I built a Women's Basketball March Madness app in 4 days. Then it broke.

Hey, I'm Fetch! I build AI systems for women's basketball 🏀
Welcome to The Crossover — where I show you exactly what that looks like, including the parts that don't work 😅

It started on the couch.

My girlfriend and I were watching Selection Sunday when she said she wanted to fill out a bracket. CBS Sports had one. ESPN had one. But they're built for everyone, which means they're really built for no one — generic, cold, no community, no leaderboard, nothing that feels like it was made for people who actually live for this tournament.

I wanted something different. A women's bracket experience with live scores, community chat, a leaderboard — the whole thing, in one place, built specifically for WBB fans.

And I remember thinking: why doesn't that exist yet?

Then I thought: why isn't that me?

I have no development background. I've never shipped a product. But I've been building with Claude Code for two months, and I knew enough to try. So the next morning I opened my laptop and just started.

Four days later, hermadness.com was live.

Claude Code was the engineer. I was the product manager. I described what I wanted, it built it, I broke it, it fixed it.

Day 1: full app scaffolded, domain purchased.
Day 2: auth wired, Google sign-in, full bracket UI, deployed live.
Day 3: live scores, CBS-style bracket tree, community chat.
Day 4: DNS, launch prep.

Zero prior development experience. One idea that wouldn't leave me alone.

I was up late the night before launch trying to get the last kinks out.

The plan was to launch that night so people had time to fill out their brackets, settle in, get comfortable with the app. It didn't happen. I kept running into things that needed fixing and before I knew it, it was too late to push it live and expect anyone to actually see it.

So I set my alarm and decided: first thing in the morning.

I launched at 8:30am. First games tipped at 11. Two and a half hours to get the word out it was live and brackets close soon.

Honestly? I didn't think people were actually going to sign up. I built this thing in four days. I was proud of it, but I wasn't prepared for real users showing up in real time.

They did.

And then it all broke at once.

Users couldn't sign up — Supabase has a free-tier email limit of two confirmation emails per hour, and I had more than two people trying to sign up at the same time.

While I was figuring that out, I opened the app on my phone and the entire homepage was scrolling sideways.

Then I noticed the community chat wouldn't scroll.

Then someone messaged me that the Final Four matchups were completely wrong — while real people were submitting their picks.

Four things. One hour. Games starting at 11.

I had no dev team. I had Claude Code. I described each problem exactly as I was seeing it and it told me what was wrong, why, and exactly what to change. I just executed.

All four fixed. And I pushed the bracket deadline to noon — gave everyone a little more runway, including myself.

Nobody shows you this part. But this is the part that actually teaches you something.

Here's what I keep thinking about.

I'm not a developer. I have no technical background. I built a fully functional tournament app in four days, launched it during the actual tournament, and fixed four things that broke — live, while real users were in it.

If I can do that, what can you do?

I'm not saying that to be cute. I'm saying it because the infrastructure gap in women's basketball is real, and the people best positioned to close it are the ones already in it — the media operators, the podcast hosts, the founders building brands in this space right now.

Think about what that could look like. Live stats integrations built into your show's website. Fan engagement tools that actually keep your audience coming back between episodes. Subscriber-only content experiences that make your Patreon worth paying for.

The tools exist. The access has never been lower. The only thing that's missing is someone deciding to start.

Women's basketball is having a moment that isn't going away. The brands that build infrastructure now — not later, not when it's more obvious, now — are the ones that own this space in five years.

HER MADNESS was my proof of concept. What's yours?

The tournament is live. Sweet 16 starts Friday.

Go to hermadness.com — follow the scores, get in the community chat, see what four days of building actually looks like in the wild.

And if something looks broken, screenshot it and send it to me. I'm still fixing things.

 I almost didn't launch it.

The night before, I was tired and behind and seriously considered waiting another day. But there was no another day — the tournament wasn't going to pause for me to feel ready.

So I launched anyway. Imperfect, unpolished, slightly terrified. 

You don't need a dev team. You don't need to feel ready. You need a system, the willingness to start, and the flexibility to fix things when they break — and they will break.

That's it. That's the whole secret.                                                                                

See you next Tuesday,

 — Fetch

Hit reply and tell me: what's one women's basketball app, tool, or workflow you'd love to see me build next? 🏀