Rookies
The app for pickup basketball in your neighborhood, from idea to the app stores
- For
- Personal project
- Role
- Founder · design and AI-assisted development
- Team
- Me, end to end
- Tools
- Figma · React Native (Expo) · Supabase · Claude Code
- When
- 2025 – present
Context
Rookies is the app for playing basketball in your neighborhood: you see the courts near you, the pickup games at each one, and you join in one tap.
I work at the Spanish Basketball Federation, I played in federation leagues and I still play pickup in my neighborhood. Rookies comes from there: a love for street basketball and wanting more people to play.
The problem
Pickup games are organized in WhatsApp groups. If you're not in one, you don't know whether there'll be people at the court or at what level, and there's always someone who signs up and doesn't show.
My role
Rookies is my product, end to end. I designed and developed it with AI as a tool: I make the technical decisions (the architecture, the data, what gets built and how) and AI helps me write the code.
The app
iOS and Android: the court map, the games, respect between players and achievements.
The back office
Managing the courts, including the ones the community suggests.
The website
somosrookies.com and a page for every game, ready to share on WhatsApp.
The court at the center
Early versions put the games on the map. I flipped it: now every pin is a court, with a number when it has games.
On the street you meet at a court, not at a game.
That way the map is always full of places to play, and setting up a game is as simple as tapping a court and picking a day and time.
Every court's card
Tap a court and you see whether it's outdoors, the state of the surface, how many hoops it has, whether there are lights or nets, and its upcoming games. From there you join one, create one or get directions.
Players keep it up to date: they rate the surface, how clean it is, the vibe and whether the lights work. And because they asked for it, the card also says whether the court is covered or shared with football.
Respect instead of a ranking
In a pickup game nobody keeps score, so Rookies doesn't run on a ranking of wins but on respect. After the game, each player hands out three anonymous tokens to the others, across six categories.
Respect moves you up the ranks, from Rookie to Leyenda, and sketches the way you play. Achievements, like being MVP three times, reward what can be measured.
Give your respect
Your rank and your game
Achievements
Launch and growth
Rookies has been on the App Store and Google Play since 20 October 2026, in 175 countries.
Growing on social media
I'm betting on organic content on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts, within the basketball niche.
I tell street basketball stories that always end in the same place: a neighborhood court like yours, where it all started. Close to home and aspirational at once, so anyone who plays can see themselves in them.
Continuous improvements
Since launch I've been shipping improvements without going through the stores: a guided intro for first-timers, map filters and a much faster map on Android.
The filters, for instance, started as a row of buttons under the search bar. It didn't fit on the narrowest phones, so I moved them into a panel.
Result
On both stores
App Store and Google Play, in 175 countries.
Over 1,800 courts
A map full of places to play.
Made by one person
From first sketch to the app stores, without a development team behind it.
Rookies is at somosrookies.com.
Let's talk.
I can walk you through any of these projects in more detail, including the screens I can't publish here.