Recapy
A phone app that turns questions about a show, movie, or book into a short recap so someone can catch up.
- Scope
- Scoped to the catalog and payment path a buyer had to complete. Expanded only after that release was trusted in production.
- Role
- Product design, AI pipeline architecture, full-stack development, and SEO content strategy
The challenge
Entertainment audiences constantly fall behind — a friend mentions a plot twist, a new season drops, or a book club picks a title nobody has finished. Existing recap content is scattered across wikis, forums, and spoiler-heavy videos with no consistent quality or mobile experience. The team wanted to capture real search intent around "what happened in…" queries and deliver concise, accurate recaps powered by AI without sacrificing trust or readability.
Our approach
We built Recapy around two surfaces: a public SEO catalog that ranks for high-intent entertainment queries, and an authenticated experience for users who want personalised follow-ups. The AI recap engine uses retrieval-augmented context to ground summaries in verified plot data rather than hallucinating details. A trend sync pipeline pulls signals from TMDB and NYT bestseller lists so new recap pages publish while topics are still rising, not after the moment passes.
The solution
Recapy ships as a unified Next.js application covering marketing pages, the public recap catalog, authenticated user library, API layer, auth, and AI orchestration. Each recap page is structured for search engines and mobile reading — short enough to scan before a commute, deep enough to answer "what did I miss?" Signed-in users save titles, upload notes, and ask follow-up questions with personal context layered on top of the base recap. Monetization surfaces integrate without breaking the reading flow, and the PWA install path gives repeat users app-like access from their home screen.
Outcomes
Recapy is a content-workflow tool. It drafts a short recap of a show, movie, or book. We are not claiming traffic growth or repeat readers.
Key outcomes
- A content-workflow tool that turns a title into a short recap
- Public pages for shows, movies, and books
- Signed-in people can save a title and ask a follow-up
- No traffic or engagement numbers to publish