Hi Product Hunt 👋 This is Mac The Professor
I'm Professor Mac, founder of Mind of Mart LLC. I've worked in technology for over 20 years: engineering, managing, consulting, and of course teaching. Got a passion for technology now I am ready to take my experiences to start my own brand!
I am in the final stages of releasing Mac's Sports Playground, a sports analysis and prediction app for fans who want to test their ideas against real data instead of guessing. It runs on a fully custom backend, including our own RAG pipeline (MAC RAG), backtesting, prediction filtering, scoring and grading. Each user gets their own AI chat Buddy with access to league stats, league history and their own pick history.
Mac's Sports Playground app covers 129 leagues and 2,900+ seasons of data across football, baseball, basketball, soccer, tennis and cricket, with more coming. Of course we cover all the other basics of a typical sports app but I wont bore you with that. We're in the final stretch before full launch on Android and iOS.
There's a lot more to say, but this is just the intro. I hope to officially share Mac's Sports Playground next week, and I'm excited to join the community to build bridges and maybe collaborate on something great!
Question for you all: what's one thing you wish you'd known before your first launch?
Replies
Welcome Professor Mac! Years in tech before starting your own brand sounds a lot like my path, I was a server engineer long before I ran my own thing. 129 leagues is a serious amount of data. Good luck with the release!
Welcome Mac! Backtesting fan predictions against real seasons is a great idea, it's accountability for sports opinions. My first launch is Tuesday, so I'm living your question right now. What I've learnt so far: join the community a couple of weeks before you launch, not a couple of days. 😅 Good luck with it!
Welcome Professor Mac! One thing worth checking before a sports prediction app goes to the stores: how the store policies read it. When I looked at adding a daily spin to my own app, the line that mattered was money. Credits with no cash value kept it out of the gambling rules (Apple's 5.3 and Play's real money policy), but anything bought that gives randomized rewards needs the odds shown before purchase, and the App Store age rating has its own question for it. A prediction app with picks and scores sits close to those lines, so I would write down early that nothing can be wagered or cashed out, and say so in the review notes. Saves a rejection on launch week.