Shotcall: Building a Creator Economy Platform

The Challenge

Shotcall, an American startup, came to CodeX with a bold vision: create a single platform where creators could build audiences, sell merchandise, offer digital downloads, auction exclusive items, and engage fans through social features and real-time chat. They needed an MVP in 4 months to secure Series A funding.

Our Approach

Phase 1: Architecture & Design (Weeks 1-3)

Intensive discovery sprint mapping every user journey. Mobile-first UI designed to feel familiar (Instagram + Shopify) with premium creator storefronts. Modular monolith architecture for fast shipping without tech debt.

Phase 2: Core Platform (Weeks 4-10)

Social Engine — Feed, profiles, follows, likes, comments with fan-out-on-write pattern for instant load times.

Commerce Engine — Product catalog, cart, checkout via Stripe Connect Express with platform commission.

Auction System — Real-time bidding with Redis state machine, optimistic concurrency control, proxy bidding, snipe protection, and WebSocket bid broadcasts.

Chat System — WebSocket DMs and group chats with persistence, read receipts, and typing indicators.

Phase 3: Creator Tools (Weeks 11-14)

Analytics dashboard, store customizer, content scheduler, and payout dashboard with Stripe Connect Express integration.

Phase 4: Launch (Weeks 15-16)

Load testing, security audit, and onboarding 500 beta creators.

Key Technical Decisions

• React + TypeScript — Type safety caught hundreds of potential bugs
• Redux with Optimistic Updates — Instant UI feel even on slow connections
• Stripe Connect Express — Handled KYC, international payouts, tax reporting
• Redis — Atomic operations prevented auction race conditions

Results

Metric	Result
Time to MVP	16 weeks
Active Creators (6 months)	15,000
Creator Earnings (beta)	$2M+
Series A Secured	$4.2M raised