The problem
Third Time was founded by Ian Cummings, former Creative Director of EA SPORTS Madden NFL, and a team with two prior horse racing hits (Photo Finish Horse Racing and Horse Racing Manager, over 14 million downloads combined) and a standing deal with NBC Sports to produce the 3D Triple Crown simulations shown during Derby broadcasts.
Photo Finish LIVE was their first blockchain game: players own NFT racehorses, race them against other real owners for real money, breed them through a genetics system with true-to-life coat color inheritance, and trade them on a player-driven marketplace. Seasons run every four weeks, horses age and retire, and $CROWN token holders can stake into racetracks and earn a share of their revenue.
I joined as VP of Experience Design and oversaw the front-end experience for the web platform, leading the experience design & building it from scratch alongside a full stack developer and 1 other artist.
Photo Finish LIVE had to work for two audiences who normally never share a product. Web3 natives who understood wallets, tokens, and minting. And horse racing fans who understood furlongs, silks, and past performances but had never touched a crypto wallet. Third Time's own positioning, "As Real As It Gets," meant the sport had to lead and the blockchain had to recede.
On the web that translated into a set of hard problems. A stable, not a wallet: ownership, breeding, and marketplace activity are all blockchain transactions underneath, but the interface needed to present horses, stables, and race entries the way a racing fan thinks about them. A live product on a schedule: races run around the clock in four-week seasons, and the site had to make "what should I do right now" obvious. Dense data, made legible: horses carry attributes like Temper, Speed, Stamina, preferred distance, and track condition, plus lineage and race history, serious players run spreadsheets, and the UI had to serve them without burying newcomers. Identity and pride of ownership: custom stable names, colors, and jockey silks were live-launch features. And shipping while the community watched: beta players were racing, breeding, and trading real assets throughout development.
The constraints
How it evolved
What I did
Led the front-end experience from zero. There was no existing web product to iterate on. I owned the experience design for the platform: information architecture, page flows for the stable, race entry, results, breeding, and marketplace, and the visual system that tied them together.
Built it with the engineer, not for the engineer. Working directly with a full stack developer, design and implementation moved together. That kept the interface honest about what live blockchain data and a real-time race engine could actually deliver on a page.
Directed the art. Two artists produced the visual assets the platform needed, from UI treatments to stable customization and marketing pieces, under a single visual direction that had to feel like sports, not like a token dashboard.
The platform went from Mint Day through a public beta. I left in February 2023, and the team launched it live on April 24, 2023. The launch added Gen 0 ticket redemption, stable and silks customization, $CROWN staking, new racetracks, and free-to-play Trainer Horses..
- Decision 1 of 4Mapped the information architecture and designed page flows for five surfaces (stable, race entry, results, breeding, marketplace) under one visual system
- Decision 2 of 4Built the web front end with the team's full-stack developer, so design and code changed in the same loop on a five-person team
- Decision 3 of 4Directed two artists across UI treatments, stable customization, and marketing pieces, under one rule: sports first, never a token dashboard
- Decision 4 of 4Carried the real-money platform from Mint Day through public beta. The team launched it April 24, 2023, two months after I left.
The outcome
At a glance
- $20M+
- Marketplace Horse Sales
- $12M+
- Race Entry Fees
- $40M+
- Player Rewards
- ~ 70M
- $Crown Staked
Photo Finish LIVE launched worldwide on April 24, 2023. Twelve days earlier, Churchill Downs announced a multi-year partnership making it the official game of the Kentucky Derby, with monthly virtual Derby, Oaks, and Road to the Derby events on the platform and a branded Photo Finish tent on the Churchill Downs grounds during Derby week. NBC aired a Third Time simulation of the Derby for the fifth consecutive year.
The platform I helped build was the product those partners were putting their name on.
The game has kept growing since: the Virtual Kentucky Derby now runs monthly on a detailed replica of the Churchill Downs track, Ronin wallet support opened it to a new player base, and Third Time raised additional capital for 2025 expansion. Churchill Downs has described the partnership as a way to reach the next generation of racing fans, and players who arrived with no interest in the sport have traveled to Louisville for the real thing.
What it taught me
- 01Lead with the domain, not the technology. The strongest web3 products hide the chain. Every decision on the platform started with how a racing fan thinks and worked backward to the transaction.
- 02Live products get designed in public. Shipping to a beta community with real money on the line forces clarity. You find out fast what confuses people.
- 03A VP title on a small team means you still do the work. Five people built this. Leading experience design meant setting direction and building the pages, both.