All Work Case Study

Blingram

A social entertainment platform for the UAE — combining live streaming, creator monetisation, and community into a single home-grown product.

Category Social Media · Creator Economy
Scope iOS · Android · Web Dashboard · Website
Role Solo Product Designer & Project Lead
Duration 4 Months
Market UAE / Middle East
Status Live on App Store & Google Play
Visit Blingram
Blingram — App Overview
The Product

Blingram is a social entertainment and creator economy platform built for the UAE market. It combines TikTok-style content discovery, Instagram-level social depth, and Snapchat's ephemeral stories — with a built-in creator earning system.

Creators host live sessions with bookable seats and coin-based pricing. Followers send virtual gifts. Earnings convert to real money via an integrated wallet connected directly to the creator's bank account. Built for a specific gap in the market: TikTok faces recurring bans in UAE. Blingram is the home-grown alternative built to last.

Where It Started

No product. No PM.
4 months. Go.

This project came in through LinkedIn — first meeting was a room full of C-level stakeholders with a concept, no existing product, no project manager, and a hard 4-month deadline. Everything that followed was built from scratch.

The Role
  • Led all C-level stakeholder requirement sessions
  • Built and maintained a self-managed project tracker
  • Defined four-phase project structure independently
  • Designed all surfaces: iOS, Android, web dashboard, website
  • Ran design and development in parallel with continuous handoff
Blingram — Feed and Video Experience
The Process

Four Phases. One Designer.

01

Research & Discovery

Deep dive into the UAE social media landscape, TikTok ban risks, and creator economy mechanics. Key insight: the audience spans highly tech-literate users AND people who've never used a social app. Both had to succeed with the same product.

02

Design — 100–200 Screens

Onboarding, feed, discovery, stories, live streaming, live session booking with ticketed seats and countdown timers, gifting, coins and wallet, messaging (group, direct, photo/video/voice), creator dashboard, admin dashboard.

03

Development (Parallel)

Continuous batch handoff of components and specs directly to the development team while design was still in progress — no waiting, no bottlenecks.

04

Testing & Launch

QA, design review against live builds, final refinements, and simultaneous launch across App Store and Google Play within the 4-month window.

Blingram — Profile, Chat and Discover
Key Design Decisions

Solving for Complexity Without Adding It

Wide Tech-Literacy Range

Navigation kept flat and instinctive. Key actions always visible. Iconography paired with labels throughout — so both a power user and a first-time smartphone user could succeed without friction.

Coin & Wallet System

Designed with banking-grade clarity — total coins, spent, gifted, and earned all at a glance. Full transaction history. Familiar mental models borrowed from mobile banking, not gaming.

Live Session Booking

Ticketing-style flow — seat selection, coin pricing, limited availability, countdown timers. Creates genuine urgency without adding friction to the core experience.

Outcome

Delivered. Live.
In 4 months.

A full product — iOS, Android, web admin dashboard, and website — shipped solo in four months, with zero dedicated project management support.

Visit Blingram
100+
Screens designed across
all surfaces
4
Months from concept
to App Store launch
4
Platforms shipped:
iOS, Android, Dashboard, Web
1
Designer. Solo.
Start to finish.

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