Challenge
The RunClub Elite was going viral on Instagram and TikTok. Over 125 people showed up to a single Wednesday night run. But they had zero digital infrastructure: no way to capture who was showing up, no contact database, no communication tools, and no system to keep runners coming back. They were winning attention and losing retention.
Strategy
We built the entire digital infrastructure from scratch. The core system is a points-based check-in engine with streaks, leaderboards, and badges that gamifies attendance and drives weekly return rates. Around that, we built event management, voting campaigns, a merchandise drops and pre-orders system, sponsor management, discount codes, and Stripe-powered donations. The admin dashboard gives the founding team full control over every aspect of the community. The frontend is a Nuxt 3 application on S3 and CloudFront, backed by a NestJS service managing 22+ database tables in PostgreSQL on AWS Lambda. Google OAuth handles authentication, Resend delivers transactional email, and an Instagram scraper keeps social content fresh on the site.
Tech Stack
Outcome
On launch night, roughly 60% of the active runner base signed up. Six months in: 642 registered users, over 100 new sign-ups per month, 1,400+ all-time check-ins, 60+ weekly check-ins on average, and a core group of 50 to 60 runners showing up consistently. They went from zero infrastructure to a growing, trackable community.