Case study · Live sports product

A five-year sports app
learned to run itself.

A consumer sports product — creators, picks, subscriptions, payouts — had been in market for five years on a Laravel API and native iOS and Android apps. A large team kept that business moving by hand. When the team had to get smaller, the same codebase took on an agent model and a knowledge graph, and the operation moved from people to agents in about four to five months.

Industry
Consumer sports
Engagement
AI conversion of a live product
Team
Large, then lean
Timeline
~4–5 months
5 yr
Already in market
Before the conversion started
~4–5 mo
Human work → agents
The conversion window
API + apps
Laravel, iOS, Android
The product that stayed
In-app
Agents + knowledge graph
Where the business now lives
The starting point

A business that only moved when people did

The product was already real. Creators posted picks. Members subscribed, followed a social feed, joined live chat, and creators got paid. All of it ran through a Laravel API and the iOS and Android apps. None of that was the weakness. The weakness was the workflow underneath: a large team was the system that kept the business correct.

Then the team had to shrink. The product did not shrink with it. A few facts about where that left the company:

  • The workflow was human. Content, members, subscriptions, and payouts moved because staff moved them. The software served the product. People ran the company.
  • The knowledge lived in the team. How the operation actually worked — the exceptions, the money, the rules of a live consumer app — sat with the people who had been there, which is exactly what a cut makes fragile.
  • Headcount came out. Scope stayed. Cost pressure took people off the business. The API, the mobile apps, and the members were still there the next morning.
  • Five years of product, still the one in market. Customers were on these apps. The conversion had to happen inside the codebase they already used.
What we built

The same apps, with the business inside them

The Laravel API and the mobile apps stayed the product. What changed is how the company runs them. An agent model and a knowledge graph now live in the application, and the operating work that used to require the larger team runs on that model.

  • An agent model inside the product. Agents do the day-to-day the team used to do — on the same API, against the same apps — so the lean team directs the system.
  • A knowledge graph of the operation. Members, content, money, and the rules of the product are represented where agents can read them and act. What the team knew stays in the app after the team gets smaller.
  • iOS, Android, and the API, still in market. Customers did not migrate to a new product for this to happen. The five-year codebase became the AI-forward one.
  • A four-to-five-month conversion. That is the window from a human workflow to an AI workflow, on a product that was already live.
Before & after
 Human workflowAI workflow
How the work got doneA large team, by handAgents inside the app
Where the business livedIn the teamA knowledge graph
TeamLargeLean, after the cut
SurfacesLaravel API, iOS, AndroidThe same three
State of the productFive years in marketStill the product customers use
Calendar for the shift—~4–5 months
How a smaller team runs it

The codebase converted in place

A live product does not get its old staff back. The way through the cut was to move the workflow: people direct agents, agents operate on a graph of the business, and that graph lives in the application. The five-year app became AI-forward without being replaced.

~4–5 mo
from a human workflow to an agent-run operation. That window is how long this kind of conversion takes us. The product was already in market on both sides of it.

What that looked like in the product:

  • Agents took the operating work. The day-to-day that had scaled with headcount now runs on the agent model.
  • The graph is the memory. What the team knew about members, content, and money is structured so the agents can use it after the team got smaller.
  • Customers stayed put. The Laravel API and the mobile apps are still the product. The change is who runs the company behind them.

The same shift, pointed at an empty repository, is a separate product: a daily-contest app whose API, web front end, and mobile client were written entirely by AI, directed by one engineer, and released on the App Store in a similar window. Read that story.

The impact

A smaller company, the same product

The business came through a cost cut with the apps still in market, because the work moved off people and onto agents. The number we will stand behind is the calendar.

~4–5 mo
The whole conversion
A live Laravel API and its mobile apps, from a human workflow to an agent workflow.
5 yr
Of product, kept in place
Customers stayed on the iOS and Android apps they already had.
Agents
How the business runs now
An agent model and a knowledge graph, inside the application.

Four to five months is the window this conversion ran in. We are not publishing headcount, revenue, or audience size.

A live product that still runs on the size of the team?

If the workflow is human and the headcount has to come down, the codebase can take the work. Fifteen minutes is enough to tell whether yours can.

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