Fleet: Bringing Live Athletics Results to Mobile

The problem

As both an athlete and a software engineer, I found myself frustrated by the lack of a mobile-friendly way to check competition results. Whether I was looking up past performances or trying to follow my own events in real-time, the only available source was the Portuguese Athletics Federation website—a site that was completely unusable on mobile devices.

The Birth of Fleet

Determined to solve this problem, I built Fleet, an app designed to bring real-time athletics results directly to mobile users. The process started with a Python web scraper, which periodically collected competition results from the Federation’s website and stored them in a database. From there, I developed a React Native app for both iOS and Android, allowing users to access results quickly and easily.

Unexpected Growth

What started as a personal project quickly gained traction throughout the entire country. Athletes, coaches, and fans embraced Fleet as the go-to solution for following competitions live on their phones.

One major milestone came when I needed to publish the app on the Apple App Store, which required a 100€ developer fee. I launched a crowdfunding campaign—expecting it to take two weeks to reach the goal. To my surprise, the community rallied behind Fleet, and the campaign was fully funded within just 30 minutes.

The Impact

Fleet became more than just an app; it became an essential tool for the Portuguese athletics community. This project reinforced my passion for building user-focused software and showed me the power of solving real problems with technology.