Designed and built a React Native app for horse trainers to organize training videos, clients, horses, and communication in one place.
The Challenge
My family is part of the equestrian community, so I have seen how much communication happens around training, lessons, shows, and progress videos. Trainers are constantly sharing clips with clients, but the context often gets scattered across text threads, camera rolls, and one-off messages.
The need was clear: trainers needed a product built for the way they already work. Videos had to stay connected to the right client and horse, and communication around those videos needed to be easy to find later.
I wanted BarnReel to feel simple enough for a busy barn day, while still carrying the structure needed to keep client relationships, training history, and mobile video workflows organized.
Role: Product, Design, Engineering •Platform: React Native
BarnReel gives trainers one mobile place to manage clients, horses, and the training videos that drive day-to-day communication.
The Approach
I designed the product around the trainer's core loop: capture or upload a video, connect it to the right horse and client, share it, and keep the conversation attached to the work being discussed.
Because this was a solo iOS and Android build, I had to make decisions across the full product surface: onboarding, account roles, navigation, video organization, upload states, comments, notifications, and the backend contracts that keep the app reliable.
React Native let me move quickly across both platforms while still designing for the realities of mobile use in a barn: fast scanning, clear ownership, resilient upload feedback, and a structure that does not require trainers to become project managers.
Clients
Keep each client relationship connected to the right horses and shared training history.
Videos
Give training, lesson, and show clips a clear home instead of letting them disappear into camera rolls.
Conversations
Keep feedback and follow-up tied to the video that started the discussion.
Focus: Mobile workflow design •Audience: Horse trainers and clients
Building Solo
BarnReel was not just a design exercise. I took the product from a problem I understood personally into a working mobile application, handling the product strategy, interface design, React Native implementation, and the supporting systems behind the app.
The hardest part was keeping the product focused. Equestrian work has a lot of nuance, but the app needed to stay centered on the most important job: making video sharing and client communication easier for trainers.
The Impact
BarnReel gave me the chance to turn a real community need into a complete cross-platform product. It combines my product design, engineering, and domain research skills in one focused mobile experience.
More importantly, it shows how I approach product work when I own the whole outcome: start from a specific human problem, keep the workflow practical, and build the system carefully enough that the product can support the real needs of users.
