Project Background
This Polish startup came to us with such a clever idea – they wanted to create the “Airbnb for fishing.” Basically, it should be a platform where fishing enthusiasts could find and book private spots on lakes and ponds across Poland. Property owners get to monetize their water access, while anglers get to discover hidden gems away from crowded public spots.
We built the whole platform from the ground up, handling both the design and technical development: the booking system, user profiles, search functionality – everything.
The best part? We got them live and running so fast that they started attracting their first users within weeks of finishing development.
Challenges
- Designing a Nature-Inspired Experience. The site had to capture the calm and beauty of fishing locations while still staying modern, clear, and user-friendly.
- Balancing Information and Simplicity. Each lake has a lot of details such as rules, prices, availability, and photos. So the challenge was to present all of it without overwhelming users.
- Making Booking Straightforward. We needed to make booking a lake as simple as choosing a date, checking availability, and confirming in just a few steps.
- Mobile-First Experience. Most anglers are booking their fishing trips right from their phones these days, so we made sure the app loads lightning-fast and everything’s easy to find.
- Building Trust Through Transparency. Anglers wanted clear pricing, lake descriptions, and booking conditions, so the site needed to remove any doubts before checkout.
- Creating a Local Yet Scalable Platform. While designed for Polish fishing fans, the platform had to be flexible enough to grow into other markets later.
- Integrating Real-Time Availability. Keeping booking calendars up to date across multiple lakes required reliable integrations and thoughtful backend design.
- Optimizing for Search Visibility. With many competitors, the site needed strong SEO foundations to ensure people searching for private fishing spots could easily find it.
Our Solution
User Research & Persona Development
We started with deep user research, analyzing how both anglers and property owners interact with fishing locations. We spent time getting to know three main groups: weekend anglers, serious fishing enthusiasts, and property owners. Understanding what drives each group – and what frustrates them – helped us build features that actually work for everyone.
User Journey Mapping
After that, we charted the full user experience from start to finish. People need to find their ideal lake, understand what they can catch and what’s allowed, check when it’s open, then book their spot – all without any headaches.
Smart UX and SEO Strategies
We conducted competitor analysis and reviewed user behavior to identify gaps in the fishing tourism market. This informed a data-backed design that balanced transparency (clear pricing, rules, and conditions) with strong SEO foundations, helping anglers easily discover the platform online.
Design & Wireframing
To reflect the calmness of nature while staying modern, we built a UI that highlights lakes through immersive photos and structured details. Wireframes focused on simplifying complex content—rules, prices, and species —into clear, digestible sections that work equally well on different devices.
Development
We approached the development by creating everything from scratch. This approach meant building a comprehensive booking system with instant availability checks, bulletproof payment processing, and user account systems that serve both anglers and hosts perfectly. The backend we developed can handle numerous listings while automatically managing calendar updates and giving lake owners simple tools to manage their properties.
Testing & Iteration
We tested our booking flow the old-fashioned way – with real people trying actually to book something. Watching them navigate on different devices showed us exactly what needed tweaking to make the whole process smooth and trustworthy.
Results
The timeline was aggressive – concept to working platform in weeks – but we made it happen through smart planning and efficient execution. The platform went live, and users started booking almost immediately.
We created something that solved real problems: fishing enthusiasts could finally find and reserve private spots easily, while lake owners got simple tools to manage their properties. The entire experience was mobile-first, lightning-fast, and built user confidence from day one.
Best of all, our client got their market validation quickly in Poland’s fishing tourism sector, built real momentum, and ended up with a platform architecture that can easily expand internationally.
