.g. “Featured Builder”, “Early Contributor”)
- Leaderboards that reset periodically to highlight rising users
- Anti-gaming protections: points rewarded only for authentic activity
- Custom visit streak system
Some of the gamification UX was opt-in, but visible enough to encourage participation and spark motivation across users. Nearly all users end up manually collecting their badges.
Autonomous Promotion
Directories are notorious for dying out without constant effort. I designed systems that promote themselves.
- Custom embeddable product widgets for maker websites
- Programmatic SEO and meta descriptions
- Structured data for rich search results
- Modular category pages that double as mini landing pages
- Custom IA to reduce bounce and guide discovery
This helped Tool Battles reach 43K+ visitors from 96 countries — without paid ads.
Self Serve Advertising System
To make the platform sustainable, I designed and developed a native ad engine from scratch.
- Queue-based system for ad placement (with moderation)
- Different ad types: homepage, category, inline content, etc.
- Dynamic copy, image uploads, click/impression tracking
- Category sponsorship flows
- Exclusion logic (e.g. no duplicate ads from same domain)
This added a monetization layer without hurting UX, and gave solo makers affordable exposure options.
What I Learned
- You can build full-scale, dynamic platforms on WordPress with the right balance of custom functions and modular design thinking.
- Gamification works, even when opt-in, especially when it's tied to genuine contributions.
- Launch platforms don’t have to be just launchpads — they can become communities, media hubs, and discovery engines if you build with the right incentives.
- Submission flows can make or break UGC platforms. Making them clean and rewarding was a game changer.
Final Notes
Tool Battles was a passion build from start to finish. It’s grown a lot, had a major UX update in Summer 2024, and is now on a solid path toward long-term growth. The next phases are exploring AI product summaries, real-time launch tracking, and new media collabs for added visibility.