Thryl – Esports & Gaming Platform
Thryl is a Gen-Z-focused mobile gaming platform blending casual games, esports, and community-driven tournaments. I joined as the first PM to define product strategy, prioritize high-impact features, and scale the platform from zero to 25K+ users.
My work focused on increasing engagement, improving retention, and building systems for scale — both user-facing and for B2B partners.
Surat, Gujrat, India
2023
Technology, Information and Media
51-200
Challenge
When I joined Thryl, there was no existing product — just an idea. I led the product journey from zero to launch, shaping strategy, design, and execution to eventually serve 25K+ users.
Our initial MVP was overloaded and unfocused — packed with livestreams, social features, and disconnected mini-games. Instead of validating core engagement, it created friction and user confusion.
We had to scorch the MVP — strip it down, refocus the experience, and rebuild it with user intent at the center.
Key Opportunities
Define a clear core value proposition for the product
Increase retention and daily engagement in a gaming-native Gen-Z audience
Build scalable tools for tournament organizers to reduce manual ops and enable self-serve workflows
25,000+
Users Onboarded
25%
Increase in user retention
–60%
Operation support tickets
What I Did
As the first and only product manager, I took Thryl from a rough concept to a full-fledged mobile platform — live with 25,000+ users. This meant defining what the product should be, validating assumptions, and delivering value fast through sharp execution. Here is the detailed breakdown
Defined the Product Strategy from Scratch: Scoped out the MVP by eliminating bloated features like livestreams and social feeds that didn’t deliver value. Synthesized early user behaviour data and market trends to focus on task-based casual gaming and tournaments as our core.
Collaborated with founders to shape a lean, modular product roadmap focused on engagement loops, retention, and monetization.
Built a Clean, Engaging User Journey: Reimagined onboarding: reduced steps, clarified value proposition, and improved first-session conversion by 40%. Rebuilt the home and navigation structure for intuitive access to games, rewards, and tournaments. Mapped end-to-end task completion flow to maximize early wins and reinforce habit formation.
Launched a Gamified Rewards Engine: Introduced “Gems” — an in-app currency tied to gameplay, check-ins, and referrals. Designed a dynamic rewards store with redeemable (vouchers, digital goodies). Integrated engagement tracking through Mix panel and Firebase to optimize reward triggers. Result: +30% DAU, +25% retention post-launch.
Shipped Multiplayer & Team Management System: Enabled users to create and join teams with Thryl Codes. Built role-based permissions (captain/player) and cross-profile visibility. Designed for async onboarding and competitive collaboration.
Developed a B2B Organizer Panel for Scaling Tournaments : Created a self-serve web panel for organizers to host and manage tournaments. Supported bracket creation, team assignment, result submission, and analytics. Reduced partner dependency on ops teams by 60%.
Engineered Retention via Modular Notification Framework: Launched push, in-app, and localized notifications triggered by key events (game invites, reward unlocks, inactivity). Built rules via event tracking using PostHog + OneSignal integrations. Drove 3x more re-engagement during key moments and campaigns.
Led Remote-First Agile Execution: Planned and ran biweekly sprints across remote design, engineering, and QA teams in India and Europe. Maintained <2% rollback rate, with weekly impact tracking and iterative releases. Owned PRDs, wireframes, QA handoffs, and post-release analytics via Jira, Figma, Notion.
Reflection
Scoping the MVP right was the single most important call. The rest was execution.