Stryda

• Transformed an esports platform into a social hub with AI-powered highlight videos
• Drove multiple design initiatives: social feed, video editor, battle pass, missions, and more
• Led cross-functional collaboration between design, engineering, and business teams

Overview

In spring 2023, Stryda (formerly G-Loot) set out to become a social platform for gamers. The centerpiece was Recap, an AI feature that automatically generated highlight videos from a player's matches.

Problem

G-Loot's platform was built around competition, but had no space for gamers to share or discover each other's best moments. Recap needed a home, and the platform needed a reason for people to open it outside of match days.

Approach

We built a social feed as the new center of the platform, where recap videos, achievements, and other players' content could surface. We drew on Strava, Instagram, and Facebook for familiar mechanics like likes, shares, and comments, and made the feed adapt to each user's activity and interests.

We kept the platform's competitive core alongside this: widgets tracked Battle Pass progress, active missions, and standings, plus a feature showing players how their peers rated them.

Recap itself needed to work reliably across a wide range of PC hardware, without requiring any editing skill from the user. Working closely with engineering, we worked through issues like multi-match sessions and storage limits to keep the capture and generation process smooth.

The CSS framework carried over from G-Loot let us prototype every new screen and iterate quickly through November, ahead of a planned test at one of Stockholm's largest gaming centers.

Outcome

On December 16, ahead of the planned beta launch, the board decided to discontinue Stryda and file for bankruptcy.

My role

As Director of Product Design, I led three areas:

• Product strategy: shaping the direction of the social platform and keeping decisions aligned with that vision.
• Team coordination: working with and mentoring a team of product managers, engineers, and UX/UI designers.
• Cross-team process: building the workflows that kept design, engineering, and the business side moving together.

Reflection

Stryda didn't ship, but the work leading up to it was some of the most demanding and clarifying I've done, especially designing around an AI feature whose technical constraints kept shifting under us. The team's ability to adapt under pressure, right up until the end, is what I remember most.