A live quiz platform, brand and engine, built inside Oncord
01 — The brief
Build a real time game, not a website with a quiz on it
In early 2024 the founders came to Fuel with a product idea rather than a website brief: a daily live quiz where everyone plays at the same time and sees where they placed the moment it ends.
Off the shelf quiz plugins solve a different problem. They test one person at a time, at their own pace, with no shared clock, no live field and no way to run a scheduled event with prizes attached.
The brief was the whole product: a brand, a site that sells the idea in thirty seconds, and a back end that can run scheduled live quizzes for a growing field of players without falling over at eleven o'clock.
Fifteen questions, fifteen seconds The format is the product, so the home page states it immediately: fifteen questions, fifteen seconds each, everyone playing at once, instant results and a leaderboard. A visitor understands the game before they scroll.
By the numbers
The format, and the machinery under it
Feature
The visible site is the smaller half of the build. Behind it sits a quiz system: scheduling, question banks, live timing, scoring, leaderboards, player profiles, prize handling and anti cheat, all administered by the client rather than by a developer.
- Player accounts by email, Google or Facebook
- Scheduled quizzes with a pre-game countdown and live field
- Question banks with randomisation and anti cheat detection
- Instant scoring, leaderboards and a winners podium
- Player profiles with history, stats and an anonymity option
- Password protected demo and client quizzes
The engine
A quiz system built as a product, not a page
This is the part that could not be bought.
Quizzes are records with their own question sets, schedules, passwords and prize rules. The client builds and schedules them, the system runs the clock, scores every answer as it lands, publishes the leaderboard and handles the winners.
Because it is all one platform, a quiz can be public, a free trial, a VIP round or a private client quiz for a radio station, charity, sports club or retirement village, without a second system to maintain.
02 — The process
How we got there
- 01
Designing the brand
Name, identity and tone came first, aimed at players who want a fast daily contest rather than a study aid.
- 02
Proving the format
The fifteen by fifteen structure, the shared clock and the instant leaderboard were settled early, because they define every technical decision after them.
- 03
Building the engine
Quiz records, question banks, scheduling, live timing, scoring, leaderboards, anti cheat and prize handling, built inside Oncord alongside the player database.
- 04
Player experience
Accounts, profiles, stats, the winners podium with an anonymity option, and demo quizzes so a visitor can try the format before signing up.
- 05
Opening it to clients
Password protected client quizzes so organisations can run their own branded rounds, which is the startup's next line of revenue.
Written by people, on purpose The positioning is deliberate: every question is researched and reviewed by a person, not generated. In a market filling up with automated trivia, hand written questions are the differentiator, and the site says so plainly.
03 — The outcome
A startup with a platform, not a prototype
The client runs the quizzes; Fuel is not in the loop.
Quizzes are scheduled, questions are loaded, players compete live and winners are published without a developer touching anything.
The same engine now supports private client quizzes for media, charities, sports clubs and retirement villages, which is how a daily game becomes a business.
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Design, build, content and search, handled by one Auckland team.
