Lunda Padel

Product Manager · 2023–2026

Lunda Padel is a padel ecosystem for players, tournament organizers, clubs and coaches.

I joined before launch as the first Product Manager and defined much of the initial product architecture. I owned the roadmap, UX, analytics, requirements, testing, launch and user feedback, working with a small engineering team.

Rating system

My main contribution was designing the player rating model from scratch — manually and without AI assistance, before generative AI became a standard shortcut for this kind of product work.

Most existing systems were poorly suited to doubles, where the result depends on four players with different skill levels. Our model estimates the expected result based on all four ratings and team strength, then adjusts individual ratings based on the actual outcome and player volatility.

I also designed the initial rating questionnaire using padel experience, other racket sports, physical level and tournament experience. New players started with higher volatility, allowing the rating to adjust quickly before becoming more stable over time.

Rating became a core product mechanic used for matchmaking, partner search, filters, tournament admission, seeding and tournament tie-breaks.

Tournament engine

We built support for multiple tournament formats, including Americano and Mexicano. The main challenge was not implementing the basic rules, but making player rotation fair and reducing repeated combinations across rounds.

The system also gives organizers flexibility in how results are calculated. Tie-break priorities can be configured using criteria such as head-to-head results, score, points won and player rating.

A lot of attention went into error handling as well. Some tournament states can be safely restored from history, while others cannot be rolled back once their result has already generated the next round.

UX & visual concept

I created the original product concept and later art-directed the designer across the first key flows.

The visual language deliberately referenced a real padel court — markings, net geometry and sport-related graphics — to make the interface feel more active and game-like rather than like a traditional sports utility.

I was closely involved in wireframes, layouts, copy, states and transitions. One example was score entry: instead of a standard form, we used an interactive wheel, supported different set types and automatically handled tie-break scoring.

Growth

Within roughly the first year, the product had grown to tens of thousands of players, expanded across multiple cities and clubs, and reached a sustained triple-digit number of new registrations per day.

Today Lunda Padel has grown into an international platform with 160k+ players, 700+ clubs and thousands of available games, tournaments and training activities.

I no longer manage the team day to day, but remain actively involved: proposing features, reviewing UX and feedback, advising on marketing and product decisions, and contributing to expansion into Asian markets.