Entertainment-tech
How we built India's fastest growing short-drama app Dashreels
Built from the ground up, Dashreels is an on-the-go pocket and time friendly entertainment app. During my time there, I designed multiple end-to-end features and conducted thorough QA testing phases and user interviews, all while leveraging AI rigorously.
My role
Design, Strategy, User Calling, QA
Team
2 designers, 4 developers, 2 product managers
Timeline
4 months
Outcome
1.5M+ downloads, Ranked no. 2 on Google Playstore (entertainment category)
The transition from comics to video
Dashverse, an AI-first entertainment company, was at a crossroads. Their flagship app, Dashtoon, a static comic-reading product, was losing traction. Engagement was dropping, user excitement was fading, and the format felt outdated in an era where short-form video was eating the internet.
The leadership decided to pivot and transform passive comics into short drama videos. The vision was ambitious: build a time-friendly, snackable entertainment app that could appeal to elderly Americans seeking simple fun and Indian mass audiences looking for accessible stories.
That’s where Dashreels was born.
As part of the design team, my scope spanned:
Product Strategy: Structuring the entire app flow from scratch.
Product Design: Designing end-to-end features along with iterations and experiments.
Design Ops: Building a scalable style system despite tight deadlines.
Quality Assurance: Stress-testing usability across devices and edge cases.
User Interviews: Monitoring user analytics through Mixpanel and following up for insights and suggestions.
The challenge was to move fast while staying user-centered, using AI not just as content generator, but as design collaborator.
Product design with traditional & AI methods
We benchmarked against global short-video apps, borrowing familiar structures (Jakob’s Law) but optimizing flows around intent-based navigation.
competitor benchmarking
version 1 of the product // the foundation
Once the groundwork was solid and we’d decoded the playbook of similar apps, the real challenge began i.e. differentiating Dashreels through bold experiments and relentless iterations.
Onboarding:
With onboarding, the only goal was that it had to balance speed with personalization. So we:
collected lightweight user info (age, preferences) for better recommendations
iterated visuals and copy for the tone to be more conversational and less generic
Since account creation was optional upfront, we refined the microcopy on in-app signup prompts to align with the user’s current journey stage, making the nudge feel contextual rather than disruptive.
Outcome: Reduced bounce rates in early sessions, smoother transition into content discovery.
onboarding flow versions over time
strategic copy adjustment in sync with journey paths
Home modules:
Home screen was the first touch point for the user when they open the application, therefore our first impression mattered. Borrowing a page from Netflix’s playbook, we switched to a poster-only layout. No titles, no clutter. Just bold visuals that made the feed feel cinematic and instantly premium.
But the home screen wasn’t just about showing content, it was about convincing users why they should care about a particular piece of content. For that, I designed reason-tagged recommendation module with cues such as:
“87% match for you”: Building trust through transparency
“#3 trending in India”: Social proof at scale
“Because you watched... ”Narrative continuity
etc.
These cues applied principles of cognitive bias (social proof, personalization) to deepen engagement.
home screen & modules
Crosswalk modules:
We wanted a system that could deliver more relevant recommendations based on what users were currently watching or had finished watching.
We introduced crosswalk modules at multiple touchpoints such as:
when clicking "back" from a show
under "more like this" in the show’s about section
at the end of a completed show
at the end of an incomplete show
in-between scrolls on the "for you"page
crosswalk modules
Subscription model:
We initially carried over the subscription model from the comics app, where users received a daily allowance of coins to unlock limited episodes. Once those coins ran out, they had to purchase more to continue watching.
This quickly became a source of frustration and led to noticeable drop-offs.
To address this, we pivoted and introduced an all-free content model with ads in between. This became a differentiator as most competing platforms only offered limited free content.
We launched with this version, but it wasn’t fully optimized for our two target groups, Americans and Indians.
To dig deeper, I conducted user follow-up calls after monitoring activity on Mixpanel. The goal was to understand how they were experiencing the platform so far and probe their willingness to upgrade to premium.
Through these interviews, we discovered that:
most users didn’t mind ads, as long as they still had access to free content
some users preferred an entirely ad-free experience, even if the ads were skippable
Based on these insights, we devised a system that combined both skippable and un-skippable ads across the timeline, paired with nudges to upgrade for a completely ad-free experience. We also included negative flows and how to lay maximum conversion touchpoints without being too nosy. This proved to be a strong revenue move, as the updated model generated income from both ads and premium subscriptions.
subscription plan over a timeline of a 60 episode long show
Note: this was still an ongoing piece of the project when my internship came to an end.
Including all the above, it was a total of 2 months of pure experimentation and iterations.
The narrative post-launch
Dashreels hit the market running:
1.5M+ downloads within the first few months
Ranked #2 in Play Store (entertainment category)
Subscriptions started gaining traction alongside ad revenue
At Dashverse, AI wasn’t just the engine for content, it became part of the design workflow from copywriting to photography to plugins, etc. This approach led to fast idea generation and even faster delivery.
Dashreels wasn’t just a product pivot, it was a proof of concept for AI-first entertainment. The app transformed from a risky bet into one of India’s fastest-growing short-form video platforms.
My learnings
No design is truly original but there's a difference between taking inspiration and just copying everything blindly.
Always design with intent.
Always validate with users and never forget to read in-between the lines.
Design with one important principle: listen, adapt, repeat.
Thanks for your time ❤️
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