Project

Field – Sports Booking & Tracking Platform

Role Co-founder & CTO · Aug 2017 – Nov 2020

Sports Tech
Marketplace
Booking Systems
Data Analytics

Summary

This leading sports venue booking platform revolutionizes how players and facility owners search, book, and manage sports venues in real time, eliminating manual phone reservations and fragmented availability systems. Built on Google Cloud (Firestore, Cloud Functions, and Pub/Sub), the platform ensures instant venue availability updates, preventing double bookings and scheduling conflicts. With React.js for web, React Native for mobile, and Stripe API for automated payments and refunds, users enjoy a frictionless, end-to-end digital booking experience. Facility owners gain a dedicated portal to manage pricing, schedules, and payouts, while dynamic pricing models optimize revenue based on demand. Capturing 82% of Portugal’s soccer field bookings, increasing venue utilization by 30%, and securing $3M in funding, Field has established itself as the nation’s leading sports tech marketplace, streamlining access to sports facilities at scale.

Challenges

Fragmented Sports Venue Availability Across Portugal Many sports facilities relied on phone bookings, manual scheduling, and inconsistent pricing, making it difficult for players to find and book available venues instantly.
Seamless Online Payments & Refunds Users expected frictionless, secure payments for bookings, along with easy refunds and automated invoicing, similar to ride-hailing apps or Airbnb-style platforms.
Real-Time Booking & Availability Sync The platform had to ensure instant venue availability updates, preventing double bookings or overlapping reservations in high-demand locations.
Scalability for National Expansion Unlike traditional venue management software, Field needed to scale rapidly across multiple cities while handling thousands of concurrent users searching for bookings.

Solution

Portugal’s Largest Centralized Sports Venue Marketplace Built an aggregated sports facility booking system, allowing users to search, book, and pay instantly with real-time venue availability updates.
Real-Time Booking Engine with NoSQL Optimization Used Firestore (NoSQL) with Cloud Pub/Sub for fast, real-time data syncing, ensuring instant venue status updates for players and venue managers.
Automated Payments, Cancellations & Refund Workflows Integrated Stripe for secure transactions, enabling automated refunds, instant booking confirmations, and subscription-based venue memberships.
Dynamic Pricing & Demand Forecasting Developed dynamic pricing models based on historical demand patterns, allowing venues to optimize pricing during peak hours.
Seamless Venue Management for Facility Owners Provided a dedicated portal for venue managers to update pricing, manage availability, and receive automatic payout settlements.

Impact

Captured 82% of the market share in soccer field bookings across Portugal, becoming the leading sports venue booking platform.
30% increase in venue utilization, helping facility owners generate more revenue by optimizing off-peak and underutilized booking slots.
Reduced manual booking administration by 70%, as venues transitioned from manual phone-based reservations to fully automated online scheduling and accounting.
Raised $3M in funding, validating Field’s commercial potential as the dominant sports tech marketplace in the region.

How it was built

FrontendReact.js for a seamless web & mobile booking experience optimized for performance and accessibility.
Mobile AppReact Native (iOS & Android) with Firebase Authentication for real-time bookings and venue management.
BackendNode.js running on Google Cloud Functions, enabling serverless, highly scalable request handling.
Cloud InfrastructureGoogle Cloud Platform (GCP) with Firestore (NoSQL) for real-time venue availability, Firebase Realtime Database for instant event updates, and Cloud Pub/Sub for asynchronous data streaming.
DatabaseFirestore (NoSQL) for flexible, high-speed data retrieval and Google Cloud Storage for media uploads(e.g., venue images).
IntegrationsGoogle Maps API for venue locations and navigation. Stripe API for secure in-app payments and refunds. Field MINT API to retrieve players’ sessions’ performance metrics and venue-related location data.
Security & ComplianceOAuth 2.0 authentication, end-to-end encryption for transactions, GDPR-compliant storage and user data policies.
MethodologiesAgile development, weekly user feedback cycles, and A/B testing to optimize user experience and booking conversion rates.